Healthy food needed, stat!

I think my brain has been feeling a bit overloaded on left over Halloween candy and take out meals.  I needed something fresh and healthy this evening! 

First up I roasted some parsnips in the oven with some olive oil, salt, pepper and some fresh ginger.  Parsnips are one of those vegetables that I really detested as a kid.  Now as an adult I’m trying a few new ways to cook them up to see if I can change my opinion on them.  After all, they are supposed to be good for you! 

While the parsnips were roasting up I made the other half of my meal – Tassajara Warm Red Cabbage Salad from 101 Cookbooks.  Red cabbage, raisins and feta cheese.  What’s not to like?  I followed the recipe, but added in a some sliced apples to the cabbage and sprinkled some pomegranate seeds on top.  Pomegranates just came into season so I’m going to have to see how else I can incorporate them into meals.

It was good stuff and just what I needed!  Happy Friday everyone!!

Wednesday Randoms!

• This is the time of year when I get to know the folks who come and clean the office in the evenings.  Sigh…  A busy week at work has made this a run-focused week since I don’t really have time to make it to the pool and had to miss spin class last night.  Oh well, that’s the way it goes!  Despite the extra hours I’m actually really enjoying work.  I have a great project I am working on that has me super excited.
• I got a 30 minute run in on Monday over lunch on my own.  Went not too badly!
• Got a 45 minute fartlek run in with Kelly today.  I think we both had reasons to bail on the run but we kept each other accountable and each got a great fartlek workout in.
• Ryan passed along the best idea ever – the nutella and orange marmalade sandwich.  It is like heaven between two slices of bread!
• Crate and Barrel has opened in Calgary!  I loved that store when I lived in the US.  I got the most awesome sushi plates from there today.  Plus they have some super cute Christmas ornaments.
• From Crate and Barrel it was on to Willow Park Wines – where I found out that they have Pike Brewing Co. beers in stock from Seattle.  Yum…

And to answer a few of your random questions:

• Is that a gong?  Why yes it is!  Direct from the gong factory in Bogor, Indonesia.  (This is an interesting article if you want to read about the place.)  I don’t seem to have my pictures here from my visit to the factory back in 1994, but my parents picked this gong up for me before they moved from Indonesia back to Canada a few years ago.  My friend Pam really wants to come over to my place to spin and gong the gong whenever we have to spin up.
• Have I ever bobbed for apples?  I think so…maybe??  I seem to remember a Halloween party when I was in Girl Scouts that involved bobbing for apples.
• No carving of pumpkins, but what about trick or treating?  Um yeah…I could probably count the number of times I’ve been trick or treating on one hand.  But with good reason.  I left Canada when I was three in lived in a bunch of places that didn’t really have trick or treating (or at least at the time) – Australia, the UK and Bogota, Colombia.  I do remember that my school in the UK organized a list of families that all lived nearby so the kids could go trick or treating.  And I remember my last Halloween in Colombia where we were living in an apartment tower complex full of expats.  We rode up and down the elevators of the different buildings trick or treating and managed a great haul…  I didn’t make it back to Canada until I was 15…well past the respectful age to trick or treat it seemed.
• Have I started training for Ironman yet?  I am decidedly not training for anything specific right now.  Just focusing on running and speed and working on my technique in the pool.  I suspect that things will get a little busier on the Ironman training front sometime in the spring, but I’m not trying to look that far ahead at this point in time.

This is post number 668!!  How did that happen?  All of your comments and support along the way mean a lot to me.  Thanks so much for reading!!! 

The good, the bad and the sad

I had a 90 minute run on my schedule for this weekend.  I woke up before 6 am without an alarm on Sunday morning thanks to the time change.  Since I figured my neighbours wouldn’t appreciate me banging flooring in that morning I quickly got dressed and headed out for my run.  Despite the fact that the sun wasn’t up yet it was actually quite nice out.  0C.  You guys are probably laughing at my definition of “nice” but these days if the temperatures aren’t below 0C then it is actually kinda warm!

The Good

I haven’t done a 90 minute run in I don’t know how long.  Probably back at Lake Stevens.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I actually felt great on the run!  I kept getting progressively faster throughout the run, with the exception of the last mile which was uphill.  As the sun was coming up it was turning out to be a beautiful day.  What a great morning for a run!

The Bad

This being the morning after Halloween you could tell that some neighbourhood kids had been up to some mischief the night before.  Running through one little cul-de-sac some kids had taken all of the carved pumpkins that people had put out and smashed them all in the street.  What a mess! 

