Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jig

Sorry for the lack of blog lately! I've been experimenting with a wordpress site and trying to make up my mind on to which blog site I would like to stick with, and it looks like good old simple Blogger has won me back over!

I am back home in Rossland for the summer. Well... technically Warfield (but that's a small detail and one that I am still not a fan of), and I am staying for the full summer! No summer semester like last year, just plain work and training. I am very happy to have my old job with the Rossland Museum and Historical Society back, with an added bit of responsibility! I will still do site tours, but also "run the place" two or three days a week. So if you like gold, mining, history, or all three- come and visit me this summer!

Training has been going smoothly, I've just come off a big block and my recovery week was perfectly timed as a slight VMO strain decided to pop up. Luckily ice and massage have calmed it down and I am now good to go. I am looking forward to my first race of the season- the Subaru race series at Shawnigan Lake on May 27th. Not exactly looking forward to spending my 20th birthday (May 26th) in a van for 10hrs- but you can't always have your cake and eat it too!

I will try and keep up with more regular posting and some pictures once the weather turns around.
Happy training!

February Sunshine

Shorts! 

 10mile point looking to yacht club

Love the sunshine!

These are some pics from my recovery run today. It was great to get out and enjoy the warm sunshine. I am very fortunate to live in such a beautiful place!

Hope everyone played in the sun on this awesome february day!

Simple Sunday

Thought that I would switch the blog up a bit and add a post about food! When I cook I go for simple, nutritious and most importantly gluten free. This sunday I don't have much time between midterm cramming and heading out to tutor- so I went for a quick throw-together that I can assemble at any time in the day, and cook up quickly.

You could call this fried rice. I prepped the brown rice and veggies before hand, and threw it in the pan just before I was ready to eat. (Eating it now as I am typing!)

Method:

Cook brown rice- (I used 1/2 cup dry as it was all I had left)

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup shredded rapini

crimini mushrooms (about 5 or 6) coarsely chopped

1 cup frozen lima beans

1/2 a yam grated

1 tbsp GF tamari sauce

1 tbsp coconut oil

2 cloves garlic

2'' ginger, minced (lots of ginger!)

3 eggs

Heat the coconut oil in a large frying pan. Once hot add the garlic and ginger. Saute. Add the yam, mushrooms, rapini, lima beans and raisins. Saute in frying pan for about 10min. Push veggies to one side and add the eggs. Next add the cooked rice and mix in, distributing the eggs. Cook until eggs are no longer runny. Put on plate, then eat!

This made enough food for about 4 or 5 servings! So for me that equates to lots of leftovers for the coming week!

Happy Sunday!

Saturdays

The weekend. I'm not 100% sure how I feel about weekends... usually I am on the fence when it comes to Saturdays and Sundays. Yes, come Friday afternoon I look forward to a break, but then I realize that my weekends are often more productive than my weeks!

Saturday is the BIG day. A long ride and usually followed by a swim. I love my long rides, there is something about exploring the area and seeing new sights that always makes me happy. Unfortunately, I don't always love the process of getting my butt in gear to get out the door. If it's a down pour, snowing, or freezing I tend to be a wimp and set up my trusty trainer. But yesterday was a pretty big (and well worth it!) exception for me. Not thinking that the snow was going to melt overnight, I planned on spending my 3.5hrs watching LOTR movies.... my newly decked out road bike, with super awesome fenders was going to have to wait. Turns out the heavy rain melted all of the snow and left clear roads, and to make things better I had two great athletes, Emma and Alex, who also wanted to ride. The ride was great- one of the best that I have had in a long time! Cycling through periods of ridiculously hard rain, patches of snow/slush and chasing the blue sky made me feel like a super hard core roadie. The only downside to the day was waking up with a small tickle in the day of my throat. Fast-forward to saturday post swim and that tickle morphed into a sore throat/cough, and now by sunday morning I have no voice. Time to bust out the oil of oregano, probiotics and buckleys. Some sleep will help too!

Hope everyone is happy, healthy and enjoying their weekend!

Post #30 and some ramblings

This is my 30th blog post! Something small to celebrate, but celebrate none-the-less! When I started this blog I had no idea that I would ever reach 30 posts, or stay committed to (semi) regular blogging.

Currently I am back at Uvic for spring semester. Taking 5 courses is proving to be a time juggling act. Physics, advanced ochem, microbiology, statistics and genetics isn't the easiest load to pile on all at once. But I can handle one rough semester- after all it is only 3 months! The biggest downside to this semester is my schedule... unfortunately I can only attend one or two group workouts a week because of class conflict. I have also started a small tutoring job that runs two nights a week. Brushing up on high-school math, chemistry and physics is never a bad thing right?

The first sunday back in Victoria I participated in my first running race of the year, the Pioneer 8km. It went ok. Overall I am not pleased with my performance. The first 3km were great- and then I blew up. Guess I should learn some pacing techniques! My energy levels have been in the dirt, but I have now figured out the cause and hope that it will soon be remedied. I am very happy to say that I finally feel like a real swimmer! Over the past month I have noticed an improvement in my times, and I am super pumped to say that a 4km swim feels "normal" now.

This past weekend I had my first "city" experience: clubbing. Let's just say that it isn't really my thing... fun, but not for me. I also went to see an awesome band: The Boom Booms on saturday night. The have an amazing stage presence and great tunes to boot! Check them out here!

Keep on running up that hill

Just keep on running up that hill- those words have been my mantra for the months of october and november. It's funny that a girl from a town with nothing but hills doesn't like hills, but they just kill me! I am trying to focus on good form, and proper breathing technique- hopefully by the end of december and january I will start to see some positive results. Sometimes I find myself super frustrated at my progress during these sessions, but keeping a positive and clear head is key. Hopefully things will start improving!

I am still riding outside- amazingly! It feels so odd to be outside on a bike when it is part- way through December. The amount of people I saw wearing shorts on my ride today was mind blowing! I took some great pictures while cycling along the ocean today and meant to post them, but accidentally deleted them off of my phone. Next ride!

In less than a week I will be home in Rossland. I think that a break from school is much needed and will help with my current funk that I've been in for about two weeks. I've had this annoying mini-cold that I can't seem to kick- but some quiet mornings without screaming kids rattling my ceiling should do the trick!

Time to head off to the pool- then back to studying for finals!

Thanks for reading!

November!

I guess I've been neglecting my blog over the past month or so- so now for a quick updater! Chilly November has already rolled around and with that I have unearthed all of my "winter" running clothes. Not like I need the real heavy duty stuff for victoria... if the weather ever dips below -5C I might cry a little inside- but tight season is here!

Training has been going very well over the past few weeks- the hours steadily building up, but with low intensity. This week I have an easier week volume wise, which is a nice break- especially to catch up on school work.

Midterms are all over as of today, and now the final focus is on a few assignments and the upcoming finals. Hopefully I can plan out my schedule well enough to allow for ample study time, without too much stress time. I am still finding it hard to find a good balance with stress in my life... its an ongoing process, but I can safely say that moving over to Victoria has made me happier and that has decreased my stress levels significantly!

Off to get a ride in!

Happy training!