9 February 10: Gluten Free-Vegan Super Bowl Treats!

First, thank you everyone for your lovely messages about both my health and my new bike! Wow, I have been overwhelmed with people’s enthusiasm for my new ride! Hope to do all of you and Wilier proud on it. As for my health, I am nearly 100%. I even managed a couple runs on the treadmill over the weekend; those machines come in especially handy at times like this because of their forgiving surface. AND Coach Muffin is in town . . . So all is well!

On Sunday we went over to Sam’s for a Super Bowl party. Now, I am not an NFL fan, and in fact before this party about all I knew about this game was that fellow Trojan Reggie Bush would be taking part. For me, the Super Bowl meant a chance to catch up with friends and an excuse to make up a new “healthy” recipe. Involving Ricemellow Creme. I discovered this product at our local Natural Foods Co-op while I was trying to figure out how to make a vegan and gluten-free peanut butter-chocolate rice krispy treat extravaganza. Yes, everything is more fun when it is an extravaganza.

Anyways, Sam is trying to eat gluten-free, and Maiki and I are on the vegan project, so I tried to make a “dessert” that everyone could eat. A couple more of my fave fellow pros, Kim Loeffler and Amanda Lovato, are also in town for a training camp–so they and TJ and Coach Muffin were subjected to my experiment as well. My Super Bowl Bars got pretty good reviews, so I thought I would share the recipe here.

Gluten Free-Vegan Peanut Butter-Carob Super Bowl Treats

Ingredients:

12 cups rice puffs cereal **not Rice Krispies–what you want is a cereal that says “ingredients: (organic) brown rice.”

1 10 oz. package Carob Chips

1 tablespoon coconut oil

3x 10 oz tubs of Suzanne’s Ricemellow Creme (If you can get your hands on vegan marshmallows, you can melt those and use them instead.)

1x 16 oz. jar of natural peanut butter (ingredients: roasted peanuts and salt)

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine carob chips and rice puffs. Grease two 9×13 pans with coconut oil. Set these aside.

Heat the ricemellow creme on the stove until hot. Remove from heat and stir in the peanut butter until completely mixed.

Dump the peanut butter-mellow mixture into the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix until it looks like the above! Then press into the 9×13 pans (These ingredients make two pans of treats!) with a greased (coconut oil again) spatula or piece of wax paper. Let cool and then cut.

**I should note here that my mission for next time is to attempt to toast the rice puffs in the oven first. These bars don’t have the crunch of rice krispy treats because this sort of natural cereal isn’t toasted. If you try this, let me know how it goes!

7 February 10: My New Ride!

As most of you probably guessed, I have a new ride! Yes, I am taking the leap and changing bikes, and this is my beautiful new one…This year I will be riding the Wilier Tri-Crono. Some of you may recognize this bike because my dear friend and 3x Ironman Champ Chris McDonald (a.k.a. Big Sexy) has been riding this bike for a year now. Since I had been on the same bike for three years, making a switch was scary, but when it comes to bikes, Big Sexy’s word goes a long way with me! So needless to say, my trusty mechanic Patrick has a big bike-building job tomorrow, and I cannot wait to get on my new ride this week.

I have will also switch from my beloved pink saddle to a white one to match my new bike–but this is just an aesthetic change, because I will never, ever part with my ISM Adamo Road saddle. After many, many tries with various saddles, I saw a picture of this funny saddle in a magazine four years ago now. I had imagined what my most-comfortable dream saddle would look like, but had never seen one in reality–and there it was! I tracked down Steve, the inventor, convinced him to send one to me in Brasil (where I was training at the time) and I’ve never looked back–because five hours in the aero position had never been so comfortable. These saddles rock. For those of you who are still struggling with discomfort in your bike seat, I would highly recommend giving one of these a try.

If you look at the pro bike rack at an ironman these days, you will see that those of us whose day job takes place in the saddle tend to have a preference for ISM! And guess who else also seems share this preference?

I’ll give you a hint: he’s a pretty famous American cyclist who has won a big race in France a few times. And recent pics of his new time trial bike show that he will be using the same lovely white saddle as my new one . . .