The Sad

I run past this one house quite frequently and they have a medium to large hairy dog.  Not too sure on the breed.  I’ve noticed that they often have their dog tied up to the porch which is really just a set of steps and a concrete square in front of their front door.  Basically it is just large enough for this dog to lie down on.  Yesterday when I ran past their house it was probably just before 7 am…still dark out…and I could see a fuzzy shape by the front door.  It was 0C outside and this poor furry fella was probably sleeping outside all night.  It just broke my heart.

Does November equal the start of the holiday season to you?  The Christmas coffees are coming out at Second Cup and Starbucks and I saw my first Christmas shopping related commercial last night.  Anyhow, I figured this was a good time to try out my Vanilla Gingerbread holiday GU.  Hmm, not my favourite.  In my opinion it is way too sweet for me and I found the gingerbread flavour a little too overpowering.  I’ll stick with the chocolate mint I think!

What were you for Halloween?

I dressed up as a handyman for Halloween.  Like an honest to goodness one as opposed to when I was a stud finder a few years ago. 

Yes folks, anyone can give their living room a facelift in one weekend if I can!  I’ve been wanting to replace my living room carpet for quite awhile.  No doubt this action will not please Finlay who has been working really hard to make this solid carpet a polka dot one instead…ahem. So that’s the before shot.  Just your generic beige carpet.  A couple of weeks ago I found out that my uncle (? ex-uncle? family friend?  not sure what to call him…) would be willing to come out to Calgary to help me install some flooring.  So I went on a hunt for the perfect flooring and put an order in.  I went for a really nice Pergo laminate that comes with underlay attached already.  Sure, it is more expensive, but by the time you add in the cost for purchasing separate underlay it evens out at the end of the day.  So Uncle A made it out to Calgary just after 4 pm on Saturday afternoon.  Once he got here we got to work pulling up the carpet and underlay, pulling the staples out of the floor and removing the base boards.  Luckily we were able to salvage the base boards to reuse once the new flooring was in.

Sunday morning was all about laying the floor and it actually went really quickly.  Since my room is pretty square it required minimal special cuts.  After that the baseboards were reinstalled, along with a new transition piece between the laminate and existing tile by the front door.

By 3 pm today we were all done!  I spent the rest of the evening reassembling the room and there we go…

This is actually phase one of the project.  I need to repaint the base boards and paint the walls.  Since my living room has a pretty high ceiling that will probably wait until the new year sometime while I figure out how to tackle it.

Sadly I missed out on seeing my niece as what I’m sure was the cutest little ladybug ever and handing out candy to all the trick or treaters, but such is life!  Hope you guys had a great weekend!

What’s your pH?

I remember when I was younger I was fascinated by the Dove commercial where they compared the pH levels of different soaps.  And me being the science nerd that I am I used to love playing around with litmus and universal indicator paper to read pH back in high school chemistry class.  pH, pOH…I still find it fascinating.  Anyhow…this morning I actually got out of the house on time and made it down to the Y just as the doors were opening at 5:30 am.  I wanted to knock my swim out asap so I could hurry into work.  I was the second person on the pool deck, but the lifeguard wasn’t letting anyone in the water just yet because the pH had just tested high on the water.  Apparently the pH was at 7.8 and ideally it should be around 7.5.  7.8 or above and the pool has to be closed.

At this point in time an older gentleman who had already put his earplugs in wanders onto the pool deck and starts getting in the water.  The lifeguard tries to stop him but he seems pretty nonplussed about the high pH.  When the first lady on the deck sees him get in she gets antsy and asks what the detriment of swimming in high pH water would be.  Apparently really bad skin irritation is the side effect and that wasn’t enough to scare her off.  I chose to wait around until they got their second test back…where the results came in that it was still a high pH, but that we could swim.  I was just advised to shower really well.  Hmm, excellent.

So much for getting to the pool early, but at least I still got my swim in!  My workout was a good one.  Just what I needed to reinforce body position and technique in the water.  Lots of fingertip drag, some flipper work, concentrating on decreasing stroke count.  It was good!

And hey, guess what I did tonight?  I carved my first ever pumpkin!  Pam and I picked up pumpkins a couple of weeks ago at the Farmer’s Market.  We got together this evening for some yummy Indian food and to create our works of art.  Sadly my pumpkin was a little overripe and the inside was a bit liquidy.  The pumpkin was still good to go for carving though!

Pam’s is the one in the middle.  You can tell this wasn’t her first pumpkin.  She even free styled her carving!  Mine is the one on the right.  He has shifty eyes, uneven ears and some wonky teeth.  Plus he’s rotten, but he’s mine anyway!

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend and a great Halloween!!!!

