Tri-ing a Triathlon

I’m so punny it hurts sometimes. Ok, so it hurts most times, but whatever.

Because I’m apparently a glutton for punishment (though not of the 50 Shades variety, as we’ve already discussed), I have decided to register for a triathlon in August. It’s the SheROX triathlon series, and it’s all women, and it’s not too far away. And it’s a sprint, which means I probably won’t die in the process.

Here’s what my training schedule looks like, I think:

The 6 Week Basic Triathlon Program from TriFuel.com

Weeks	1	2	3	4	5	6
Mon	Swim 4x50m Easy	Swim 6x50m Easy	Swim 3x100m Steady	Swim 2x150m Steady	Swim 2x200m Steady	Swim 2x200m Easy
Tues	Bike 15min Easy	Bike 20min Easy	Bike 15min Easy	Bike 20 min Hills	Bike 20 min Hills	Bike 10 min Easy
Wed	Run 2.5km Walk-Run	Run 3km Walk-Run	Run 2.5km Walk-Run	Run 3.5km Walk-Run	Run 4km Walk-Run	Run 2km Walk-Run
Thur	Swim 200m	Swim 300m	Swim 300m	Swim 300m	Swim 400m	Swim 4x100m
Fri	Day Off	Day Off	Day Off	Day Off	Day Off	Day Off
Sat	Bike 5km Easy	Bike 8km Easy	Bike 8km Easy	Bike 10km hills with 5min easy run after	Bike 10km steady on race course with 5 min easy run after	Day Off
Sun	Run 2.5km Walk-Run	Run 3km Walk-Run	Run 2.5km Steady in hills	Run 3.5km Some Walking	Run 4km Try to run whole distance	Race

I say “I think” because I sort of haven’t started yet. And because I’ll extend it to about 12 weeks, while taking longer runs here and there to train for the half marathon in October.

There’s a lot of stuff you need for triathlons, man!

As far as equipment goes, though, I’m… how do you say… woefully unprepared. Here’s what I have:

• Running shoes, socks, sports bra, running shorts, running shirt– basically everything I need for running
• One-piece bathing suit (first one I’ve owned since 2000… weird)
• Sunglasses
• Arm band to hold my iPhone for music and MapMyRun
• Race belt to clip my number to
• Headband, since my hair’s too short for a ponytail (I can get it a third up, though! And PS- the link is to the only headband that stays on my head so I need another 10 of them.)

And here’s what I don’t have:

• Bike (though I have one I can borrow, I’d like to have my own)
• Helmet
• Bike shorts (I may be able to swing a 10-mile bike without the padded butt)
• Bike shoes? Surely, I can use sneakers, right?
• Swim cap
• Goggles
• The ability to swim normally

So I’m scouring Craigslist to see if I can find a decent bike for a decent price and need to talk to Dad about when the pool may open so I can re-learn how to swim. See, I had 2 sets of tubes in my ears when I was young, so I always had earplugs until I was 12 or so. I guess the “don’t get water in your ears!” message still sticks, because I still haven’t gotten used to the sensation. As such, I try to keep my head above water when I swim. No biggie if you’re jumping in the lake to cool off and paddle back over to the boat, but sort of an issue if you’re trying to get anywhere fast.

Anyone out there have good videos or guides for improving your stroke and getting into a good rhythm? I could use the tips!

Running with knee issues

Ow.

During a 5-miler in March, I felt a sensation similar to what I imagine it would fee like if someone tried to forcibly remove your kneecap with a crowbar. I was a measly mile in, but I’d already collected my shirt and dag-nabbit, I was going to earn it and the beer I’d already paid for. Plus, there was a medal involved, and combined with the medals from the two other races in the series, it made a wicked cool shamrock shape. Sold.

Coolest medal ever? Yes.
Worth a 2-month injury? Yes.

I tried taking it easy for a few weeks and letting it heal itself, but after about 2 months, I could still only run a mile or so before the pain was back. I was so frustrated! I had just started to like this running thing and I’d made a big deal about registering for a half marathon and running a race every month, and here I was… sidelined.

To the Google machine!

I did what anyone my age would do… I Googled until I was blue in the face to figure out what was wrong with my knee. After some serious search sessions (woooo, alliteration!), I self-diagnosed myself (I feel like Austin Powers) with IT Band Syndrome. Without getting into the detail– Google it yourself, for crying out loud!– the IT band is a strip of tissue that connects your hip bone to your knee bone/joint/whatever/I’m not a doctor. With overtraining, it can become irritated and feel like someone’s taking your kneecap off with a crowbar. Ding, ding, ding!

