Running Errands

On Monday night my brother helped me to jump start my parents' car, drove with me to the dealership, then gave me a ride home. They worked on the vehicle on Tuesday and I needed to head over and pick it up today. I also had a 5 mi run with 6 x 0:30 hard/1:30 easy intervals. I figured I could run from home to the dealership to get the car. The most direct route was even shorter than I figured so I had to run a big loop through one of the neighborhoods in order to bump the mileage up to what I needed.

I prefer to run my intervals downtown by the river since it is pretty flat. And my route to get the car? Reasonably hilly. I ran 15 minutes as a warm up then started in on the intervals. I wasn't expecting too much since my legs were still pretty tired from yesterday's spin, but I managed to pull out some half decent intervals. They were over before I knew it, and then it was time to finish the rest of the run out at an easy pace.

There wasn't a sidewalk available the entire way, and it looked like the sidewalk was disappearing as I ran past the Ford dealership. I opted to run off the path and on to the dirt...except I didn't realize that it wasn't just dirt...it was a mud pit! My Kayano 15s that had less than 20 miles on them? Not so shiny white anymore! I finished up the run and wound up across the street from Toyota and in front of a big pile of fluffy white snow. If there is one thing that a big pile of snow is good for it is to clean mud off your shoes! Here's what they look like now after a good snow cleaning:
I picked up the vehicle, then headed off to the grocery store to pick up a few last minute ingredients for tomorrow's Great Lunch Swap. I cooked up some Indian red lentil dal with tomatoes, cauliflower and spinach over rice (with some mango chutney on the side).

Alright, time for bed since I have an early morning date with the pool!
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Check out the Goodie Bag Giveaway at Run to Finish!

Nutrition Lessons

For a rest day today was pretty jam packed. After work I ran over to Costco as one of my swim teammates had let me know that they had Speedo suits for $20.99. Since I binned two suits last week I figured it would be worth checking them out. Sure enough, they had suits, but none of the more sporty kind that I was looking for. After a quick run through the store and realizing that I didn't quite have the burning desire to buck up $55 to renew my membership yet I headed home to whip up dinner/lunch for the Great Lunch Swap Project. I had a Moroccan dish picked out - chicken with tomatoes and honey over couscous. I'm not sure that this turned out too terribly exotic but it was reasonably tasty. After quickly scarfing that down I headed out to my favourite tri store in town, Tri It, for an information night being put on by Hammer Nutrition. Of all the brands of gel I have tried Hammer and Gu are my two favourites for taste. But apart from their gels I wasn't too familiar with the rest of their products.

The folks at Hammer seem more about education for fueling and they believe in their product, but if it doesn't work for you, then that's okay. In terms of fueling for a marathon you can down some gels and be in pretty good shape, but nutrition for longer distance triathlon is something that boggles my mind. I know I'll have to learn about it, and I know it will require some good experimentation...but I really don't have an idea where to start. So tonight was a great night. Some interesting points that I took away:

• If you are exercising over three hours you should take in some protein too.
• Your digestive system likes liquid fuel a whole lot better than solid fuel.
• You need to replenish electrolytes in any weather, not just in hot weather.
• You need to try and refuel your body as soon after you exercise as possible. Rainmaker likes chocolate milk for his recovery drink, although there are many different ways to get that recovery drink/snack.

Something not to do? After spin class on Tuesday I got home and found some chocolate sundae syrup in the fridge (supposedly it is good until sometime in 2010??). I had some vanilla ice cream in the freezer...some raspberries...and I was hungry. So I threw those three things together in a bowl. Plus I had a mug of hot chocolate milk, made with Ovaltine because somehow it sounds like it might be more nutritious than Nesquick. And it is supposed to be the ultimate recovery drink. Anyhow, to make a short story long I then updated my Facebook status as "Leana is refueling with hot chocolate and ice cream after discovering chocolate sundae syrup in her fridge." And Richelle totally called me out on it tonight as we talked about there being good ways and bad ways to refuel. So note to self, don't advertise your crappy refueling techniques!

(The ice cream was so good though...and it wasn't all bad...was it?)

The Great Lunch Swap Project

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First off, be a part of the Virtual Valentine's Exchange! Full details are here.
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Also, be sure to enter my Running the Sahara movie giveaway as well here!
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You may have noticed that I've been talking a bit more about food, and cooking in particular lately. Truthfully since I went on my soup and buttered toast binge throughout reserves in December I've been feeling so...meh...about cooking. I needed some inspiration from somewhere.

I think we can all agree that this is a good time to try and save money as well. One of my first steps? Cutting out the trips to Starbucks (and other various coffee establishments). I have a pretty sizeable collection of tea, so who needs all those coffee drinks? Check out my tea collection at work:Earl Gray is my favorite. I have four kinds in there!

Anyhow...back to food. My friend DGB and I both had the same goals:

• Find some inspiration in food.
  
• To branch out with our cooking a bit more and try some new recipes.
• To cut back on the eating out by bringing our lunch more often.

Together we came up with the Great Lunch Swap Project. The rules are:

• We each find one new recipe to cook each week.
• DGB cooks her new recipe Tuesday night and brings the leftovers for lunch for both of us on Wednesday.
• I cook my new recipe on Wednesday for lunch on Thursday.
• Share said recipes with each other.
• If you do not bring lunch on your day then you have to pay for lunch!

This was week one of our little experiment. DGB was wanting to try quinoa, so she whipped up some balsamic marinated chicken with quinoa, peppers and asparagus with some tomatoes on the side. She even brought me a juice box!
Tonight I got cooking. I found a recipe in the Whole Foods Cookbook for a Moroccan Couscous salad that I worked with. I whipped up the dressing - equal parts of lemon juice, orange juice and olive olive, some freshly grated ginger, honey, and some cumin, cardamom and cinnamon. I wanted to add in some protein to the salad though - and I went with some tofu.I sliced the tofu, blotted it dry, dipped it in the dressing and put it on a baking sheet. I baked it at 425F for 30 min, which was maybe 5 minutes too long for my somewhat thin slices. I wish I could convey how good the tofu smelled when it was baking... Yum!I threw together the couscous with some red and yellow pepper, raisins, dried apricots, orange zest, toasted pistachios, and tossed it with some more dressing. Overall I really liked the flavour combinations. Fingers crossed DGB likes it tomorrow!
I knew there was a reason I got three rest days on my schedule this week! I got my training schedule for the next month and it is going be to interesting...and a lot of fun!!