Week 1, Day 8 (Couch to 5k)…

I was starting to think that I was going to have to put my running program off until spring (which around here is usually about 2-3 weeks after spring equinox), due to all the snowfall around here. The forecast says that we are going to get an additional 7-14 inches starting tonight (on top of the already 2 ft of snow that we are still trying to deal with)…

Yesterday I went out, on foot, to assess the situation around here, only to find myself car jousting…

yep, I’m in the middle of the street, because there are either no sidewalks cleared, or there is a sidewalk tunnel – but it closely resembles a hamster tube, wherein you can only access the tunnel at select locations, and sometimes, you’re just stuck and there actually is no way out except the way you came in or to climb the wall of snow back out into the street…

But the extreme sport of car jousting (my adrenaline was up because a few cars were driving at speeds like there was no snow on the street) got me craving a run, so as I fell asleep last night I thought I’d try the dreadmill again…

As I’ve mentioned before I’m currently reading Thrive (by Brendan Brazier), so before my treadmill workout I decided to try out some of the pre-workout Direct Fuel Bites (p. 125) and planned to make a recovery drink (p.127) for after my workout.

I made the direct fuel bites, I had one and gave half of another one to my ‘taste-tester’. They were pretty good, definitely pure carbs, but according to Brendan that’s just what you need for the workout I was about to embark upon.

Are you ready for this? I had a good workout on the dreadmill… I actually didn’t hate every second of it like I normally do. Yea! I had the best run ever, even though it was on the treadmill. I was not out of breath or in pain while doing the running parts of the program, I finally found my stride, it was awesome.

My usual complaints about the treadmill are that it is incredibility boring, and it’s a pain to switch the speed from running to walking. But mostly just the boredom.

In the past, before I started the couch to 5k program, when I was walking on the treadmill I considered 3.7-3.8 difficult and usually opted for 3.3-3.5… the other day (back in Dec) when I was doing the program I was walking at 3.3-3.5 and running at 4.3… it was hard and I didn’t enjoy myself…

Today, though, I walked at 3.3-3.5 and ran at 5.0!!!! Let me say that again, I was running at 5.0… comfortably! All 6 runs I did at 5.0 and I did them the entire duration! Woohoo! I attribute this to the added greens that I’ve been eating the last week or two, because if you look at my exercise chart – I haven’t run since mid-January. I’m sure the direct fuel bites didn’t hurt either! I found that if I tried to run at 4.5 that my stride seemed too short and it was difficult, so on a whim I tried faster and found my gait… the treadmill was actually enjoyable. Don’t get me wrong the nature path is a thousand times better, but given my current state of being snowed in, this will do.

My other self-kudos, is that I was able to sustain the running the entire duration of the program (week one = six 60-second runs, interwoven with 90-second walks, with 5-minute warm-up and cool-down walks). I’ve done week one 8 times now, and I finally feel like perhaps I can graduate to week two.

With the snowstorm that we had over the weekend and the one that just started, I’m kinda in a ‘hoard the food’ mode, or at the very least rationing… so for the recovery drink I wasn’t willing to use up more dates, seeing as how I made home-made vanilla almond mylk yesterday and direct fuel bites this morning… so instead I decided to compromise and make the green smoothie I’ve been making lately but this time without the flaxseed, following Brendan’s advice of not consuming a lot of protein right after working out (instead waiting an hour before having protein and immediately having something consisting of primarily simple carbs). I added some agave for added carbs to my green smoothie to closer resemble one of his recovery drinks… it was good, but a bit too sweet, then I remembered that Brendan said that your flavor receptors are different after a workout and that you would prefer slightly sour, or even bitter over sweet… oops, maybe next time I’ll make green lemonade. But I still think it was a good compromise.

