Angela Visit and Fun Food
This week has been so much fun. I've really enjoyed spending February at home. The beginning of this week Angela came and stayed a few days. This visit was particularly special to me since she and I don't get to spend a lot of time together but always look forward to when we do. She was hot off a win at Panama 70.3 which was a great test for her early season fitness. Angela and I met in 2010 when we were both coached by Chuckie, and have remained friends ever since. I trained with Angela a lot the summer leading up to my first Kona, and she was in Kona cheering and yelling at me this year for my 4th. She's seen my progress and I've seen hers. We can really get laughing about the silly things we were doing 4 years ago. Climbing Longs Peak, riding up Mount Evans, her borrowing a road bike to win a race (okay, she got second, but she borrowed a bike). So many fun memories, and more to come.
Check out Ang winning Panama, her video is super cute she had a great home stay taking lots of footage!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSpMrtyHMqM
I think one of the best things about spending some time with Ang is that we both just love to talk about the mental and emotional side of the sport. I get such wisdom from her, I'm always inspired to train harder when I'm around her. She's such a professional, she keeps her performance in mind with every decision she makes, and that's not just this year, but every year. I also like hearing about what it's like to be coached by Mark Allen and Phil Maffetone. I have really enjoyed everything I have read by the both of them, books I go back to weekly for inspiration and guidance, in life and sport. Ang is like a little mini expert in this area, so I'm always picking her brain on these topics.
We recorded a video blog when she was here and it's honestly my favorite one so far. It's a little longer, just under 11 minutes, but just really good stuff. AND, the cat's out of the bag...we are headed to Australia!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE0Df-JAvSo
Today, Katie came out to train and we had two really steady strong sessions. The masters swim today was INSANE. The temps were cold, but the wind was so wild that we had to put our heads in the water when we were resting at the wall or we would get a "brain freeze" headache. It was one of the coldest swims I've even done in the Greenwood Pool. Luckily Dennis gave us sets with very little rest. We did a set of 5x100 at the beginning of the workout at steady pace. Mine were around 1:37s, and my CSS pace right now is 1:36/100M. Then at the end of the workout we had to do them "5 seconds faster". Which is more above threshold pace. I was really jazzed to descend them from 1:30 down to 1:27. I gave myself a little pat on the back. Getting out of the pool and running inside was literally the coldest 8 seconds I have experienced all year. I feel ALIVE!
Katie and I had lunch and then came back and did some cooking. It was really nice to spend some time together doing something that we both really enjoy, that isn't training!! We cook the same. If we don't like the look of it we just start adding and dumping in things that we think will make it better. We had fun!
So we started with the Osmo Nutrition print out and went to town on the Protein Power Bites. They really turned out grand. I would like to cover them in liquid chocolate next time!
Then we went onto a bar recipe that Katie had called "Nick's Bars." We didn't have 1/2 the ingredients so we just made stuff up and they turned out kinda dry but still tasty. Everything we made we were like "it needs more salt" and then we realized we are probably just low on salt from the days training sessions.
Lastly we mixed up some of Phil's Fudge. There are several recipes around for this one, as we found out later. We did the one that Paul put on the outstrip endurance blog. Phil also wrote an article on Lava Magazine with his fudge Recipe in it. It's slightly different. We were so confused by this one. We got all the ingredients mixed and it seemed like it wasn't working. The middle was this blobby mess and the outside was liquid like and wasn't mixing in. We added more protein powder and more cocoa. Not much better. Finally we just put it in a loa pan and into the fridge and said "good luck." 10 minutes in the fridge and then 10 in the freezer, we pulled it out to check on it....it was amazing! Exactly like fudge. I always wondered why Ang and Paul made so little of it, Katie and I had tripled their recipe. It packs a PUNCH!! Amazing. Next time Katie and I agreed we would coat the top in sea salt...yes, back to the salt thing!
Katie and I filmed a video blog. It's silly, and fun!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhE7ydLHvCs
So, I totally urge you to have faith, and make the fudge. It's full of healthy fat and raw cocoa. This is not a Whole30 thing (plus your not allowed to eat dessert on Whole30), it's got lots of honey, but it's pretty darn yummy for healthy fudge. If anyone else has made anything off the Osmo print out, let me know, I'm curious to see how some of the other recipes go. Thanks!