So much for the swim...Lawrence 5150 Triathlon

The weather over the weekend made for an interesting race on Sunday.  As per my previous post, I was nervous about the swim…but I was ready to put my game face on and suck it up.  I got up at 4:30am on Sunday morning so I could have my coffee and let it settle.  I had all my stuff gathered and I got it into the car.  It was wet outside because we had a storm roll through around 3am, but otherwise looked clear.  There was still a chance of showers but they were supposed to end by 7am (the race started at 7:30).  We decided to put the bike in the car instead of on the bike rack since it was wet outside, and since Ryan wasn't racing.  As we hopped on the highway, I could see a huge bank of clouds to the west where we were headed.  Then the lighting started.  By the time we got to Lawrence it was raining and lighting pretty bad.  We got everything unloaded from the car.  I started to put a trash bag over my handlebars to keep them from getting wet, but I looked around and realized that they were going to get wet no matter what so I gave up.  The walk to the transition area/race start took forever.  It was cold, windy, and wet.  They ended up delaying the race, and then they decided to cancel the swim and just send us on the bike and run.  I’ll admit, I wasn't disappointed at all.  Looking at Clinton Lake during the storm, there were big whitecaps and the wind was howling.  I was not looking forward to getting in that water!  The second they announced they were cancelling the swim, I was not nervous at all.  Not even a little bit.  They had us line up and do a ‘time trial' start on the bike, meaning each person went off one by one.  Our time didn't start until we crossed the mat, so there was no hurry to get to the front of the line.  Unfortunately this meant that there was congestion during the first few miles of the race, plus the wet roads made it tricky.  I'm sure the pro athletes were really annoyed too, because they had to deal with all of us 'age groupers' being in their way the whole race.  It had stopped raining by this point which was good, but there was standing water and debris everywhere.  By the time I was ¾ finished with the bike, the sun had come out!  It got really warm and super humid, and of course I hadn't put any sunscreen on.  I debated on whether to even wear my sunglasses on the bike, but decided to just to keep the water spray and junk from other bikes out of my eyes.  I'm glad I wore them.

I was hurting on the run, which was fairly hilly.  I thought I ran faster than my final time showed and I was disappointed in my time, but regardless I did okay.  The frustrating thing to me is that the gal that won (I got 2nd) beat me by 7 minutes!  7 minutes in a sprint triathlon is a lot of time.  So for the past day I have been trying to figure out what to do to make sure that doesn't happen again!  I know what I need to do; I just need to see if my body can actually do it.  My ultimate goal is to beat this lady, but she has years of triathlon experience on me… I still think I can beat her if I work my butt off.  Regardless, I need to be a faster biker and runner.  I know she will be at the next triathlon in June.  Obviously I would love to say my goal is to beat her at this race, but realistically my goal is to narrow that 7 minutes down as much as I can.  Looks like some more speed work is in my future!  

Misc recent pictures

Some recent pics:

Birthday party fun for a school friend

Same birthday party as above - both girls were trying to imitate other gymnasts and doing a fairly good job of it!   

Same weekend, but another birthday party for one of Luca's friends

Ryan turned 41 on the 5th of May.  I made him an almond cake with lemon curd (gluten free!).  We re-used candles from other birthdays if you couldn't tell... 

Lola's first trip to the dentist.  She did okay...she was a bit hesitant but I think she will be much better next time.  

What do we do after the dentist?  Eat a cookie of course!  

Luca had to go to the ER to have her foot looked at.  She had some sort of weird infection that seemed to be spreading really quickly on her toe.  This was 11pm at night and she was wired!

We have some crazy stuff going on in our lives, which I can’t really talk about yet….I want to talk about it really badly but I’m not allowed.  We are very stressed out and we’re trying to work through it.  More to come very soon I hope.

On another note, the Lawrence 5150 Triathlon is less than a week away.  Thankfully the water temperature has warmed up considerably from a few weeks ago when it was in the low 50’s!   I am still very nervous since this is only my 2^nd triathlon but I’m ready to put my game face on come Sunday morning.  Bring it ladies…I’m going to be on your heels and then passing you.   J 

We went to my parents last weekend and Lola got to ride horses at April’s house.  She has been bugging me for a while to go ride so I finally bit the bullet and took them to Fort Scott.  They also got to bottle feed some calves which Luca really liked. 

You are what you eat!

