Get up and go girl!

The Almighty Power of the Humble Pickle

In the Tour of Sufferlandia group (more on that shortly) I brought up pickle juice as a recovery aid and surprised some folks who hadn’t heard of that trick before. I learned about it because of Hotter ‘n Hell Hundred, a cycling event held in my hometown every summer. They pass out cups of pickle juice and 8000 pickles to riders throughout the event to replenish electrolytes and diminish…

Working on My Working Out

I have a problem, and I have known it for a while, but not really been fully present to the reality of what it means for me and my wee person.

I don’t work out enough to meet my goals. There, I said it. 

I know a lot of you think I do and this post is especially for you. It seems like I am always doing something in the realm of exercise (it sometimes feels that way to me too, sometimes not) but…

Racing Weight: How Small, Frequent Meals Can Help You Lose Weight While Training

I have this wonderful book, “Racing Weight” by Matt Fitzgerald, so was excited to see he has some videos online at the Triathlete magazine website.

I’ve always heard the “it boosts your metabolism” reason for eating small meals, but Matt busts that myth while explaining why you may want to use this approach if you are trying to simultaneously lose weight and train for your upcoming triathlon…

Fitness Posters for Home Workouts

I am positively obsessed with these wonderful fitness posters by Bruce Algra, available in two sizes and multiple options and prices.

One of the things I did last year, my first triathlon season, was stop my personal training with Hayden during my race season, as I read that lifting weights caused fatigue that would then hamper my competing. Then when I began again, I had lost strength in my…

For my second entry into the #50ShadesofWaffles contest, I made a dinner entree with chili, pepperjack cheese and cornbread waffles. It turned out pretty tasty! Included here is the waffle recipe - I didn't make the chili but can get that if you want it. These waffles would make an excellent base for so many things... brisket, roast beef, cajun chicken deli meat and cheese (for an open face sandwich) or even ham and beans for a departure from the usual cornbread. To leave out the mildly spicy taste just omit the jalapeno's and switch the cheese to Sharp Cheddar or leave it out altogether and save some macros.

WAFFLE INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup Jiffy Cornbread mix

1/4 cup plain or vanilla fat-free greek yogurt

1/2 scoop plain or vanilla protein powder

4 tbs fat-free Half & Half (or any milk product)

1 egg

1/4 cup Pepperjack cheese

1 1/2 tsp jalapeno juice out of the jar

(Optional) chopped jalapeno to taste

(Optional) 2 tbs kernel or creamed corn

Stir all ingredients in a bowl to make the batter. Use as much milk as needed to make the batter less thick, but not too runny. If you accidentally make it too runny add a little more cornbread mix and protein powder. This should make 4-6 waffles depending on the size of your waffle maker.

MEXICAN CREMA

I topped mine with chili, pepperjack cheese and the most delicious homemade Mexican Crema that is super easy to make. This is the recipe for the crema sauce - you may have had this on fire-grilled corn at a steakhouse, or enchiladas in a tex-mex place. Crema is the Mexican version of French crème fraîche. This recipe is from Simply Mexican by Lourdes Castro.

1 cup sour cream

1 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon salt

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and set it out at room temperature for 3 hours.

Here are the macros for the cornbread waffles from My Fitness Pal. Enjoy!

A fun challenge is going on called #50ShadesofWaffles over on Instagram, and I decided to enter a few items... of course they will all be heart-shaped as my Babycakes Lolly Waffle maker is the only one I have. LOL! Here was my first entry yesterday. I may try to do waffles on Wednesday as #WaffleWednesday is also a thing.

INGREDIENTS

1/3 cup cake Carrot Cake cake mix

1/4 cup fat-free greek yogurt

1/2 scoop cinnamon protein powder

3 tbs almond milk

1 egg

Stir all ingredients in a bowl to make the batter. Use as much milk or water as needed to make the batter less thick, but not too runny. If you accidentally make it too runny add a little more cake mix and protein powder. This should make 4-5 waffles.