I searched around some more and talked to friends and learned that serious stretching and foam rolling helps a lot, as can new running shoes. I picked up some new kicks, tortured myself a bit with the foam roller, and still nothing.

Mum’s (and Dan’s) always right

They were both on my case for not seeing someone, so when I had 2 months of self-treatment under my belt with no relief, I relented. I caved and finally went to the doctor. Thank God Mum works for an orthopedic group. I’m not ashamed to admit I name-dropped to get an appointment sooner– girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

After some awkward stretching, an X-ray, and an MRI, my suspicions were confirmed: IT Band Syndrome.

The prescription was basically the same: foam roller, stretching a whole bunch. The new addition is 600 mg of ibuprofen twice a day for two weeks to help with the inflammation and potential physical therapy. I’m hesitant to jump straight into therapy because of the cost and time factor, so I’m going to ask a couple of my aunts (who are physical therapists, btw… not just randomly asking any of my aunts though they all have many and varied talents and I love them all very much) for a few specific stretches and exercises that would help. I’m trying to keep up with the stretching and roller-torture on my own, and the ibuprofen does seem to help a lot.

How about you?

Have you dealt with training injuries? Have your own spate of knee problems? Feel my pain, literally or figuratively? I’d love to hear all about it.

Instagram & Irises

I’m new to this Instagram thing, but now that the gardens are all blooming, I’m digging it a lot!

I kill most plants, so I’m glad these irises are pretty self-sustaining.

Dare I say I’ll add more photos to posts now that I’ve figured this out?

I probably just confused everyone…

So this post says I’m not vegan, but then the very next post is for vegan cookies. I’ve discovered it’s easier to find recipes to try when they’re labeled as “vegan,” so I wrote the post with people like me (searching high and low for good recipes without wacky ingredients) in mind.

I’ll probably keep doing it that way if that’s cool with everyone. If not… just pretend I said something else less offensive, m’kay?

Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

So I used to be a baker, right? One of the challenges of this new plant-based diet is figuring out how to reconcile my love for eggs and butter via baked goods with the avoidance of animal products. I’m also not a fan of using manufactured substitutes for a quick fix (who wants things to be that easy? Psht.), so I was on the hunt for a good cookie recipe.

Egg substitutes in baking

Fun fact: you can substitute 1 tablespoon of flaxmeal (ground flax seeds) plus 3 tablespoons for each egg in a baked recipe like cookies or muffins– cakes are a bit different. Same goes for half a banana per egg. Not only will you not notice the difference in taste, you won’t kill anyone with salmonella in the event you don’t cook the goody long enough. Bonus!

Milk substitutes in baking

In many circumstances, you can swap one-for-one with a  non-dairy milk for regular old milk when baking, especially for waffles and things of that nature. I’m personally a fan of Blue Diamond Almond Breeze Unsweetened almond milk, but I’ve had good success with Stop & Shop’s Nature’s Promise soy milk and rice milk. I’m not so much a fan of coconut milk, but many are. (PS- as Ree a.k.a. Pioneer Woman would say on her blog, Blue Diamond and Stop & Shop have no idea who I am. I just dig their products. Over and out. Amen.)

Now down to business.

Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from this recipe.

• 3 tablespoons (T) flax meal
• 9 T water (plus more if needed)
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon (t) baking soda
• 1 t salt
• 1 cup veggie oil (still working to find the least amount required… can probably do 3/4 cup)
• 2 1/2 cups oatmeal
• 1 cup chocolate chips (use vegan chips if desired)

1. Preheat oven to 325*.
2. In a mug or small bowl, mix flax meal with 9 T water. Set aside. In 5-10 minutes, it will have an almost egg-white texture.
3. Combine sugars, flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl (mine’s 3 quarts and fits just fine).
4. Stir in oil and flax “eggs” until combined.
5. Stir in oatmeal and chocolate chips. If the oatmeal or chocolate chips aren’t incorporating well, add a little extra water until it comes together, usually a couple tablespoons or so. Eyeball it!
6. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheet with Silpat mat or parchment paper. Don’t have those? Give it a quick spritz with cooking spray so they don’t stick.
7. Bake about 15 minutes until edges are lightly brown. Try not to eat the whole batch off the sheet, but transfer them over to wire racks to cool.
8. Serve to unsuspecting family members and watch their faces when you tell them the cookies are vegan.  Or just tell them you ran out of eggs and butter and whipped these up out of nowhere.

I have my last batch of these bad boys in the oven right now to bring into work tomorrow for the cookout we have planned. We do a “skeleton holiday” schedule so half the staff gets an extra day added to their long weekend, and the other half gets a day added to a different weekend. My boss is out tomorrow, whereas I get an extra day for the 4th of July. Sweet!