I don’t care what anyone says…it costs more to eat healthy!  We generally eat fresh fruits, veggies, and meats most of the week.  We don’t go out to eat much at all.  Literally maybe once or twice per month each, and that may be Chipotle for Ryan after he biked 3 hours on a Saturday or Thai for me at lunch with a friend.  I have not gone through a ‘drive-through’ since I was pregnant with Lola.  The kids have had McDonalds twice I think but it was a while ago when they were with a friend and Lola doesn’t even remember it.  It’s not that we are against it (actually Ryan is but I don’t care), it’s just that we don’t eat it so therefore the kids don’t either.  I cook something most nights, and if I don’t ‘cook’ I usually bake the kids some tater tots and make them a sandwich.  We are trying to make some changes to our budget, but it is really hard to budget eating healthy.  Buying fresh veggies and fruit all the time adds up.  I do buy frozen sometimes too - the steam bags of veggies are a lifesaver when I get home with the kids at 5:40pm and need dinner on the table in less than 5 minutes.  Steam veggies and a cheese quesadilla are on the table once per week because it’s quick. 

We bought ¼ of a cow last summer and plan to do the same again next month.  I like knowing where my food comes from!  (http://www.raftergbar.com/).  We have eaten most of it up, but still have a few packs of steaks and burger to use up.  It’s been kind of fun to experiment with the different types of meats you get when you buy in bulk.  I wasn’t sure how the heck I would use up the hamburger because we got waaaaay more than I anticipated.  Actually, we got what we were supposed to but considering I only bought hamburger every once in a while it was kind of intimidating.   Although I have to say, when we had a birthday party for Luca and decided to grill burgers it was really nice to go to the freezer and grab a bunch of packs of hamburger and not have to go to the store.  We made 20 burgers and it hardly put a dent in our supply!  I have made a ton of meatballs which I really like, and I experimented with putting lots of veggies in them.  I finally came up with a really good recipe (below) and infused them with good veggies, minus breadcrumbs (gluten free) and cheese (dairy free), so they are pretty healthy too.  I have also made lots of burgers, meatloaf, stuffed peppers, sloppy joes, macaroni and cheese with beef, beef Bolognese, just to name a few.  I think we are going to start buying some pork in bulk as well.  We eat a lot of pork and I would really like to know where it comes from too. 

So back to my original thought…money, which I also covered in my last post when I was grouchy.  J   Eating healthy and whole food is important enough to us to sacrifice money in other areas to make sure we can keep a fridge and freezer stocked full of fresh food.  

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Beef and veggie meatballs w/ no breadcrumbs or cheese  

Makes around 12-15 large meatballs

·        Extra-virgin olive oil

·        1 onion, finely diced

·        Salt

·        2 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped

·        Pinch crushed red pepper or more depending on how spicy you want them

·        2lbs lean ground beef (or any other ground meat)

·        2 large eggs

·        Around 1 cup of finely chopped veggies (carrots, peppers, zucchini, and spinach all work great).  You can also pulse in a food processer which works much better. 

·        1/4 cup or more to taste of finely chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves

·        1 cup almond meal (or ½ cup almond meal and ½ cup flaxseed meal), or you can use breadcrumbs. 

·        1/4 cup to 1/2 cup water

Coat a large saute pan with olive oil, add the onions and bring to a medium-high heat. Season the onions generously with salt and cook for about 5 to 7 minutes. The onions should be very soft and aromatic but have no color. Add the garlic and the crushed red pepper and saute for another 1 to 2 minutes. Turn off heat and allow to cool.

In a large bowl combine all the ingredients, and add around ½ -1 tsp of salt (depending on how much you put in the onions and how much salt you like). It works well to squish the mixture with your hands. Add around 1/4 cup of water and do 1 final really good squish. The mixture should be quite wet so add more water if needed. Coat a large saute pan with olive oil and bring to a medium-high heat. Test the seasoning of the mix by making a mini hamburger size patty and cooking it. The mixture should taste really good! If it doesn't it is probably missing salt.  I don’t do this anymore because I just kind of ‘know’ but it is good to check if you haven’t made them before. 

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Shape the meat into desired size.  Brown the meatballs on all sides. I typically work clockwise so I remember which meatballs went down first and I use tongs to turn them.  They won’t end up as perfect ‘balls’ because of being browned on all sides, or at least mine don’t.  Place them on a cookie sheet (if you make them fairly large, they will try to fall apart here so be careful) lined with parchment and bake them in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes or until the meatballs are cooked all the way through.

Serve with pasta and marinara or you can substitute spaghetti squash for the pasta.  Take a spaghetti squash and poke holes with a knife (around 10+ holes all around).  Put in the microwave for 6-8 minutes (depending on microwave strength), then turn on the other side and cook for an additional 6-8 minutes.  Take out, cut in half and let cool for around 5-10 minutes.  Take a fork and pull all the seeds out, and then take a spoon and scoop the insides out.  If serving with something else, you can just eat as is, but if you want to eat as a side dish you can sauté in a bit of olive oil with some salt and pepper and then top with chopped parsley.  

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A few pics of what you can do with ground beef (at least in our kitchen):  

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