FILLING

1 oz cream cheese

1/3 cup lite ricotta

1 tbs lite sour cream

1 tsp Grand Marnier liquor

dash vanilla extract

Stir the filling until well-blended. Alternatively, just use Mascarpone cheese which works wonderfully with Grand Marnier and is what I like to use, but don't have in the small town I live in.

TOPPINGS

1 singles can mandarin oranges

1 serving cashew pieces (about 50 cashew halves)

SYRUP

2 tbs lite maple syrup or your favorite kind

2 tsp Grand Marnier

Juice from the can of Mandarin Oranges

Mix together well and heat in saucepan or microwave briefly to make warm.

When the waffles are done, you can either layer filling between two of them or just top one of them with filling and toppings. Split the oranges and cashew pieces among the number of waffles you have. Top with warm syrup. 

I have a confession... I love pronuts (protein donuts.) I have a Babycakes mini donut maker and even though it takes a little time to assemble the ingredients and make small batches of 4 each, it is super easy and they come out great every time. You can also use a donut baking pan. Here's my latest creation - I will also be posting a base recipe + optional measurements so you can play with pronut ingredients to create your own masterpieces!

INGREDIENTS

1/3 cup cake Butter Pecan cake mix

1/4 cup applesauce

1/4 cup fat-free greek yogurt

1 tbs butterscotch chips

1/2 scoop protein powder

1 tbs almond milk

1 egg

1 tsp chopped pecans

2 tbs oats

Stir all ingredients in a bowl to make the batter. Use as much milk or water as needed to make the batter less thick, but not too runny. If you accidentally make it too runny add a little more cake mix and protein powder.

FROSTING

2 tbs Honey Pecan cream cheese

3 tbs white frosting

2 tbs non-fat greek yogurt

Stir the frosting until well-blended and put into the fridge, uncovered, to get thicker and a little harder, while you are cooking the pronuts.

TOPPING

1 tbs butterscotch chips

1 tbs chopped pecans

Put into a ziploc bag and smash into smaller, finer pieces.

DIRECTIONS

With all the ingredients prepared, cook the pronuts and place onto a plate to cool before frosting them and sprinkling the topping. I use a plastic container and frost the top donuts and as they are eaten, frost the others beneath as I make a large batch at once to eat for a few days. They don't last long for two people and two dogs. :D

MACROS

In my donut maker, 1 tbs fills the donut holes, so this recipe yields between 20-24 donuts. This particular batch made 23 and that is what the macros below reflect.

BATTER Fat 17.4 / Carbs 80.3 / Protein 129.3 / Calories 597

FROSTING Fat 12 / Carbs 31.5 / Protein 4.5 / Calories 222.5

TOPPING Fat 9 / Carbs 10 / Protein 1.8 / Calories 130

GRAND TOTAL Fat 38.4 / Carbs 121.8 / Protein 135.6 / Calories 949.5

INDIVIDUAL PRONUT Fat 1.66 / Carbs 5.29 / Protein 5.89 / Calories 41.28

I am totally remiss in not having updated this site for the last month. Training and fitting in some work around training just wiped me out. I am very thrilled to report I did complete my first triathlon on July 26, 2014, one of 1200 women and 893 finishers at the WinforKC triathlon that is held at Smithville Lake! I was especially pleased with my results given my knee continues to be an issue, so I did not run following the Tri-yak-a-thon at all to rest it.

Here are some pics from the day and the day after here and my results.

SWIM

Breaking it down by event, my swimming went pretty well - the only incident I had was a woman clearly didn't know how to freestyle or even breaststroke and so she was on her back the whole time, and a boat guy had to round her up as she was going far from the right way, and then she was heading right at me and would have run me over but I had to push on her head to stop her. My swim time is normally 15 minutes (I have got to find a way to swim faster) but I think I waylaid myself by standing up and walking too fast in sinking mud with sharp rocks simply because I saw other women stand up. Next time I will swim till my hand hits sand.