Bringing back the lunch run

It has been a good week so far, and a really busy one at that!  I felt like a little old lady on Monday as I was super stiff and sore from Sunday’s hike.  A recovery run ought to do the trick, right?  Reminder to self, do not attempt to gather running clothes together prior to 5:30 am before rushing out the door for work.  I gathered what I thought were running capris, a long sleeve and a short sleeve tech top.  In reality I accidently grabbed winter running tights from the laundry hamper instead of capris.  I realized my error just before leaving on my run so I had two options: wear the tights and be overheated…or I had a pair of blue Adidas soccer shorts that I keep in my filing cabinet for physio.  I opted for the shorts.  And just in case you were wondering, Jergens original scent body lotion is an acceptable substitution for Body Glide on short runs.  Who knew?

I met up with Kelly over lunch for a great 30 minute run.  Our paces are different, but I wanted to take it easy so we wound up running together.  It worked out really well as I got a recovery run and Kelly got a tempo run in, plus the company was great!

Tuesday night was our second spin session out at Bow.  It was high cadence night…not normally my most favourite thing, but I actually really enjoyed the workout.  Being around the team and chatting with friends, some of whom I haven’t seen in ages, really set the stage for a great time on the bike.  This was my second time trying out my cadence sensor indoors on the bike.  I turned off the GPS function so that it would calculate my speed based off of the sensor instead…and I have no idea what went wrong but it figured I was averaging 4.2 mph???  I know my wheel size has been calibrated within the Forerunner so I’m a bit stumped as to why my speed and distance calcs are so off.  Hmmm…. 

Kelly and I met up today for another run over lunch.  We both had 45 minutes on the schedule so we decided to do an out and back so we could start and finish together.  We wished each other good luck and I took off.  My legs were tired from last night’s spin but a little speed was feeling pretty good.  I ran west along the river and almost made it to Tri-It before I had to turn around.  On my way back there was a girl up ahead in a black and white lululemon jacket and I made it my mission to pass her.  Nothing like finding a little incentive out there!  I caught up with Kelly right at the 46 minute mark.  Another excellent run in the books!

On tap for tomorrow is a swim on my own at the Y.  I feel like I’ve been learning a lot from Richelle and Angie at swim class in Cochrane on Monday nights.  I really need to make sure I get my second swim of the week in, otherwise I feel like I take one step forward and two steps back as it takes me awhile to remember all the little tweaks I have to keep in mind.  After all, this is the time to be working on technique, right?

I hope everyone had a great Wednesday!!

Hiking Mount Allen

On Sunday I joined some friends for a fall hike up Mount Allen in Kananaskis.  I didn’t have a chance to hike nearly enough this year so a late season hike sounded pretty exciting.  It might have snowed on Saturday morning but it was actually pretty nice for the rest of the day so i was hopeful that conditions would be good.  It was a bit chilly out at times, depending on whether the wind was blowing at you or not, but overall not too bad.

From the get go you are just climbing up.  And up and up.  I picked up some hiking poles for the trek and I was really glad to have them.  It definitely helped me feel more sure footed!  The first part of the hike you are walking through trees.  There would be a break every once in awhile and you could catch a glimpse of an amazing view.  

After awhile you break out of the trees and it is just open…and up.  As we climbed up my friend Jason crested a hill ahead of me, then the rest of the group was behind us.  All of a sudden I see him come back and the words out of his mouth took a moment to penetrate my brain.

“Guys, there is a grizzly up ahead!”

I’ve talked about bears on here before.  I certainly don’t want to meet a bear, but I figured that statistically my chances of ever encountering one would be pretty small.  I joked with my sister-in-law on Friday night that I was hiking with a bunch of speedsters on Sunday and that I’d likely wind up as bear bait.

And here was a bear.  I’ll be honest, the first though that went through my mind was, “Oh…cool…I want to see!”  And then a millisecond later my next thought was “Oh crap, no I don’t!!”

Jason turned around and scrambled down the hill and passed me and all of a sudden I was in the back!!!!!  We regrouped and watched as the bear walked away from us.  It might just look like a black blob in this picture, but trust me, that’s a bear right in the centre!

After we saw the bear walk away we figured it would be safe to continue on since his route was different from where we would be going.  Shortly after this point there was snow all around and the wind was whipping up.  We found a sheltered spot to grab a snack, and then continued on.  The snow got to be quite deep and myself and another girl were pretty well ready to slowly make our way back down.  I still had a long ways to go till the summit, but it really was a fun hike!  All in all 5.64 mi with 3233 feet of climbing (total hike would be 10.2 mi).  Today I was sore all over from this hike – legs, butt, abs, triceps..??  After our hike we all went out for pizza at a local restaurant – Mitillini’s.  So good!!  Despite our wildlife encounter I loved this fall hike.  It was a great way to mix things up.  I think I’d really love to give snow shoeing a whirl this winter too!!