Major Slacker

Pitiful, I know. I haven't blogged in forever. To catch up on things...

The past few weeks have been nuts-o. Work has seriously picked up because this is the time of the year when my special ed. students have to have their annual meetings (IEPs) which means lots 'o paperwork. Yippee! I had planned for this but what I hadn't planned for was having to move during the same time. Yuck! I have been renting out my townhome for the past couple of years and my tenants decided to move out early. Two weeks and I have gone from downtown living to the 'burbs. Not a bad thing, though. I had originally planned to put the place on the market next spring prior to moving to Colorado and moving back in will make the process much easier.
Also going on was my sister's bachelorette party. My sister is amazing but she and I are the sun and the moon. As the maid-of-honor, I was supposed to be in charge of planning the party. I thought it would be great to rent a cabin and do a low-key weekend. Maybe some hiking, biking, etc. Ummm... no-go. My girly-girl sister (and I mean that in a loving way!) decided she wanted to do it up in Miami! Here's a group pic of all the ladies from the weekend...



These girls could party like a rock star and with Miami's clubs staying open 'til the crack of stupid, I was done. I definitely could not hang with this crowd. Great group, though.

All this crap really affected my workouts and I realized, bottom-line, I allowed it to affect my workouts. On my Beginner Triathlete website, I wrote a blurb addressing this. The short version is basically this: I like to reflect and see how I can improve at living life The realization hit that I need to do a much better job at balancing things in my life. I've allowed work and other things to take a front seat when a front runner should always be my health. So now I'm working on that. That's it in a nutshell.

The workout front has been poo with a couple of issues persisting: IT band causing some serious side knee pains and lower side stitches killing my runs. Today was my first day in weeks where neither issue flared up. I really do love running and it was so awesome to have a run sans hurting.

Anywho, it's stupid late and I need to go to bed. I have some new grub to try out and I hope to post some pics over the next week or two. Yell at me if I don't...

Good karma to all,

r

A Valentine's Story

I found this story posted on a Triathlon site by a father and thought it worth sharing. Enjoy!

So I take my two boys (8 and 6) to the local Hallmark to pick out cards for their mom. Well, the youngest informs me, to my delight, that he's picked me to be his valentine this year, not Mom.

So he wants to pick me out a card, but I told him I wanted him to do that on his own, to keep it kind of a secret. Since he knows how to read, I told him to just look at the cards that said "Dad" on the tab behind them.

Well, as the oldest and I are in another section picking out something for Mom, the youngest comes over, just beaming from ear to ear. "I want to show you the card I picked out!!" I just can't say no when he's in that kind of mood, so I take the card and flip it over to read it.

It starts, To the man I love . . .

I start laughing . . . but he looks and me and says, "What?!? You ARE the man I love!"

Um, yeah, those things can make a Dad get teary-eyed. So my wife had him sign and date it, so that ten years from now, when he's just becoming a real man, I can pull the card out and exclaim, "Don't you remember when I was the man you loved!!?!?"

Soooo long

I know it's been a while since I've posted so I'll do my best to play catch up!

First food...
Had a great dinner the other night and thought I would share....

Vegetable/Black Bean Burritos!

So, the recipe: (everything organic!!!!)
-1/2 onion, chopped
-ground cumin (i did about a tablespoon)
-chili powder (again, a tablespoon)
-1 red bell pepper, chopped
-1 can of mexi-corn (i was in a rush!)
-1 can of black beans, rinsed and drained
-2 cans of Mexican-style stewed tomatoes, drained and coarsely chopped
-1/2 a jalapeno chili, chopped
-freshly grated cheese (whatever your preference is)
-cilantro, chopped
-whole-wheat tortillas

-In a pan over medium to med-high heat, heat some olive oil (use the kind that is good to cook with) and cook the onion until translucent. Next, add the cumin and chili powder. Do this to taste. I love cumin and chili powder so I tend to use more. Throw in the corn and bell pepper and saute until tender. Add the beans, tomatoes, and jalapeno last. Bring all this to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper then remove from heat.

