Showing Up... Dash for Heart 5K

It's cold. It's dark. I am totally unmotivated. I'm having a really hard time getting my body to show up for it's work outs.

The past two weeks have been a struggle. Week 7 of Derby Training was tough but I got all my runs in, mainly with lots of support from my fellow online Sole Sisters...

Sunday - rest
Monday - 8 miles
Tuesday - 4 miles
Wednesday - kettlebells
Thursday - 4 miles
Friday - kettlebells, 8 miles
Saturday - 16 miles

Week 7 Total Miles: 40

Last week, Week 8, it all fell apart due to weather and weakness (on my part)...

Sunday - rest
Monday - 4 miles
Tuesday - 8 miles
Wednesday - I had to bag my 17 mile long run due to 7" of snow and spending 3 hours shoveling
                      my driveway before going in to work
Thursday - rest (and really, I was too sore to move)
Friday - kettlebells, 4 miles (still sore)
Saturday - my 10K was canceled due to the weather. I should have done my long run or at least
                  done 8 miles but hanging out at home and making more Nutella cookies before going
                  into work sounded like a better idea so I bagged my run again.

Week 8 Total Miles: 16

So now I am into Week 9 and had a 5K on the schedule yesterday morning. The race was at 1 pm in Nashville, IN. I was suppose to be at work in Bloomington, IN at 2:30 pm. Timewise, it was going to be close. Plan was to run my race, jump in the car and drive to the hospital, shower and change at the hospital and clock in. I hate being rushed...

So why the heck did I sign up for this? I hate running in cold weather. I believe I've only run outdoors twice this year. What possessed me?

I'm cursed with a competitive spirit. This weekend's races were the first races of the year for the Crossroads of Indiana Race Series. I really want to win my age group this year. I think I can win my age group this year as I'm now running in the 45-49 age group and I think I'm a couple minutes faster than the next fastest runner. However, you have to show up and run the race to get credit. It doesn't count to sit on the couch and look at the race results and say, "I could've run faster than that."

So I showed up. It was cold. It was windy. The course went straight uphill at the midway portion of the race.

I ran like hell but I think everyone ran like hell since the women's winner ran 21:32. Here are my crappy splits...

Mile 1 - 7:45
Mile 2 - 8:41
Mile 3 - 8:28
last 0.1 - 1:53

Official finish time - 26:47
Average pace - 8:37 (ugh, that was the pace for my last half-marathon!)

The race started and finished at the Nashville YMCA so I was able to grab a shower there instead of at the hospital. I got changed and thought about staying til awards but there were still people running the course when I got done showering so I jumped in my car and drove to work and looked up the race results later.

For the race, I ended up 10th overall woman, second in the women's 40-49 age group, 40 seconds out of first. For the race series, I won the 45-49 age group by 2:17. Looks like I have a lot more work to do getting my speed back up.

Today, again, I didn't want to show up to kettlebell class. 5:15 am is so freakin' early for nightowls like me! (Especially after working til midnight.) I basically stumbled out of bed with the angel and the devil warring in my head and got to class before I woke up and could change my mind. Class is always fine once I get there. There's loud rock music blasting and a 20-something looking guy yelling instructions at you so you feel like you're 20 and at boot camp. It kicked my butt. I got home and made it to the couch, then fell asleep again.

So now I've still got 9 more miles on my plate today. I need to show up! Tomorrow I'm flying out to Montana for a week long Wilderness Medicine Conference. I'm excited but nervous about how I'm going to get my runs in. Luckily this is a "down" week in the training schedule.

Gotta run now!

Nutella Sea Salt Stuffies and Lessons Learned

           I was destined to make these cookies this week. First, the good folks at King Arthur Flour sent me this awesome recipe in their email newsletter. Next, there were really good Nutella coupons in this week's inserts.

Buy One Get One Free, doesn't get any better than this!

 

 

Then, Meijer has Nutella on sale this week (through 2/12/14).

 

 

 

...and since I don't own a 7 lb tub of Nutella like my friend Isabelle (check out her photo HERE along with another Nutella recipe), I decided to go stock up.