Not vegan, plant-based

We’re a big documentary family, the two of us. We’re the type to watch a movie and become totally engrossed in the topic and talk about it for days on end. Doesn’t matter if it’s the rise and fall of Imperial Russia, meth wars, Google, or Mount Everest– we love learning through the documentary format.

Our favorites are the ones about food and nutrition. What to eat, how to eat, where our food comes from, and all the regulatory issues therein fascinate the pants off us (figuratively speaking).

The movie that had the biggest impact on us, without question, is Forks Over Knives (FOK). Here’s the trailer (I’ll wait):

Taking Forks Over Knives to heart

We’re both pretty healthy people overall. We don’t eat a lot of junk, but we both knew there was room for improvement. After watching FOK, we realized there was actually room for drastic change. The basic premise of the film (in case you’re at work and unable to listen to the video above… I feel ya) is that the Western diet– full of dairy, meat, and fillers– is killing us. The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell plays a major role in the film, correlating the standard American diet with Type II diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other devastating chronic diseases. In rural China, these diseases are practically unheard of.

The movie certainly opened our eyes to what we were eating was doing to our bodies. Cancer runs on both sides of our families, so we’re open to reducing our risk factors if we can. Forks Over Knives posited that by cutting out dairy, meat, and processed foods, we could feel better, eat more, and (potentially) live longer. Rather than calling the changes in eating habits a “vegan” diet, it’s considered a “plant-strong” diet, just plain eating healthy.

Vegan-but-not-vegan

Dan was very clear we were not vegan. To him and to many, “vegan” equates with “crazy,” and I don’t blame him for wanting to add extra distance there. In reality, though, it’s basically a vegan diet, since we’ve cut out probably 90% of the animal products in our diets. I haven’t bought meat, cheese, or milk in the past 3 or so months when grocery shopping. Just about everything we eat at home would qualify as vegan.

After watching another documentary, Food, Inc., I became concerned with the conditions in factory farms and was making an effort to buy cage-free eggs, grass-fed beef, etc., but not to the point of being militant about it. I still think animals raised in humane ways are an acceptable food source and encourage people to learn more about their food sources overall, but skipping the debate altogether is just easier.

I’m not going to throw paint on your fur or leather. I’m not going to berate you about eating “flesh,” because I think that’s frankly disgusting. I’m also not above ordering meat when we’re out to eat or eating meat when we’re dining with family. Ask me about my food preferences and I’ll tell you I’m sticking to a plant-based diet and probably encourage you to give it a try to see how you like it.

Rethinking supper

Growing up like most people I know, dinner was always meat + veggie + grain/starch. The meat was always the star, and veggies were almost an afterthought. Switching to a plant-based diet meant completely reconsidering how I cook. It took a lot of searching, a lot of Pinteresting, and a lot of tinkering to get used to it, but I think we’re both pretty used to the routine. I’ve learned to cook with beans and leafy greens (both of which I rarely used before), added quinoa to the rotation, and do my best to keep trying new recipes and styles so we don’t fall into a rut.

One of the few animal-related foods I just haven’t been able to kick is ice cream. I try to only have it a couple of times per week, but since it’s my favorite dessert, it’s still tricky. I’ve tried coconut milk “ice cream,” but it didn’t sing to me. I still have to keep experimenting.

Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods have a great variety of harder-to-find ingredients, but my local Stop & Shop doesn’t quite have the same selection. Of course, TJ’s and WFM aren’t in a 5-minute drive, so they’re special trips from time to time.

Resources

• Pinterest is a great way to find new recipes. I’m able to make changes on the fly to switch out ingredients to go from vegetarian to vegan pretty easily now.
• Lindsay Nixon’s Happy Herbivore blog is great, and I have to pick up her cookbook at the library tomorrow.
• The Engine 2 Diet has been great, since the author (Rip Esselstyn) is a former professional triathlete and current (I think!) Austin, TX firefighter. Rip gets Dan’s stamp of approval, and Dan’s even started reading a bit of the book I checked out of the library.

Go plant-strong, I dare you! Be sure to let me know what you think.

50 Shades of Blah

When I realized I was babysitting three nights in a row last week, I caved and bought 50 Shades of Grey for my Nook, knowing I’d read after the kids went to bed. Since I don’t live under a rock, I’ve been hearing about the book for a while now, and thought I’d see what all the fuss was about. I read it over the course of three nights.