Check out Lance Armstrong’s Twitter or this youtube video with pics of his new ride. Pretty cool stuff.

5 February 10: Bikes and things…

Maiki isn´t the only one who gets presents from the UPS guy! Look what was waiting for me when we came home from our swim session this evening . . .

You will have to wait til tomorrow for pics and details of what´s inside . The good news is that although my knee was not run-able today, it is much improved; we moved our long ride up a day, and I was able to survive a few hours on the back of the German Pain Train. It was a happy place to be! The GCM took me on my first Madera Canyon visit . . . Yes, I know, I live in Tucson, and hence this ride should be a staple. But when you´re only here for a month at a time, there isn´t much need for ride variety.

We followed that up with a sprint-fest in the pool with our neighbors Sam (McGlone) and TJ Tollakson, who has just arrived back in Tucson to stay for a couple months–yay for that! Long story short, my bed is calling, and with any luck, I will be resting up for a treadmill smashfest tomorrow!

4 February 10: Master of Disaster

For some reason, Maiki has taken to referring to our friend Matty Lieto as the “Master of Disaster.” I have no idea why, or what exactly he imagines that this phrase means. I am learning it’s best not to question these things, however, because then he stops using his cutest phrases, such as, “Me too not.”

My point is that he should be calling me, rather than Matty, the “Master of Disaster.” It started last Thursday when I came down with the stomach flu and was unable to get out of bed til Sunday morning. I still couldn’t shake this weird dizziness, though . . . Just flip-turning in the pool had me seasick and not knowing which end was up after each wall. Even rolling over in bed sent the world spinning. For awhile I thought I was still just weak from being sick, until I realized that waking up face-to-face with the bathroom floor after passing out and falling during this illness probably also involved hitting my head. Concussion. Duh.

Tuesday things were looking up, and I got to enjoy my first truly hard workout in awhile, courtesy of my lovely neighbor, Sam McGlone. She is just back from a month of training in Maui, and kept me honest for a little cycling time trial-sufferfest. It was a pretty big shock to my system, but it felt good to push the pace a bit, and I was thrilled just to be able to do so….It’s amazing how a week of illness and easy training seems like an eternity!

But then I woke up yesterday morning and my world was spinning again. Since I had seemingly been improving on Tuesday, I thought that once I got up and moving this feeling would go away. I had a long run to do. I like to get it done early in order to allow as much recovery time as possible and maximize my chances of keeping up with the kidlets in the pool in the afternoon (FORD Aquatics swim practice). But yesterday I paced the house/ laid on the floor for THREE hours trying to collect myself and get out the door. Once this time exceeds 60 minutes, the GCM starts to wonder what the heck is wrong . . .

This is what I was afraid of:

And that in fact was my knee post long-run. And no, that did not happen on the trails. Apparently, I am stupid. But not that stupid. Yet I tripped over a crack on the bike path. Apparently, running on a concussion should be done on a treadmill in a carpeted room. I’ve fallen off one of those and it didn’t hurt that bad. Instead, I was running around the neighborhood for an hour and a half after the crack tried to take me out, looking like that, with a matching elbow.

None of it hurt too much until I swam on that knee for two hours, and even with one-legged flip turns (which really made me angry, since I was going head-to-head with the GCM all workout and he got a bodylength on me on every wall, then I would crush myself for 25 yards to catch back up, and repeat . . .), my knee ended up looking like this:

It is a good thing today was scheduled to be an easy day, because I am going to tackle these issues with the triple-punch of acupuncture with Dan Taylor at Tucson Acupuncture, a chiropractic treatment with Dr. Eric at The Joint, and then finally my weekly massage with from our dear friend Bill. Fingers crossed that the disasters are done and I will be able to hit it hard this weekend!

1 February 10: Banana Oatmeal Pancake Extravaganza

My good news is that yesterday I was finally able to get out of bed. The bad news is that, after two days now of swim-bike-run, I still feel like I have done none of the three ever before. Matty, since he is our resident stomach-flu expert, has assured me that these feelings will soon disappear. I hope he is right. Any more discussion or thought about this problem isn’t going to help things, so on to cooking . . .

