Chatty Cha

Even though I’m no longer on Paleo, I have ingrained myself to think grain-free (see what I did there?). My family (meaning siblings and parents) mostly wonder how you can sustain such a life. well, my brother has been on South Beach, so he gets it. but, i do think my felow clan members are all carb addicts and i still marvel how things have changed since I was a kid, living in a household where white rice was served at every evening meal.

We don’t even keep white rice in the house these days, as I’ve probably mentioned before. The kiddo vacuums the stuff up when given the chance. Pretty soon i will really need to make a real effort to manage her carb intake so as to not repeat the mistakes of predecessors. For now I create substitutions likes using spaghetti squash instead of spaghetti. Or making cauliflower rice instead of rice. Fine for some meals. But, sometimes if a meal calls for rice, nothing else will do.

And so was the case with this meal. I created a sweet and sour marinade that included soy sauce, tamari, brown sugar green onions and various other spices and poured it over a whole fryer. Slow cooker and 4ish hours later this sucker was falling off the bone. Would have been great over a small bed of white rice. Would have been good over brown rice. But instead I cuisinarted cauliflower, pan-fried it with some five-spice and while it was okay, it wasn’t the same. Husband didn’t complain, though. And he will tell me if he doesn’t like it. Kiddo wasn’t impressed. It’s that carb-addict gene she got from me.

sweet and sour chicken with cauliflower rice

The chicken finished cooking before I was ready. Slow-cooker timing can be tricky when you can’t count properly.

Slow cooker Recipe from NYMSCC.
Cauliflower rice recipe from NomNomPaleo. Don’t get me wrong. I like it, just not this day.

Helen:
16 kettlebell (35)
Blue & purple bands
11:21

The kiddo is quite fond of the book: Tales For Very Picky Eaters. One tale mentions mushroom lasagna. Kiddo asked if we could have mushroom lasagna. Sure, I said.
I haven’t made lasagna probably since the 90s. Which is funny, because it was my thing back in the day. I clearly remember making it in college and feeding it to the roommate at the end of some fasting Jewish high holiday. Spinach was the specialty.
More recently this recipe has gone on the wayside. Too much pasta, and seriously, who needs that much cheese? Also, the husband has never been fond of lasagna so why bother.
Until now! The challenge here was the mushrooms. I ended up going for a very mushroomy sauce. Browned ground turkey, threw it in the slow cooker with a shredded carrot, chopped onion, mushrooms (lots of them), a large can of whole tomatoes (would have preferred crushed but I made a mistake and bought the wrong can). Tomato paste, Italian herbs.
Whole wheat lasagna, and a 8×8 baking pan. Ditched the mozzarella and instead shredded parm reg into the ricotta mixture and shredded some more on top (and some crumbled Zola-Gouda).

I used half the sauce for the lasagna. In addition I roasted a spaghetti squash for a low-carb option to pair with the rest of the sauce.

I did hear the kiddo say, “This. Is. Amazing.” But then she proceeded to only eat the pasta. Husband did eat it, hooray, and so we have less leftovers than expected. Was fun to have but I’m glad I made the squash, too. Not going to keep this in the repertoire. No one needs that much food, but it was fun to whip out an old recipe (from memory!) and lighten it up some.

When my sister told me that BolderBoulder is like a big, long party, she wasn’t kidding. Sure, the elites take it seriously. But a ton of the participants seem to go for the crazy antics. A few were dressed in costumes. Spotted a banana, grapes, gorilla head, and plenty of tutus. More impressive were the spectators along the route path. Tons of hoses to cool us off (did I mention it was in the 80s?) plus others daring runners to partake in “performance enhancement drugs” such as otter pops, Doritos, pancake syrup (wha?), and, my favorite, cupcakes. Plus, a slip ‘n’ slide.

But, lets get on with it. The race. Lets preface this with I didn’t train as well as I could have. I had my concerns with the altitude (sea level is for sissies, they say) and I was recovering from both the stomach flu and a cold/bad rattle kind of coughing thing (which I still have, btw). I also shouldn’t discount the fact that this was my first out-of-state race. While my sis’ home, where I stayed, is pretty much as welcoming and comfortable as i can get without being at home, stocked with everything you could ask for, it was a little bit different than my notmal routine, and to rely on someone else who organized the trip just took me out of my element. Not to say i wasnt soo grateful for that (thanks, sis!) Ultimately what affected me most was something I could control and something I couldn’t. One, my prerace eating plan was not well thought out. I did have the eggs, toast w/PB that is normal for me, but the timing was off, and then I forgot to pack a GU with me at the start line. Two, it was hot. Like, Africa hot. Or, just Boulder hot, and there was no way I could have trained for that. As a result, by mile 3 I had a side stitch and at the4K marker I had to stop and walk. I proceeded to stop at least 2 more times (not including water stops, which I took miles 2 -5) to walk a few meters.

Something I was prepared for … The hills. For some reason I had envisioned a very hilly course, but in reality there were just a few smallish hills. The course summit, which came at the start of mile 5, actually motivated me and I ran my fastest mile at that point. The final hill, on the way to the stadium that leads to the finish, was the most annoying, but not anything I couldn’t handle, even if it was at a slow pace. Nothing will ever beat the hill at the Seattle Rock and Roll Half turning the corner at mile 5 or so and seeing a giant “real” hill in front of you.

At any rate, I had a great time. So glad that I could do this race with my sis. “Who won?”, the husband asked when I called him after the race. Well, it’s not like we were competing or anything, but if you must know. I beat my sis. Or, as the kiddo would say, “Haha, I win! You lose.” (We’re trying to teach her sportsmanship, really we are). The first time i went running with my sister i was probably in 7th grade. I was chunky and unathletic, and she ran cross country and did track. I couldn’t make it more than a few blocks before heading home. That maybe was the last time i ran with her, too. Of course that was 25 years ago and I finally figured some stuff out. And, these days Sis is recovering from injuries and all … But, you know, just thought I’d point that out. I was faster than her, just this once.

Final details: time: 1:11.20
Pace: 11:28
Fastest: 10:44, mile 5
Slowest: 12:25, mile 4
Overall place: 21,845
Woot!

And by girls I mean Chelsea and/or Cindy. I was one of the few that couldn’t maintain the EMOM rhythm that Chelsea demands… Ah well.

If you can’t read the workout, the unreadable, scaled workout is the AMRAP version (5 pull ups, 10 pushups, 15 air squats). What slowed me down is trying to maintain full pushups for as long as I could.

Wendler was tough, too. Deadlift, with my last set completing just 1 rep.

Getting sick and rundown…