Archives for October 2012

Pre-Race Jitters

October 19, 2012 by Erica

Tomorrow morning I’m heading down to Moab, Utah with five girlfriends to run The Other Half on Sunday.

As I mentioned before, this is my first half marathon, and my training hasn’t exactly gone as planned. I’ve been injured for over a month, and my longest run was 9 miles, rather than the 12 I was hoping to build up to. So it’s with some definite nerves that I’m looking forward to Sunday.

On the bright side, that 9-mile long run was also down in Moab, during a super-fun weekend with my parents in September.

And it was beautiful. The red rock just astounds me, similar to the way I felt about the Wasatch mountains when I first moved to Salt Lake. (They were so beautiful I couldn’t take my eyes off of them, and was even afraid I would crash my car on the way home from work because I was so distracted by the scenery!) Well, I don’t think the red rock will make me run into anything on Sunday, but the gorgeous nature I know I’ll be running through makes me very excited for the race, despite my doubts about my fitness.

I’ve watched a few videos of the 2011 race to psych myself up for Sunday. And what I’ve concluded is that 13.1 miles is long! Not that I didn’t know that before, but watching the mile markers roll by in the videos just emphasizes how many of them there are. One video showed lots of runners walking by about mile 10… and I can’t help but think I’ll be among that group.

So what’s my race strategy?

– Start out with the 2:00 pace group (9:09 miles) and stay with them for as long as I can.

– Walk and drink water at every aid station (located every 2 miles).

– Skip the Gu they’re handing out and instead take 2 Shot Bloks each at miles 6 and 10 (plus I’m bringing 2 extras). I’ve cut the Shot Blocks in half to make them easier to chew, and am going to pin this Ziploc bag of them inside of my shorts.

– If I reach a point where my legs, lungs, etc. can’t carry me any further, stop to walk for as long as necessary (but preferably for only a minute or two at a time).

– If my knee is in serious pain or I feel like I might be doing permanent damage to it, drop out of the race at the next aid station.

– Wear a hat and lots of sunscreen!

I’ve promised Nate I won’t hurt myself, so I’m going to do my best to stick to that. As happy as I’ll be if I can jog the whole race, I also hope to have many more decades of running to look forward to, which is much more important than finishing one half marathon. I’m not putting much pressure on myself, because I know I’m injured and can’t do my best. Oh, and I’ve sworn not to race or train hard for the next year so that I can build up a base and not injure myself next time!

We’ll see what Sunday brings!

Vegan Pumpkin Muffins with Banana and Carrot

October 18, 2012 by Erica

Muffins! If you didn’t know already, I’m telling you: You need a fall muffin recipe, and this is it.

This definitely falls into the category of “write this recipe down so I don’t forget it myself” blog posts. I wasn’t really setting out to create something new when I baked these muffins this weekend, but they were so good that I just have to share!

I had planned on making pumpkin pancakes for Saturday morning… but woke up feeling decidedly anti-pancake. Nate suggested muffins – sounded much more delicious – so I scanned my breakfast Pinterest board for muffin recipes. I wanted pumpkin (did I get carried away when I bought several huge cans at Smith’s the other day? hmmm) but I couldn’t really find anything that I had the ingredients for and looked tasty. So I mashed up these summery muffins from Eat, Live, Run with what I had in my fridge, and the result was delicious! These are kind of like banana bread meets carrot cake meets pumpkin muffin. And bonus – they’re vegan and you would NEVER know it. I didn’t use any walnuts here, but will probably add a half cup next time!

Vegan Pumpkin Muffins with Banana and Carrot

Adapted from Eat, Live, Run, who adapted it from The Black Dog Summer on the Vineyard Cookbook

makes 9-10 muffins

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup spelt flour

3/4 cup old fashioned oats

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp clove

2 ripe to overripe bananas

1/3 cup canned pumpkin

1/2 cup maple syrup

1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used canola)

2 medium-sized carrots, grated

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients (flour, oats, baking soda, salt and spices).

In another bowl, mash the bananas (with a fork is fine). Add the pumpkin, maple syrup and oil and stir until combined.

Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir to combine. Gently mix in the grated carrots.

Grease muffin tins and fill 90% of the way full with batter. Bake for about 25 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven and serve.

Enjoy!

The Elliptical.

October 16, 2012 by Erica

I used to scoff at Salt Lake City gym-goers. We live in Utah, people… who wants to be sweating in a stinky basement when you could be outside in the mountains? Wellllll I had to put my foot in my mouth recently when I walked into Planet Fitness, signed my name on the dotted line, and hopped on the elliptical.

My first half marathon is coming up – eek! – this weekend, and I managed to hurt my knee about 5 weeks ago. My training was going really well, too, and I was finally starting to think I could actually run 13.1 miles! But the pain in my knee cap, once it started, got worse until I couldn’t train through it anymore. Now I’m not so sure I can run 13.1 miles… but I think I’m still going to try. Hence my new BFF: the elliptical.

I did most of my workouts on the elliptical during college and the few years afterwards. I had a lot of knee pain then, similar to what I have now, and even had knee surgery in 2009. It’s really just been the past year that my knee has let me get back into running. I never hated the gym, but I’ve really fallen back in love with running in the past year, and the thought of trading in my weekend trail runs for a blinking machine was really hard!

I’ve been trying to make the elliptical fit my half marathon training plan – doing 4-5 workouts a week, and doing the same duration as I would have if I were running. That means usually 30-40 minutes a day, but also means a “long run” on the weekends. 90 minutes of dripping sweat onto the elliptical… that was my Sunday morning! But you know what? It hasn’t been that bad! I think my Kindle makes it just slightly bearable. (Did I mention I read A Tale of Two Cities in a week?) It also doesn’t hurt that I’m definitely half asleep for the first half of my workout.

My knee has been feeling fine, and often it actually feels better after a workout. This weekend I tried out a 3 mile run to see how my knee could handle it, and came to the conclusion that it probably won’t keep me from jogging the whole race this weekend (knock on wood!). My prediction is that the first half of the race will be fun, and the second half will be HARD. I was also unreasonably sore after my little 3 mile run, so don’t count on me going down any stairs come Monday!

I should also mention I’ve been icing and foam rolling like crazy, and have gotten a few massages to loosen the muscles of my left quad. I found an awesome massage school in Salt Lake that has super discounted prices – $25 for 50 minutes with a student masseuse – now that’s a bargain! I’ve got another massage tomorrow, and if it buys me even 1 more pain-free mile on Sunday, it will be worth it.

Sooo wish me luck on Sunday… and tomorrow morning at 6 AM when I’m on the elliptical!

Willamette Valley By iPhone

October 4, 2012 by Erica

Hah! As if all my pictures weren’t taken on my iPhone.

This past weekend, Nate and I headed to Oregon to spend a long weekend wine tasting in the Willamette Valley. We had planned this vacation in the summer, when he got his class schedule and realized he’d have this Monday off. I’ve been looking forward to it for months!

Last spring we spent 5 days in Napa, and it was the best vacation we’d ever taken together. Doing the same thing this year (but this time with pinot instead of cabernet!) sounded excellent.

We flew into Portland Friday evening, picked up our rental car (Frankie the Ford Focus!), and headed down to Newberg, OR. We spent the next three days doing nothing but visiting vineyards and planning our next meal! It was pretty much heaven.

We did multiple tastings each day, ranging from a private tasting with the owner/winemaker at Belle Pente to tastings at much more established wine bars in town. It was all delicious! We restrained ourselves and didn’t buy any bottles to bring home. You’re not allowed to send/bring wine back to Utah (plus we were tasting expensive wines!), so we opted to just enjoy it during our vacation.

Most vineyards were bottling while we were there, in preparation to start harvest on Monday. It was fun to be there at harvest time and see the grapes looking so ripe. When we were in Napa last Easter, there were barely any leaves showing! This was quite a bit different.

Favorite wineries:

Archery Summit – This was our first stop, and had an awesome little outdoor tasting area with some of the most beautiful views we saw. We liked it so much, we went back on Monday!