I heated my tortillas up in a 350 degree oven wrapped in foil for about 15 minutes. Take a tortilla, spoon in your filling then finish off with some cheese and cilantro! Yummy!





Now for the workouts:
Training has been pretty good but a little up and down. Was sick for a little while so I had a week to recover before my Tundra Time Trial race this past Saturday. The Tundra TT ended up not happening for me. I pretty much had a mental breakdown. There was a lot that happened that caused my breakdown but the two main things that led to me not racing was 1) working the night before and only getting 3 hours of sleep and 2) not being prepared (i.e. packing beforehand, making sure I knew how to get to the race site, adequate time to prepare prior to my start time). I've never had a melt down like this before any event and I was really bummed it happened for this race. One saving grace was the race was a 'C' race so if it had to happen, I'm glad it happened at a 'C' race. I toss up the whole experience to some necessary, albeit hard, lessons learned. C'est la vie!

I had a really great base ride yesterday out in the country that made me remember why I love riding. I first got into cycling while living in Tennessee and the ride yesterday reminded me of the great rides I had back then. It's a lot harder to get in these kinds of rides without having to drive far. This one was worth it, though! I rode with some of my multi-sport friends and look forward to doing this ride again soon.

So that's pretty much catches everyone up on what all has being going on with me! I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the week!

Good karma to all,

r

Running Recap and New Treats

On the lunch break right now so I figured I would take some of my extra time to update the blog. Workouts have been pretty good the last week and this past Saturday was the Polar Bear 5k in Marietta, Georgia. Here's the run-down on my race.

The Good: I had a new PR with this race! Time on Garmin was 26:02 but I forgot to stop my watch at the end so I think I actually was under 26. (Found out later timing chip showed me at 25:48 which is a minute faster than I was two weeks before.) The course was fairly flat with a couple steady, long inclines.

The Bad: It was rainy, which was a little annoying. There were 2,000 peeps running and they had us all squeezed into one lane. Sardines had nothing on us. The race had us wear a chip in our race number but there were no mats to cross over and activate them so everyone's time began together which really screwed anyone who wasn't up front. To stop the time chip, you had to go another 5 or 10 seconds after you crossed the finish line to the people with these wand-thingies that stopped the time. Not cool.

The Ugly: Work went late last night which meant I was running this race with only 3 1/2 hours of sleep... I was dead tired. Calves were wicked tight from being on them all night. I wore too heavy of a jacket and was hella hot. I ate two hours before the race but quickly learned that going this hard meant I should have eaten 3 hours beforehand. As a result, I had wretched side stitches kick in during the second mile and never let up. I had to stop 3 times to try and get them to ease up some. No such luck so I just made my mantra, "Suck it up, buttercup" for the rest of the race. It just continued to go downhill, as the lap times will attest to...

As soon as Adam and I finished the race and handed in our chips, we went straight to the car to get home and crash.




Just flat out hurting from the side cramps...


Adam cruising in...

Looking back on this race I am still really happy since my time is improving. I know it's still a slow time but I have to remind myself that I do not come from a running background (much less any endurance background!) so it's at least a starting point.

On the food front, last night was a repeat of my delicious turkey/feta/cranberry burgers with some grilled veggies and steamed broccoli.

As for new things, my order from Matisse & Jack's finally came in and I was so stoked! The food is an amazing and natural bake-at-home snack that you can mix whatever else in with their ingredients to make rocking pre/post workout treats or a healthy, anytime snack. I used the Chocolate Chip Power Snacks and mixed in the ingredients from http://vo2maxxed.blogspot.com/2008/11/matisse-jacks-cranberry-pumpkin-power.html to make a hella awesome treat!


Here's all the ingredients mixed together...


Done and so freakin' tasty!


Gotta go get back to teaching! Hope everyone has a wonderful hump day!

Good karma to all,

r

Eat, Sleep, Workout, Repeat (oh yeah, and work in between)

Finally feel like I have recovered from the long weekend of working uber late and getting very little sleep! Horrah! Today was a good day. Here's a typical day of eating for me.