An hour and a half later, I wasn’t sure what I should do for the protein, so I had a handful of dried apples and pistachios. An hour after that, I remembered that I made lentil soup last night and that would be a great liquid protein, it was perfect. Why liquid, you ask? Let me quote a bit from the book:

“… If the workout was a particularly hard one and you are feeling drained, a liquid meal is the best option… Remember, the consumption of a conventional meal at this time will require a large amount of blood to travel to the stomach to aid in digestion. Since the blood is needed in the stomach, it cannot remain in the extremities going about its ‘clean up and delivery’ job. With the extra strain of digestion removed by consuming complete liquid nutrition, recovery will dramatically improve…”
Thrive by Brendan Brazier (p.120)

I’ll probably have a huge salad tonight, but my spinach and romaine is getting low and I had the last of my kale yesterday… we are getting into rationing mode here.

I’m not sure how I’m going to get more fresh produce in the next few days… Produce Wednesday has been canceled this week due to the snow storm… so I’m out of luck there. Our cars are still trapped in the garages…

This is the first year that I’ve needed a shovel, so ,of course, I don’t have one. Previous years (granted there was less snow), the parking lot was cleared off more and you only had to own something to get the snow off your car… the people lucky enough to have a garage had the way cleared for them and they were off… hence one of our reasons for obtaining garages this year… only under the new management apparently the amenity of having the parking lot cleared is no longer… have I mentioned that I’m probably not going to renew a lease here even though I’ve lived here 4 years? Another story for another day.

It could be worse, at least I have electricity, fresh water, and a kitchen stocked with various goods in my pantry, they may not be fresh produce, but we won’t go hungry that’s for sure. So I am grateful for what I do have. I was just enjoying the addition of greens to my diet, but I’ll be fine if I have to ration them.

Hope you are enjoying the weather, you lucky dogs who are not snowed in!
Until next time…
~nic

Minestrone…

I told you I’d write another post today…

I decided to write about the oldest creation first, although, that isn’t truly correct seeing as how I have pictures for posts that I never got around to writing dating back to June ’09… but of the collection of ideas for the last two weeks, this one is the oldest…

I’ve been making variations of minestrone for as long as I can remember, so like most of my soup recipes, it is really about the process more than the ingredients themselves… I tend to stick to the ‘trinity’ (aka. soffritto) to start out; onions, carrots, celery with the usual addition of garlic… from there it just depends on what veggies I have on hand, and I always add canned diced tomatoes and usually tomato sauce.

Whether I use pasta, rice, potatoes, or a combination really depends on my mood that day, but all create wonderful versions of the soup. I also usually will add some white beans, preferably cannellini, but any white bean will do – navy, great northern, chickpeas (aka. garbanzo) make a nice texture as well.

The seasonings, again, depend upon my mood, but the usual suspects are Italian seasoning and bay leaf, if you have herbs de provence – that’s a good one as well… of course, you could always just add basil, oregano, etc if you don’t have a mix.

And it goes without saying, my broth is made with better than bouillon vegetable base and water.

For this version, I invited kale, parsley, and carrot greens to the party. It made a hearty soup full of nutrients, and if I do say so myself, was awesome…

Minestrone
by the auspicious squirrel
Serves: 6-8

Rating: Awesome

• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• onion, diced
• 3-5 cloves garlic, minced
• 2-3 stalks celery, chopped – with greens
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped – with the greens if you have them
• handful of fingerling potatoes, sliced (about the size of 1 potato – I roasted the rest of the potatoes in the photo)
• 1-2 bell peppers (I decided not to use all the peppers in the photo)
• 1-1 1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning, to taste
• salt & pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 6 cups water
• 1/2- 1 Tbsp. better than bouillon vegetable base, to taste
• 1 (15 oz) can diced tomatoes
• 1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce
• 1 (15 oz) can great northern beans, drained
• 1 (15 oz) can chickpeas (I did not drain these because they are packed with seaweed instead of salt)
• 1/4 cup uncooked small pasta (I used acini di pepe)
• handful of parsley, chopped
• 2 leaves of kale, rib removed and chopped

1. Heat olive oil in a large soup pot over med-high heat, add onion and a pinch of salt, cook about 5 minutes, lower heat to medium. Next add garlic, celery, carrot, potatoes, and bell peppers. My usual method is to cut and add a vegetable, then cut and add the next vegetable, giving each one a bit of time to cook before I add the next vegetable.
   
