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!

Island Life

Hey everyone, I apologize for my lack of updating (not that there is anyone who religiously reads this blog... come to think of it, my parents don't even read this.). Things have been slightly hetic lately, but in a good way. I have moved into my place in Victoria- well if you really want to get technical- in Cadboro Bay, in Saanich, and have begun my fall semester at UVIC. Right off the bat I can easily say that I am happy here. Whatever it is- the island, the greenery, the people, the school environment... it just clicks with me. At the moment in week three of fall term, I still feel as if I am on vacation. Getting to spend my days riding and running along the ocean is fantastic... and the lack of crazy drivers/traffic is a bonus too.

To start with school- UVIC and SFU did a grand botch job of transferring my credits, so there are a few courses that I am currently re-taking. EPHE 141 (human anatomy) is the main problem, but I am interested in this material, so it is no problem to re-do this. Physics on the other hand was a slight nightmare. I enrolled in PHYS 120, which is the type for engineers... not exactly what I wanted to be taking, and to top that off the course outline was identical to the physics that I had just completed over the summer. Long story short I have dropped the engineering physics and am taking the very special transfer student friendly PHYS 290 starting in the spring semester. Basically, I received a partial credit of 1.5units from a course here, and in the spring I am able to just jump in and finish up the second half to gain the full 3.0 units. That makes me pretty happy! With physics out of the way for fall semester I have picked up and online kinesiology course about the foundations of physical activity (whoopeee!), which will go on top of cellular biology, microbiology and my human anatomy courses. Overall I think I have a pretty easy and interesting semester ahead of me. Currently 3 of the 4 courses are all covering the exact same topic... the cell-so I am finding it no trouble to stay on top of my coursework.

Now onto triathlon life- I am still in the easy build back phase of training. The training load is nice and light, with lots of focus on run strength. I couldn't be more happy about this, as anyone who has seen my horrible running style will agree... it needs some work. It's great to have a group of people to run with, and to have a coach who actually pays attention to me and gives constructive feedback! Unfortunately, I have 8:30 class everyday of the week, so I miss group swims- but swimming at UVIC is not a bad second.

The next few weeks look to be more of the same, school work and training. I am looking forward to meeting more people and getting to know the island better (getting lost everytime I ride isn't always the most fun thing!).

I guess it's time to "publish" this post, as I have been sitting on it long enough. Not having internet at home certainly puts a limit to blogging :) Hopefully that small problem will be remedied within this week!

Back to the books.

Cheers!

Hot August

This past weekend I wrapped up my 2011 race season by competing at Canadian Nationals in Kelowna. This race was about redemption for me, as last year I was told two days before the race that my foot was broken...

I finished up my summer semester at SFU on tuesday and drove back to the Kootenays, just in time to snag some perfect summer weather!

My mum and I drove to Kelowna together, and arrived just in time to check in my bike and pick up my race package.

Race morning: my start was at 9:35 with the 20-29 females. That gave me plenty of time to set up transition and watch the other swim starts. The water temp. this year was wetsuit legal for the AGers, and I am glad, because it felt a little chilly!

Swim-

Time: 24:10 I am happy with this result, as it is a full 47s faster than two weeks ago. But I felt that my swim was horrible when I was actually swimming... it was pretty rough with all of the girls swimming in a big mob pack and not separating until partway through the second lap.

T1- Slowly getting better stripping off my wetsuit!

Bike- Kelowna's course is a 3 loop circuit, each time climbing up Knox Mtn. The climb isn't all that bad, but it is deceiving in the fact that the uphill gradually continues for another couple of kms. I really enjoyed this course- the fact that it was closed to traffic, had some fun fast turns and looping past spectators was a good mental boost.

T2- I came into transition and there was only one other bike on the rack... so I racked mine and suddenly the rack broke!! The metal bar between the sawhorses wasn't in place- needless to say that got my heart racing as I started yelling at the volunteers to come and fix it.

Run- This was the scary part. Right after Sooke I noticed a tight pain in my knee, and thought nothing of it. Turns out I badly pulled my rectus femoris, making running almost impossible, and swimming for that matter. I took running on and off easy for two weeks- scared to test it out.

I started the 10k with a half plan in my mind of what to do if the pain started, but luckily no such thing happened! Just general stiffness/tightness in the quad. My pace felt really great, and I was having fun chasing this one lady. Unfortunately my time of just under 48min didn't reflect how I was feeling, but c'est la vie and that's what I get for no proper running for 2 weeks injured.

Post race- I am very happy to say that I qualified to go to Auckland, NZ in October 2012 for AG worlds! My mum and I got to watch the elite females and males race, and cheer on Emma in her first elite race!

Back at home now I am having a "mini-vacation" week of rest and no training. The no training part is definitely there, but I am not too sure about the rest aspect.... moving my grandparent's out of their 60 year old home is not a restful activity haha! I am looking forward to this weekend to volunteer in T1 at Ironman Canada and to cheer on my friends that are racing.

That's all for now- time to hit the beach!