Beyonce vs Backstreet

I'd like to think I've been listening to some half decent music lately, however when it comes to working out it has been a constant barrage of T-Pain or Beyonce in my head. I am somewhat ashamed to admit it, but I guess whatever pushes you through your workouts, eh? This morning Beyonce's oh so catchy Single Ladies was running through my head in the pool. We had a 300m choice warm up and at one point I opted to do a few lengths of breast stroke. When my head popped up out of the water the Backstreet Boys were playing over the sound system. Loudly. Telling me to quit playing games with their hearts. It was kind of a musical nightmare in my head...but I did swim pretty well today.

This evening I had a short spin on my schedule involving some simulated hill repeats. Today my legs realized that I had indeed worked them fairly hard on Tuesday and Wednesday so I didn't want to push too hard for a third day in a row. I adjusted the gearing and trainer tension so that it did indeed feel like I was pedaling through sludge but I kept my heart rate pretty low. After that it was back inside for a strength workout. I still needed to make dinner so I got my tofu baking and quinoa boiling then ran through some step ups, lunges, squats, hamstring curls, push ups and tricep dips, followed with some stretching. After that I threw together my Quinoa Salad with Pickled Radishes and Feta...which was really good. I topped it with a slice of tofu that I had dusted with lemon pepper and baked. All in all, it was pretty good stuff. I totally spaced on a picture though...sorry!

***Just a note on the Nike Women's Marathon this year. Has anyone else noticed that the event has disappeared off of the Nike webpage this week? I'm assuming they will be announcing the lottery soon..?? My friend Suz in San Antonio and I are hoping to go again this year since we had such a blast two years ago. Anyone remember what the deal was for groups of friends hoping to gain entry together last year?

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!!

Weekend Wrap-Up

Friday

I had a 90 minute massage scheduled for after work on Friday. I aim to go once a month just to keep any nagging tightness in check, and this was also my first chance to get in and see my massage therapist since the marathon. I had a few things I wanted her to look at, one of which was piriformis. After my piriformis got worked on...ow...I was even more keenly aware of it...

I accidentally fell asleep on the couch that evening, and finally woke up around midnight and made my way upstairs to bed. Unfortunately I was pretty awake after this and I wound up lying in bed and listening to the crazy wind whipping around outside for awhile. Ugh, talk about a crappy sleep that night.

Saturday

I had a 10 km run on the schedule for Saturday. Even though it was somewhat cool and windy out there was some nice sunshine. We had gotten a light dusting of snow earlier in the morning. Ugh...conditions on the sidewalks in my neighborhood these days are not good. Thanks to all of the snow, then the crazy cold temperatures, followed by some slight warming, then some more cool temperatures...we have quite a bit of packed and icy snow around here. The light dusting of snow complicated things even more as it hid a lot of the packed ice. This run was not fun and it was slow going as I was either worried about slipping or was slipping around a bunch. My piriformis was pretty painful on the run too. It felt like I had this huge knot of pain right in the centre of my right butt cheek. Sounds like I need to get back to my chiro for a little bit of ART. I was just happy when the run was over and done with.

I had meant to get in a bit of strength work after the run, but after grabbing a quick bite to eat I was freezing. I headed upstairs to take a hot shower and when I got back downstairs I had a text message from my sister-in-law inviting me to see Twilight later that evening. I fully admit that I am a little late to the party where Twilight is concerned. I was only 100 pages in to the book. I threw all other plans aside and attempted to get as far into the book as I could before the movie. Alas, I didn't make it to the end, and as I drove to the theatre I remembered that I had neglected my strength workout. Oops. I enjoyed the movie and had a great night out with my sister-in-law.

Sunday

I had 60 minute spin workout on the calendar labeled spin/strength intervals. This was a great workout! Single leg drills, long sets of high cadence, and long sets of low cadence including 3 x 3:00 stand intervals. Still loving my bike fit and my new seat... I followed the workout up with 10 minutes of core.

After that it was time to hit the grocery store and get to work on making dinner. I found a yummy sounding recipe in the latest Food & Wine magazine that I was keen to try - chicken sofrito. Chicken legs and thighs seasoned with chili powder and cooked up with a mixture of rice, onions, garlic, jalapeno, red pepper and tomatoes. I served it with a 2006 Alamos Cabernet Sauvignon from Argentina. Delicious! The chicken was a pretty simple dish to make, so I would highly recommend it.
I hope you all had a great weekend!

A Day When Everything Just Clicked

I already told you about my swimming breakthrough, but yesterday it felt like I had a cycling breakthrough as well. It was Tuesday night group ride, and while it was sunny out the wind was pretty fierce. Seven of us showed up, although coach caught up to as a little while later, making for a nice even number of riders. We all seemed to be in a quandary about what to wear. I had some cycling knickers on, like a couple of the other gals, our lone male was in shorts, and a few opted for tights. I had brought a long sleeve jersey and a jacket with me, but wound up going for the jacket just in case the wind was fierce. The goal for the ride was that every time we saw a road sign we needed to sprint for it. I started off in the middle of the riders and I also made it my goal to keep the lady in front of me near by at all times, LA. I did not want to be fighting to catch up to the back of the pack like I have the last few rides. Initially my quads were just burning and I wasn't sure how the ol' legs were going to hold up to sprints. Thanks to the burning quads I finally figured out how to pedal more efficiently on the uphills by pulling and pushing at the same time, giving my hamstrings a fantastic workout as well. I was surging on the uphills a lot better and I even passed LA on a hill. From then it was game on, she would catch up, we'd ride together for a bit, then play cat and mouse and one would surge ahead and the other would try to follow. I was having a blast. We looped back to pick up the last two ladies and that was when coach caught up to us. We had a bit more daylight so we kept going. Finally at one point LA and I managed to catch up to the lead three riders. I'm not sure...they might have been taking it a bit easy yesterday but LA and I were working our tails off. The way back was wicked though, the wind was absolutely freezing. On the way out I felt a bit hot in my jacket, but on the way back I was glad I had it on, and kinda wished I had tights on as well as my lower legs and feet were frozen. I think I need to look at getting some booties so I can ride without freezing my toes off. We made it back to our cars just as daylight was dimming. After the ride coach complimented me as she figured I had worked pretty hard, and that I was a much better cyclist than I had lead her to believe. Nice! The hard work is starting to pay off! Hopefully I have something left in my legs for five hill repeats tonight...

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I had the heater going full blast on the way home, but I was still pretty cold by the time I got home. I swapped out my cycling gear for cozy sweats and these absolutely amazing Smartwool socks.

I was feeling warmed up in no time - those socks are amazing! I then grilled up some chicken that had been marinating in yogurt, lemon juice, garlic and some spices...threw together a spinach salad...and settled in for a little guilty pleasure...90210. It was a great night!