The boys had been taking care of me for three days, so the least I could do was to make them a post-run treat: banana-oatmeal-chocolate chip pancakes. I sort of made up this recipe yesterday, and they said it was a success, so I thought I would share. In fact, Matty says he is going to start cooking these and taking them with him in plastic bags for bike ride-fuel.

This was his creation: pancake with almond-flaxseed butter and strawberry jam on top!

Maiki is a peanut-butter monster….

He was a happy camper.

This is not a vegan recipe; we have things like eggs in the house right now because of our houseguest. Still, besides the chocolate chips, these pancakes are pretty healthy. I will try to make a vegan version and post the recipe here if it works!

Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Pancake Extravaganza

Ingredients:

2 cups soymilk

1 1/2 cups quick  cooking rolled oats

1 1/2 chopped large bananas (That was all we had in our kitchen–more might be better!)

1 teaspoon vanilla

cinnamon–I just threw a bunch in!

1 1/2 cups oat flour

4 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon salt

4 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 egg whites

chocolate chips–as many as you like, or none at all!

This is what you do–it is really quick and easy:

Heat the soymilk until hot, then stir in oats, bananas, vanilla, and cinnamon, and let stand for five minutes. Combine the remaining dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, and then add the hot mixture and the oil. Mix. Beat the egg yolks and then combine with the batter. It will be quite thick and chunky.

Drop a heap of batter on the pan and then spread it out to pancake-thickness. Drop chocolate chips onto the cake as desired. Cook til golden brown then flip! This recipe makes four big pancakes.

30 January 10: The Glamorous Life . . .

Although I will never complain about being able to call triathlon my job, I think it’s only fair that I share its high and low points here. Sometimes the challenge in making a living at this sport extends beyond the 9:30+ hours on race day and the months of preparation for that event:

http://www.slowtwitch.com/News/Team_Challenge_takes_2009_Barcelona_organizer_to_court_1188.html

29 January 10: Special Gifts for Me!

Cloudy, rainy days in Tucson are a novelty. I just had to bring the waterproof camera out for our morning jog yesterday because I love the way the trails look so different in this weather.

It turns out that our friend Matty brought a special gift for me: the stomach flu! My Wednesday workouts were harder than they should have been given what my Garmin and the pace clock were telling me, and then yesterday Matty and I got in an easy jog before this bug knocked me out. Not fun. On top of the normal discomfort of being sick, I think that being sick as an athlete is even more miserable, because I add additional torture to what my stomach is doing by lying there worrying about missing training and what this will do to my preparation.

The good news is that I have just graduated to the couch and have had my eyes open for the last two consecutive hours. So I think I am on the comeback trail . . . 

This morning I woke up to another special gift. While I was feeling too terrible to know what day it was, the GCM visited me in my sick bed with a bright pink bag. Turns out it is our 10-month anniversary. My sweet GCM gifted me a pair of the ultimate in “cycling trousers”–Assos–with a note that said that he hopes that they make my rides on the back of the German Pain Train a bit less painful.

Now I’m just hoping I can get rid of gift #1 so that I can get out and enjoy gift #2!

26 January 10: Matty’s here!!!

Last night the GCM and I received a special delivery from Bend, Oregon: our dear friend Matty Lieto (of beaver hunting fame)!! 

Of course he brought his Trek for some sunshiney bike riding . . . He is here for a couple weeks of training and we are SO excited to have a new training partner–and another person to serve coffee from our new machine. Matty’s order this morning: a large coffee with two espresso shots in it. Now that’s our kind of guy!

This is Matty threatening to take revenge on the GCM for dropping him in the first few miles of the ride at Ironman Lake Placid last summer.

The conversation went something like this:

Matty: “Payback’s a . . . “

GCM: “Payback? What is ‘payback’?”

But clearly he is really excited to have someone else besides me to ride with . . .