I need to digress a minute... I was absolutely amazed at the number of people I talked to (and probably that lady) that didn't train for this AT. ALL. I found that very stupid. I mean, a Sprint does sound fairly short, but put all three things together and continuously work out for nearly 2 hours and anyone can see you need to be in tri-condition to do this, whether this is a first timers event or not. I have seen many many plans that I felt were way too light, like "do a tri in 5 hours a week!" and I feel people are mislead by that crap. I trained non-stop for several months, and in spite of a knee issue. And thank goodness I did because I think that is why I had such a good time and was pleased with my effort.

T1

I had actually trained for transitioning three times, and each time came in at 2-3 minutes which I found too long. In reality, it took me 5 minutes to get on the bike. LMAO!!! And even then I forgot my sunglasses (fortunately it was overcast.) Clearly this is an area for improvement. By contrast, last year's top 15 transitioned in about a minute. I also forgot to drink anything, and I was feeling that mistake on the bike about mile 7.

BIKE

I was incredibly nervous about the bike portion of the tri. I train mostly alone - I have rarely ever ridden around anyone, so the idea of hundreds of women crowding me was something I felt concerned about. As it worked out, I wound up passing tons of people once I got on my bike and that feeling is quite addictive! Given I feel far from the world's greatest athlete I probably liked that the most. It was exhilarating to hear people cheering me on as I flew past other people. My little ego may not need that. LOL!! 15.4 mph is actually better than I had ever been able to do in training, so pushing past people in a race really helped me out a lot.

T2

Despite needing to do literally nothing except rack my bike, take off my helmet and take a drink it still took me over 2 minutes to cross the Run Out pad. What am I doing??? I was a little far from that pad but still.

RUN

Given I had run a TOTAL of less than 3 miles in about 5 weeks, to not mess up my knee, I had a goal of coming in at under 12 minutes per mile. In test runs that's what I was doing. In reality, the first mile I did in just over 10 minutes so with ego and adrenaline kicking in I decided I wanted to try to run all three miles in 30 minutes. I didn't make it. I was slowed down the next two miles, and came in at 11.24 minutes per mile which mad me mad because it wasn't 10. How quickly we forget the original goal when a better one is in sight!

FINISHING

I didn't realize it, but in the split second after going across the finish line I almost burst into tears. It takes only that long to get that you finally reached this goal you have worked for, for months. I signed up and began training in March, so really 4 months is not a ton of time but it feels like I have been doing this longer. I did not cry, but it was almost like I was in shock a few minutes as a woman dumped freezing water on me, worried I was going to pass out. I was a little woozy, I sat in the grass and took the pic of my medal.

So this past week I have been doing last-minute training for the infamous Dirty Kanza, held in Emporia, Kansas each year on rough gravel roads rolling through the Flint Hills. The main ride is a 200 mile toughfest that winners complete in 12 hours and a lot of people take double that or more, to finish. Lest ye think I have completely lost my mind, I am doing the much less taxing DKLite, 20 mile version (you can also do 50) with my friend Anne Marie who invited me last week to go since I cannot do my Color Run tomorrow given runners knee issues.

So all week I have been gravel grinding, whining, gritting my teeth, feeling proud, feeling like a wimp, being confident I can get through this unscathed and hoping I won't come home with scrapes on my person or worse. I pray I don't crash, but biking with ALL THESE PEOPLE is more nerve-wracking than you know, for me. That is why I am doing this though... I never ride with people and can't have my first triathlon be the first time I'm ever shoved pell-mell inside that lovely experience.

So, ready or not, tomorrow morning I leave at 4:30am latest to tackle many different demons... getting up early (hahaha!), going someplace I've never been, riding with lots and lots of others, on gravel, hopefully without too many hills, and returning home happy I did it after all, in time to relax and recover while Sporting KC wins on the road. WINS!!

All this said, I've been on the Dolce, my tri bike, only twice I think. I'm ready to hit the smoooooooth road next week on it and return to my normal, rock chunk-free training!