 

 

Now onto the recipe...

 

Nutella Sea Salt Stuffies

original recipe HERE

 

Filling

1/2 cup Nutella chocolate-hazelnut spread

 

Cookie dough

1 cup Nutella chocolate-hazelnut spread

1 cup flour

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon espresso powder

 

Topping

coarse sea salt

 

To make the filling, scoop small balls of Nutella onto a lined baking sheet and freeze for at least 3 hours.

 



Lesson #1: SMALL BALLS... mine were too big

 

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

 

Mix all your dough ingredients together.

 

I decided I didn't want to waste any Nutella by putting it in a measuring cup and then scraping it into a bowl. I decided to measure it out by weight instead and put my whole mixing bowl on a scale, zeroed it, and put in 8 oz of Nutella (that's 1 cup, right? no, I was wrong...)

 







All the cookie dough ingredients

 

..."the mixture will be cohesive, fairly soft, but not sticky; think modeling clay"

 

Well, my mixture was incredibly crumbly. Something wasn't right. I decided to double check the Nutella measurement. One of the things I love about the recipes on the King Arthur Flour website is that you can measure your ingredients by volume, ounces, or grams - all you have to do is click your choice and everything is converted for you. The default is by volume but I changed it to ounces and discovered I needed 10.5 ounces of Nutella.

 

I put the mixing bowl back on the scale, zeroed it, and added 2.5 more ounces of Nutella.

 



Adding more Nutella to my dry cookie dough

Lesson #2: 1 cup does not always equal 8 ounces

Scoop your dough into heaping tablespoons.

Filling on top, dough on bottom. This is when I realized my filling balls were too big.

 

 

Flatten a ball of cookie dough. Place frozen Nutella ball in the center.

 



I ended up only using a 1/3 to a 1/4 of each frozen Nutella ball in each cookie.

 

Wrap dough around Nutella like a dumpling, completely enclosing it. Roll the ball of dough between your palms to seal any cracks and round it out. Place cookies on cookie sheet. Flatten slightly and sprinkle with coarse salt.

 



Lesson #3: frozen Nutella balls "melt" rather quickly. I had to put the rest back in the freezer to firm back up after just making 9-10 cookies.

Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes. I baked mine for 10 minutes.

Finished cookies. They don't spread much.

 

This is how much frozen Nutella I had left over.

Admittedly, I probably used far more than half a cup to make these balls.

 

 

Cookies can be served warm or at room temperature. Warm cookies will have a melting-center lava-cake like effect. The room temperature cookies will have a more solid center.

 



Warm cookie

 

 

I ended up with 18 cookies and used not quite two 13oz jars of Nutella. Hope don't make the same mistakes I did and enjoy some Nutella cookies!

Creamy White Chicken Chili

This is one of my favorite recipes for a cold snowy day. Comfort food. A simple filling one pot meal. Makes for great leftovers too. You can cut out the fat by pureeing a can of beans to thicken up the chili and leaving out the heavy cream and sour cream. Original recipe is from the Taste of Home website and can be found HERE. I made some minor changes. I don't rinse my beans because I want that extra "bean juice" to thicken the chili.

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into cubes
1 medium onion, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 14.5 oz can of chicken broth
2 15.5 oz cans of great northern beans
2 4 oz cans chopped green chiles
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
sour cream to taste

In a large pot, heat oil and sauté chicken, onion, and garlic powder until chicken is no longer pink.

Add chicken broth, beans, chilies, and seasonings. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes.

 

 

Remove from heat and stir in heavy whipping cream. The original recipe calls for stirring in a cup of sour cream too. At our house I just let everyone get their bowl of chili and then add as much or as little sour cream as they want in their individual bowls.

 

 

Enjoy and stay warm!

Derby Training Week 6

Last week was a struggle. I don't know if it's the cold or what but all I want to do is crawl in bed and stay there. This week will be crazy due to an erratic work schedule but I'm hoping to get some better runs in. Here's the down low on last week...