Breakfast: Blueberry Smoothie (from Ani Phyo's recipe book)




Lunch and snacks throughout the day: Sun burger with homemade "raw" ketchup, salad with veggies and balsamic vinaigrette, greek yogurt, cheese, almonds, goji berries, and blue berries.



Dinner: Sirloin, salad w/carrots, blueberries, feta cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette, leftover grilled veggies, and quinoa pilaf (swiped from this fabulous blog)...




...and some, oh so addictive, Kombucha!! Num, num, num!


My trainer ride yesterday was pure doggie poo because I was completely zapped of energy from the get-go. Could definitely tell I had not recovered from the lack of weekend sleep even though it was Tuesday. Ended up calling it quits after 30 some-odd minutes and hit the hay early.

Had an interval workout today on the treadmill and it was awesome!!! Felt soooooo fresh and was lovin' it! Had a great time doing my intervals to Paramore's song Misery Business. Definitely felt I could have gone longer than the prescribed intervals with the music going. I heart music! Did some good core work and lots of stretching of the IT band afterwards. Wish I could feel this awesome with every workout. Gotta be better about catching up on the weekend work interfering with my sleep...


Good karma to all,

r

Monday! (...but it's my Sunday?)

When I can, I like to use my Sunday to cook up a good bit of food for the upcoming week since I know I'll be busy with teaching and working out. Since yesterday was filled with other plans away from the house, today became my Sunday Cook Day!

The grub for some of the week:

Organic Whole Turkey


Organic Sun Burgers and freshly made ketchup (dehydrated at 104 degrees). Ketchup not pictured...


Dinner on tap for the night was grassfed ribeye, grilled veggies, salad, and for desert... gluten-free, wheat-free, raw mango cobbler!

No pics of the ribeye or salad, but here are the veggies and cobbler.


Veggies pre-grilling


Cobbler




There was no cooking involved in making this cobbler nor was any butter, sugar, or crazy stuff used. The crust was made up of pecans, a vanilla bean, salt, and dates. I used organic frozen mangoes and let them thaw out before using them. I mixed the mangoes with a "syrup" I made that had dates, coconut oil, a vanilla bean, and some water. Topped the mango/syrup mix with leftover crust. I will not be able to post the actual recipe since it is not mine. The Mango Cobbler, along with the recipes for the ketchup and sun burgers, I got out of my wonderful recipe book Ani's Raw Food Kitchen: Easy, Delectable Living Foods Recipes by Ani Phyo. Ani is an amazing raw foods/living foods chef and her recipe book makes this kind of "cooking" easy and delicious! Definitely a book worth getting if you are interested in raw/living foods that are massively yummy!

Hope everyone has an amazing week at life!

Good karma to all,

r

You Better Ride! (then cook!)

Just got back from a cold, wet but good ride on the Silver Comet Trail with a group of NAMC peeps. The plan was to roll out at 10am but I managed to forget my helmet at home and had to quickly go back to get it. Thankfully, AB and I arrived only a couple of minutes behind and everyone was still getting gear on. We had hoped the 10am start would allow us to miss the rain but no such luck. It rained right from the get go! All I kept thinking about was how my coach tells me it is good to practice in bad weather. Definitely got in some good practice today! By the time was finished, the whole group had lots of wet and muddy feet, knees, and backsides... hehe.


Courtney(on right) and me after riding



Afterwards, the gang went to get some warm, yummy goodness in our bellies and chat at the Atlanta Bread Company. Since getting home and thawing out, I decided to go ahead and whip up the meal I wanted to make before AB headed to work. Part of the menu was swiped from the blog of VO2 Maxxed which is the food blog of two on-road and off-road triathletes, Beth Gerdes and James Walsh.

The meal: Grilled Cranberry-Feta Turkey Burgers and Grilled Organic Veggies.
The burgers consisted of:
- 2 lbs. extra-lean, organic ground turkey meat
- organic dried cranberries (couple handfuls)
- chopped, organic celery (couple handfuls)
- chopped, organic red onions (couple handfuls)
- organic crumbled feta (about a cup or so)
The veggies were marinated in organic balsamic vinaigrette prior to grilling.

Here are a few pictures of the the grub.









Happy Riding and Eating and Good Karma to All!

r