By the third night, I was so ready for it to be over. If you want to give it a read yourself or are a hard-core 50 Shades fan, you may want to stop reading. Spoiler alerts ahead! Oh, and language alert ahead… only using what’s used in the book, but fair warning.

50 Shades vs. Twilight

I’ve read the Twilight Saga. I’ve enjoyed the Twilight Saga in book form and the absolute hilarity the movies provided (so bad they’re good). Apparently E.L. James, the author of 50 Shades, originally penned the stories as Twilight fan fiction. Word on the street is that she revised the manuscript to remove the references to characters, but most of it is essentially the same. Allow me to illustrate:

• Heroine is a naive, absurdly clumsy brunette who drives a beat-up car repaired by her friend and doesn’t believe she’s good-looking.
• Hero is a moody, ridiculously attractive, insanely rich control freak with copper-colored hair who drives marginally interesting cars (not really), and is fully aware of the effect he has on people.
• Story takes place in the Pacific Northwest, namely Washington state.
• Heroine is strangely obsessed with Victorian fiction.
• Hero plays melancholy piano and has a lot of art.
• Heroine has a flighty mother with many husbands and hobbies who lives in a warm, Southern state. She’s close with her father figure, who’s taciturn though tender.
• Hero has warm, kind parents who welcome the heroine into the family instantly. He also has a charming brother and sister who’s seriously excited to have her brother dating.
• Heroine has a male friend of a different ethnicity who wants to be more than friends and a bubbly female friend who gets all the guys.

And I’m sure I’m missing a few, but all of these are seriously off the top of my head. Close enough? I’m not proclaiming to be a Twi-Hard of any measure, but the striking similarities really bugged me.

The drinking game/bingo

The biggest issue I had with 50 Shades of Grey was the writing. I saw somewhere on the web that E.L. James joked about how she isn’t a good writer in an interview. She’s not kidding. I get that there are only so many words in the English language and thus so many combinations and permutations of those words, but come on. I should also point out that E.L. James is a British author and her book takes place in the States… but I blame her editor not catching the changes in phrasing.

I did what anyone would do: I made a drinking game. In public? Call it bingo if public intoxication is frowned upon wherever you are (the kids’ soccer game, perhaps?).

Drink when:

• Ana rolls her eyes
• Christian comments on the… uhh… relative humidity… of her… umm… basement
• Someone gasps
• A British-ism is used instead of the American phrase
• Ana says she’s not hungry or doesn’t want to eat
• Or she bites her bottom lip
• They have sex
• Ana says, “Oh my!”
• Ana says, “Holy fuck (or shit)!”
• Ana has an orgasm
• Ana’s Inner Goddess does something
• Christians uses or signs an email, “Laters, babe.”

5 page drunk guarantee.

General frustration (not of the sexual variety)

The Nook version of 50 Shades of Grey is 391 pages long. I think 300 of those pages involve the two main characters having sex or planning to have sex as soon as possible. It’s great that their sex life is off to a rip-roaring start, really. I’ll be the first to admit the first 100 pages of it was hot. The next 100 pages was less so, and the last 100 pages was eye-roll-inducing (no spanking required for me, thanks).

In those 391 pages, the contract (more details below) between Ana and Christian is discussed ad nauseam, and the thing still isn’t signed by the end. Come to find out, they never sign it. Why waste all the discussion? That’s like 200 pages!

A lot of the discussion of the series surrounds the inclusion of a BDSM relationship between the two main characters. The contract Christian puts forth covers all sorts of erotic guidelines, mostly involving the pleasure/pain/punishment parameters (alliteration, heyo!) so we expect to read a fair amount of spanking, etc. When Ana decides she loves Christian but wants “more,” she agrees to let him punish her in exchange for him trying harder at a normal relationship. Then she leaves when he hits her with a belt. I’m sorry, what now? Yeah, he hits her with a belt and she gets all upset and leaves even though it’s outlined in the contract they’ve agonized over for the past million pages.

Finally, there’s suspension of disbelief. I can believe that there’s a parallel universe where witches and wizards exist and they have a Ministry of Magic to hide their abilities from non-magic folk. I can believe Greek gods exist and procreate with mortals to produce half-bloods capable of saving the world. I can believe some waitress from Louisiana can have an iota of fairy blood and thus be ridiculously attractive to vampires, while at the same time having shape-shifter friends. Hell, I can believe James Bond. But a college senior without an email address and a cell phone in 2011? Give me a break.

Where you’ll find me

I’d rather spend my time reading the Tumblr 50 Shades of Suck, which I have already done. I’d also like to offer you these two morsels of comedic genius (Gilbert’s NSFW).