Sunday - rest
Monday - 7 miles
Tuesday - 3 miles
Wednesday - kettlebell class
Thursday - 7 miles, about 9 minute mile pace
Friday - 10 miles
Saturday - 3 miles

Week 6 Total: 30 miles

I missed my kettlebell class this morning because I didn't get home from work until 1 am and when the alarm went off at 4:30 am I just couldn't get up. I did get out later in the morning and get 8 miles in at the fitness center.

Hoping to share some more recipes and coupon deals this week. The weekend paper had 4 coupon inserts so I'm ready to do some shopping and cooking!

The Reality of It All

Epic. The word resounds in my head. I want to have an epic year. DO things. So I go go go... then I have days that I feel like my life is totally bipolar...

Last week was great. I hit all my workouts and stuck to my schedule. I got all my me things done. Going to work really wears me out. When I went into Emergency Medicine, I was your stereotypical ER doc. Adrenaline junkie. Work hard. Play hard. When I'm at work, I am ON all the time. You have to be or you won't make it. What I like about my job is that I clock in, work, then clock OUT and I'm DONE. Nothing to bring home. No "homework." I can do whatever I want. Play hard.

Working three days in a row just sucks the life out of me though. Perhaps I'm just getting too old for this. Anyway, I spent almost all day yesterday sleeping.

Background on this weekend... I worked Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Hubs is out of town. Inlaws are doing the snowbird thing in Florida. We sent the kids to spend the weekend with their grandparents in Florida since we thought they would be out of school yesterday for Martin Luther King Day. My plans were to come home to a nice quiet house and get some housework done. The reality was that I was too tired every night and all I did was flop in bed and catch up on things on the internet.

So, Monday morning... plan is to get up at 4:30 am for kettlebell class and get a 7 mile run in before picking the kids up at the airport at noon, then maybe go to hot yoga at 7pm - it is my day off after all! Alarm goes off. I simply cannot get out of bed. I reset it for 9:30 am and go back to bed. I finally got up in time to go to the airport.

Got the kids and fell off the grocery budget wagon too... well, kind of... I think I'm still under $500 for the month. They wanted Panda Express for lunch. Went to Panda... came home. I fell asleep on the couch. It was one of those wonderful delicious naps where you just melt into the couch into a deep dreamless sleep. Ahhh.... Then I woke up at 4 pm. Ugh... still have to get my run in. Went to the fitness center and got my 7 in. Came home and the kids wanted to go out again. I didn't have the energy to cook so we hit Luca's Pizza for dinner, then Ella's Frozen Yogurt for dessert. Then, I let them stay up til 11 pm watching bad reality TV. Yes, I'm a pushover...

Which leads me to this... my reality. I want epic things for myself. But some days you have to stop trying to be so epic all the time and live your life... take a nap, go to three fast food joints in 6 hours and enjoy it!

I think the Big Guy was looking out for me when I let the kids stay up last night. They got a snow day today. I was suppose to go to hot yoga at 10:30 am. Then, I decided, I'd rather stay home. Life's too short to do things you don't enjoy. I don't enjoy hot yoga. I desperately wanted to like it - to be like one of those strong relaxed models in the Athleta catalog - but I can't. It stresses me out. It's not in a convenient location. It's only offered 3 times a week and none of those times are super convenient for me either. Maybe I will try yoga again somewhere else but this class is just not working out for me. So... I've made a conscious decision to not go anymore. I like my kettlebell class. Even though it's at a God-awful time, I enjoy going. Now that I'm rested, I'm ready to go again tomorrow!

So where is all this rambling taking me... I keep thinking back to something that Beck Weathers said. Beck was the climber on Rob Hall's fateful 1996 Everest expedition that was literally left for dead on the mountain before getting himself back to the high camp where he then got airlifted off the mountain. I went to a Wilderness Medicine conference several years ago specifically to meet him because he was one of the featured speakers. He talked about how he had spent most of his life chasing things... chasing accomplishments, chasing summits, etc. thinking they would fill his life and give him happiness. After his near-death experience on Everest though, he discovered that all the people and things he really cared about were right at home. He just had to stop and hold still long enough to realize this.