Carlton Winemakers Studio – This is an amazing co-op where several local winemakers come together to use the same winemaking facilities and tasting room. Two of the winemakers were in the tasting room with us! I loved the Hamacher 2011 Willamette Valley pinot noir, the Andrew Rich 2010 Willamette Valley Verbatim pinot noir, and (surprisingly) a Rose from Retour Wines (that wasn’t on the tasting menu and I didn’t think to take a picture of, so I’m not sure what year!).

Lemelson Vineyards – We stopped here twice, too! Our favorite was the 2010 Cuvee X pinot noir.

Argyle Winery – They focus on bubbly as well as pinot noir. The 2009 Knudsen and the 2008 Spirithouse pinot noirs were my favorite!

Domaine Serene – Another beautiful outdoor tasting area. I think their 2009 Yamhill Cuvee pinot noir was my favorite… but I wasn’t keeping such good track by that point!

Stoller Family Estate – They had just built their new tasting room 3 weeks before and it was gorgeous!

(We didn’t drink much wine, did we?!)

Where we stayed:

We spent the first night at a cheaper chain hotel in Newberg, so that we could splurge on a bed & breakfast the next two nights. We picked the Lobenhaus just outside of Carlton. We were the youngest people staying there by at least 25 years, but it was a great place to come home to after a day of wine tasting.

What we ate:

Pasta and pizza at the Dundee Bistro, delicious sandwiches at the Red Hills Market, gnocchi and risotto at Paulee, and Tapas at La Rambla. For the short distance from Portland, I was shocked at how un-vegan-friendly this area was in general! I guess French cooking and wine country just go together? There was hardly a vegan item to be found on any menu, although everyone was very nice about accommodating vegan requests. Although I have to say that by Sunday night my resolve had broken down a bit, and I ate quite a few tapas with cheese on them at La Rambla. I won’t beat myself up about it once in a while… and they were so good.

When’s my next vacation?!

Chocolate Coconut Energy Bites

October 3, 2012 by Erica

There’s a new love in my life – sorry Nate. Luckily, there’s room here for both of you.

(I take that back… our kitchen is about 18 square feet. There’s no room for anyone but the cook in here!)

But I’m talking, of course, about my new food processor. I finally broke down and bought one about a month ago, after pinning one too many delicious hummus recipes that I couldn’t wait any longer to try. Before I got into food blogs, I thought I could hold out until I got married someday and registered for a food processor… then more recently, I told myself I’d just ask for one for Christmas… and next thing you know I was on Amazon with my credit card in hand.

Anyway, this thing is magical, and I can’t believe I waited so long to pull the trigger. I’ve spent hours in the kitchen every weekend since, making hummus after bean dip after hummus to take full advantage. But the #1 most delicious recipe I’ve processed up so far has been these chocolate coconut energy bites.

After trying out several other energy bite recipes, some with chocolate and some with coconut, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t come across one that combined the two. So I tossed all my favorite ingredients in the bowl of my new Cuisinart and processed it up!

Chocolate Coconut Energy Bites

makes 10-12 bites

Ingredients:

1/2 cup raw almonds

12 medjool dates, pitted

1/2 cup rolled oats

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut, plus extra for rolling

3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla

3 tbsp chocolate chips (optional)

pinch of kosher or sea salt

1/4 to 1/2 cup water, as needed

Directions:

In a food processor, process almonds until finely chopped.

Add in oats, coconut, cocoa powder and vanilla and process until crumbly. Add in the chocolate chips and pinch of salt and pulse until the chocolate chips are chopped.

Now, with the food processor running, pour water slowly in through the feed tube until the dough balls up on the blade of the food processor. (This took about a 1/2 cup water in my case, but can vary.)

Done processing! Add your extra shredded coconut to a small bowl for rolling. Scoop out about a tablespoon of the dough at a time, roll in the coconut, and place in a tupperware or plastic bag. I like to wet my hands between every 3 bites or so to keep them tacky so the coconut sticks.

Store in the refrigerator. They will keep for a week or more, if you can keep your little paws off them!

Archives for October 2012

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