Gilbert Gottfried reads 50 Shades of Grey

http://www.jest.com/e/174214

SNL spoof: get mom 50 Shades on Kindle for Mothers’ Day!
http://www.nbc.com/assets/video/widget/widget.html?vid=1400037

Fire Wife

Warning: this is a long one! And it’s serious compared to most of my other chit-chat. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

I’ve told you guys that Dan is a firefighter, right? And an EMT? And basically my hero? I might not have explicitly stated that last one, but I’m sure it’s been implied in the past. He worked 72 hours straight this weekend, so all of this has been on my mind.

He went to a military college and was in Army ROTC for four years. Because he didn’t have a scholarship from the Army department, he wasn’t required to serve after graduation. The commission-or-not-commission was a discussion we had to have relatively early in our relationship, and it required us to think hard on our future. I’d be lying if I said I encouraged him to commission. Truth be told, I wanted him home with me. We’d already been in a long-distance relationship and would have had to keep doing it for years to come, and I was selfish. I didn’t want to share him with the Army. I didn’t want to have to move our someday-kids all over the place.

And Dan agreed, and didn’t commission. But something was missing for him: the brotherhood of his training days, feeling like he was a part of something bigger than himself, serving our community and our country. So he took the Civil Service test and we started the waiting game to see if he’d be hired as a firefighter. We were thrilled when he was hired on the department in the town where we grew up.

At the beginning, it was a romantic notion. I’ve always been a sucker for a man in uniform, and here was a ready-made opportunity. The whole department and their families embraced us right away, and we felt like we’d been part of the gang for years. Everyone loves firefighters, right? They’re always there to save the day. Courage, determination, honor, bravery, selflessness, all of the best qualities of humanity rolled into one neat package. Our town isn’t well-known for having many fires, so it would be safe.

Then he responded to suicide attempts. Then he was on duty (though thankfully not out on the run) for a hostage situation. Then there was a brush fire. And a tanker rollover and explosion (again, not out on the run) in a neighboring town. It started to dawn on me that this career was more dangerous– not just physically, but mentally– than I’d imagined. Finally, there were two line-of-duty deaths in nearby communities.

Those two men left for work in the morning expecting a day like any other. Something on the fire ground went wrong, and it was all over in an instant. What you may not know about firefighters is that they’re not only connected with the other men and women on their department, they’re connected with every single other firefighter in the world. They’re there to support one another in times of celebration and in times of sorrow. It’s one of the most amazing, heartbreaking things I’ve ever seen.

We went to Colorado between Christmas and New Year’s, and while we were there, we tracked down the fallen firefighters memorial in Colorado Springs. It was there I truly realized how much sacrifice the career demands. I was overwhelmed, and couldn’t explain it to Dan further than saying, “there are too many names” when looking at the memorial walls.

I had the opportunity to see BURN: A Year in the Battle to Save Detroit recently at the Independent Film Festival of Boston, and I was so impressed with how well the film was done. The directors were embedded with a firehouse in Detroit for about a year and focused on three of the men and their stories. It was one of the most accurate depictions of real life in the fire service that I’ve seen, from my experience. After the viewing, the audience had an opportunity to ask questions of the directors and producers (one of whom was Denis Leary, who I met and got an autograph for the department!). I asked if they had the opportunity to get to know the families at all. The directors smiled at one another knowingly, and said that there just wasn’t enough time to show it in the film, but they loved meeting the families, and added that there should probably be another documentary done about fire wives.

And that’s me. I’m a fire wife. It’s not about giving up my identity as myself to assume part of Dan’s. It’s that his career choice requires more from his family than others might. I imagine it’s the same for military wives, though I’d never presume to know what they go through.

What it feels like, though, is that he’s deployed for 2 out of every 8 days for the next 30 years. The difference is that I can stop by and say hi (I’m more welcome when I bring goodies, though everyone says I’m trying to make them fat), or I can call him and see what’s up, and I should be able to see him again at 7:30 the next morning. I’m still sleeping alone, making sure the alarm’s set, and stashing my rifle from color guard (really just a block of wood) under my bed for safekeeping. You can laugh– it sounds ridiculous, I know– but I’m not the only one of the wives that does this. All of the ones I’ve talked to have basically the same routine, with tweaks where kids are involved. There will be missed birthdays, anniversaries, Christmases, and Easters, but that’s part of the job.

There are also the nights out, cookouts, retirement banquets, and camaraderie that doesn’t come as part of my marketing job. There’s a bond there, more or less unspoken, that we’re extended family and if anything should happen we’d immediately be there to help pick up the pieces-.

In the end, we wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world. And from what I’ve heard, it’s a rare firefighting family that would.