24 January 10: Run Camp: Check!

Flashback to another epic day for running . . . 2008 Ironman Lake Placid

After two runs and an easy swim today, run camp is officially complete. The forecast for today–particularly for today’s treadmill intervals–was not good. Yesterday I spent all afternoon pretty much glued to the couch, without energy even to make the phone calls on the list I had sitting in front of me. My legs felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to them.

Thanks to my lovely other half, I had a healthy dinner delivered to me on the couch. He was tired too, but whipped up a mixed-veggie salad and soy cheese pizza. I am not sure if it was the dinner, the quality time on the foam roller last night, or about eighteen straight hours in compression socks, but somehow my legs emerged from yesterday’s beating stronger than ever.

Today I went to the treadmill angry, thinking about how sick I am of not running fast. I wanted to run fast (Yes, I realize this is a relative term, but I mean fast for me.) in the half marathon last Sunday, and regardless of the reason, the net result was that I didn’t. My legs were heavy then and only seemed to get heavier with each additional one of this week’s countless runs. As a coach, I can step back and realize that these miles don’t really sink in and come to benefit me until the run legs get a little rest.

But as an athlete, I was out of patience. I decided that it was time to stop being sick of not running fast and to just run fast. Even if this “speed” only lasted through one interval. Blowing myself up after a couple of intervals wouldn’t exactly have been according to Coach’s plan for today, but I took the risk. I had to.

Mind over matter worked miracles on the treadmill today. Long story short, on the most unlikely of days, my last few intervals were done at increasing speeds, all of which I have never before seen while running on a treadmill. Run Camp: Check!

23 January 10: What doesn’t kill you . . .

You know the saying. It’s one of my favorites. And it came in quite handy on today’s run. You see, this weekend marks the end of my run block and my run legs have definitely seen better days.

I had a plan for today’s long run that made me really excited. I didn’t care how tired my legs were; I wanted to finish run camp with a run up Mt. Lemmon. That’s 25 miles on the road up a mountain, starting at about 3.000 feet above sea level and ending at over 8,000. You’ve read here about our rides up the mountain; this ride is one of our favorites. But every time I am riding up it, I think, “Why not run?” It was one of my training goals for this winter.

And it seemed a great way to stick the final fork in me at the end of this run camp. But a silly winter storm foiled my plan. As of late last night, the road up the mountain was closed because of the snow and ice up high. I was afraid of getting to the top with no way to get down–and no, I don’t think 25 miles downhill on asphalt would be beneficial to the run legs at this point. So I decided Coachie and I were going to have to find a way to fit this run into a training week in the next month or two.

I then promptly asked my faithful run partner, Doug (most recently of 2:39 first-marathon fame), to come up with a local alternative challenge. “How long?” he asked.

“I don’t care–I just want an adventure!”

As we were “running” up a wall disguised as a road on the side of a mountain and I gasped, “If this were an ultra, I would be walking right now!” Doug reminded me that I asked for an adventure.

Right. I did get what I requested–and I should note that those were about the only words I uttered in the last 30 minutes or so of the climb . . . In pursuit of a radio tower on top of the highest peak we could see from our neighborhood, we ran for nearly two hours, the final 30+ of which I could have walked and moved just as quickly. But this was training, and I had no ultramarathon distance for which to save energy, so I figured, the harder the better, and carried on with my best running impression. About halfway through the steep bit, I was sure my calves were going to simply fail any minute. Even before the steep hills started, my legs were feeling semi-paralyzed (=smashed to the extent of having inhibited range of motion), so this was a great test of my “If it’s there, I can run it–and why the heck not?” theory.

What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.

We made it! It required sneaking through the richie-rich gated community, climbing through a couple other gates with “No Trespassing” signs, and running up, up, up a mountain road that could have done with several more switchbacks . . . But once we arrived at the top, not only were we treated to insane views of the beautiful, snowy mountain where I had planned to be running, we got snowed on ourselves! The snow started to fall as soon as we reached the top. Doug says he’ll carry the camera next time, so once my legs’ memory of today’s sufferfest has faded a bit, we will venture back up and record the details.

It was indeed an awesome running adventure!