Sometimes I feel (OK, I know) I need to stop and hold still. Have fun with my family. Figure out what really makes me happy vs. all the things I think will make me happy. This week, I'm concentrating on home. I have more stuff to get rid of...

Hope to have the after photos soon...

I spent the morning letting my daughter make a lemon chess pie all by herself...

...and smelling the roses, or, more like finding the deer tracks on the snow.

My yard, just past Belle's invisible fence line

 

Be real and enjoy the present today!



 

Derby Training Week 5

This week was a better week. I survived my first week of Russian kettlebell classes and I got all my runs in. Pretty solid week.

Sunday - 3 miles
Monday - kettlebell class, 7 miles
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - kettlebell class, 7 miles
Thursday - 14 miles
Friday - kettlebell class, 3 miles
Saturday - rest

Week 5 Total: 34 miles

The 14 on Thursday was tough. I was TIRED. I almost quit after 9 but got my head together and was able to finish. This week was a building week so no pace run.

I decided to keep my graze.com subscription for a while longer. I really enjoyed treating myself to the snacks after my runs. Plus, I like the portion control. There's only one... if I had more I would have eaten them too! (loved the flapjacks) and, as I suspected, my friendcodes are unlimited.

I had a Western States pow wow with John tonight. Looks like I'll be ramping up my mileage after Derby training is over. He can have a pacer after 62 miles. He will probably have me and one other person split up the miles to keep him entertained and not get lost. I'm looking forward to it!

I Need A Secretary

I decided early on that I wanted to do some epic sh!t this year... lot's of stuff that I've been wanting or meaning to do for years but never got organized enough to do or chase. I think having this blog helps me get it all out in black and white... written out instead of just dreams floating around in my head.

So I signed up for stuff...

I registered for a Wilderness Medicine conference held at Big Sky in Montana. It happens in February. I've wanted to go for years but was never organized enough to ask for the time off work - until this year. I even signed up for the extra workshops in Wilderness and Urban Survival, Wilderness Navigation, and Winter Survival. These classes are led by a Navy Seal instructor. I am stoked!

I signed up for the Derby Marathon in April because I believe my best chance of qualifying for Boston is there.

I signed up for my scary kettlebell classes because I believe that will help me get to Boston.

I decided to help my friend John run the race of a lifetime - the Western States 100 - the granddaddy of ultras - in June as his pacer and part of his crew. This one kind of fell into my lap as he was the one that qualified and then got drawn but I jumped into the opportunity with both feet. Then, I found an amazing medical conference on ultra running and endurance sports that takes place a couple days before the race so I jumped on that too!

Exciting stuff.

Then... I was reading some posts by my fellow Sole Sisters about finding lodging for Grandma's Marathon in Duluth in June or, more like, the lack of it and that everything was sold out already.

Arghh... I suppose I have to find lodging and make travel arrangements for all the stuff I've signed up for! Well, I tried to get a hotel room at the hotel my Wilderness Medicine conference was being held at. Sold out. Of course. The conference is next month after all. I did find a room at a hotel that is suppose to me "a two minute walk" from my conference. I got plane tickets. I still need to rent a car...

I have to figure out how to stay on track with my running while in Montana. Still working on that. I wonder how cold it is outside in Montana in February?

Derby Marathon. My husband and I are making a weekend of it. It seems like all the hotels have jacked their prices up for that weekend. Figures. I ended up using some Expedia Rewards points for a hotel in downtown Louisville. I think that should do it. Hopefully there's not anything else I need to worry about reserving for that weekend... but restaurant for Saturday after the race? Maybe?

Western States. WAY excited. WAY WAY overwhelmed. All I know is that I need to be in Squaw Valley, CA by June 23rd. Still need plane tickets. Still need to figure out where I'm staying. Still need to get the course map - it is 100 miles long after all - see who else can help us - see where the aid stations are. Plan food/nutrition/hydration, when to start pacing, who's driving and dropping off stuff...should I get lodging in Auburn (the finish)?

Then... my friend sends me an article on pacing/crewing... last sentence of the article...

"Life becomes blissfully simple when the only things in the universe are a runner, a trail and a finish line."

Ummm... I think I need a secretary to get there!