2. Cook until onion looks transparent, 5-10 minutes. Add Italian seasoning, pinch of salt, pepper, bay leaf, and water. Raise heat to med-high and bring to a boil. Once boiling, lower heat to medium, add better than bouillion, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, great northern beans, chickpeas and pasta. Cover and simmer about 10 minutes or until pasta is al dente.
3. Meanwhile, chop the greens… parsley, celery greens, carrot greens.
   
4. Also chop the kale.
   
5. Add the greens to the soup, but don’t stir just yet…
   
   cover and simmer about 5 minutes ‘steaming’ the greens.
   
6. Stir the greens in and adjust the seasonings, adding more salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and/or more better than bouillon.
   
7. Ladle into bowls, enjoy.

I served it with home-made quinoa bread…

Until next time…
~nic

The Snow Slideshow Continues…

I hope you are not sick of seeing snow pictures because my ‘taste-tester’ took some more this morning… while I slept all curled up in a warm bed… he said that the windchill was 19°F… so I’m very appreciative that he faced the elements for me to get these great pictures! Looking at the time stamps… he was out there about 40 minutes!
(*Update: I’ve been informed by my ‘taste-tester’ that the temperature was 19°F, the windchill was 9°F!)

If you are missing the food related posts… I think I’ll post twice today… I’ve been taking pictures of my creations… just not sure what I want to talk about yet. I should wrap up my kitchen gadgets series, but I’ve made minestrone, mushrooms & barley, roasted turnips, yummy bread v.2.0, and more green smoothies and green lemonade… so much to choose from!

I also have the cutest video of ‘little-bit’ eating a carrot that I was thinking about posting, but I need some assistance from my ‘taste-tester’ because flickr wants the video to only be 90 seconds long and mine is 2 min 46 sec… I guess you’ll just have to tune in to find out what I will post next.

Let’s get to the snow!…

I guess it’s not really a slideshow since it is just static pictures rather than a movie of static pictures… so maybe it’s more of a photo gallery…

Let’s see, there were 205 pictures to choose from (I can hear the collective groan), it’s so hard to pare it down! I’ve got it down to 31… still obnoxious… let’s see if I can tell the story with far fewer…

Top 5

As always, ‘little-bit’ gets top billing… I took this when I finally got my lazy butt out of bed… all other pictures were taken by my ‘taste-tester’…

Of course, the avalanche waiting to happen also got top billing…

These next three were nice aerial views that I thought told the story the best in the fewest shots…

Hungry Trees

These are the trees I was talking about yesterday, the snow on the branches was so heavy that some branches, sometimes even the trees themselves, snapped and came down upon some of the parked cars. My car is safely tucked away in a garage (so glad I did that this year!)… so I was spared the trees, but I’m still trapped in my garage due to the streets not being very cleared off. Anyway, some of these cars have got to be damaged, but due to the amount of snow it really is hard to tell just how much damage…

There’s a motorcycle under here…

Two angles of this hungry tree… (click on the picture to make it bigger)

A very ravenous tree, yes there is a car under there… (click on the picture to make it bigger)
(*update: I just checked… these are not the same tree, my bad, the first photo, luckily, does not have a car under it)

Are you tired of pictures yet? I hope not, I have a few more…

Tunnel Fever

Tunnels have been created to keep us from being trapped in our apartments… (click on the picture to make it bigger)

Indulge Me

Will you indulge me just 4 more? I promise I’ll post something more constructive later today… (click on the picture to make it bigger)

I started out with 205 pictures but only posted 16 pictures, that’s not too bad… was it?
I’ll post again later today with something food related, I promise!
Until next time…
~nic