Apple and Bacon Protein Pancakes & Some Scenes from Minnesota

Protein pancakes are a staple in my diet. I make a pretty standard version a few times a week after the gym, but once in a while, I get the urge to change things up. These pancakes from Chocolate & Carrots caught my eye, so I decided to incorporate the flavor combination in a protein version.

Apple and Bacon Protein Pancakes

1/2 an apple, chopped
1 tsp Ideal Brown Sweetener (or other sweetener of choice)
1 tbsp water
1 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup old fashioned oats
1/3 cup 2% cottage cheese
1/4 cup liquid egg whites
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
Truvia, to taste (I used three packets)
splash of butter extract, optional
2 slices turkey bacon, cooked and crumbled

In a microwave safe bowl, combine the chopped apple, Ideal Brown Sweetener, water, and 1 tsp cinnamon. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave on for two minutes or until apples are softened. Set apples aside.

In a bowl, combine oats, cottage cheese, egg whites, baking powder, cinnamon, Truvia, and butter extract. Using an immersion blender, blend until smooth. Stir in apples and bacon bits.

Coat a large frying pan with cooking spray and heat over medium low heat.  Spoon about 1/4 cup batter per pancake into the pan. Flip when the pancake tops are covered with bubbles and the edges look cooked. Cook until the pancakes are golden brown and cooked through.



Calories: 316
Fat: 5g
Carbohydrates: 47g
Protein: 21g
Calculated on Sparkrecipes.com

I ate mine with some maple syrup, but I can also imagine that they would be delicious topped with peanut butter. These were a nice change from my usual protein pancakes. I have really been loving sweet and salty combinations lately, and the apples and cinnamon were perfect for fall.



Speaking of fall, we are currently on vacation in Minnesota visiting family and enjoying some gorgeous autumn weather. Hardcore training has been replaced by sleeping in and long, leisurely walks. Yesterday we went to Westwood Hills Nature Center in St. Louis Park and wandered around for a couple of hours. It was beautiful and so peaceful to be surrounded by nature.



We saw six deer, including these two who were kind enough to pose for a picture.
  
This little box turtle was just hanging out in the sun.



It’s been an awesome vacation so far, and we still have so many fun activities planned before we go home!

Where's the Pause Button?

I'm glad today is almost over because it's one day closer to Friday, but I wish I could add about another hour or two.  I got up this morning and met up with Tamara and Fred to do sprints on the bike around Davis Island.  I have an 8 mile run to get to, but I'm finding it harder to get motivated to do that than it was to get up this morning.  A new job opened up that I am going to apply for so I need to refresh my resume tonight as well as pack for Augusta.  There's less than 5 hours left in the day and there's still so much to do... 

Women Run the Cities 10 Mile Race

Race season has finally begun for me! I ran the Women Run the Cities 10 Mile race in Minneapolis, MN on Sunday, and it was awesome.
Packet Pick Up: Packet pick up was available at a local sports store a couple days prior to the race as well as on race morning. I normally like to pick up my packet prior to race day, but since I didn’t arrive in MN until Saturday afternoon, I had to wait until race morning. Luckily this wasn’t a huge race (2700 total participants in the 1 Mile, 5k, and 10 mile race combined) and the volunteers were very organized and efficient, so I had my bib and shirt within 5 minutes of arriving to the race site.
Course: The course was out & back along the Mississippi River with a short jaunt across the river into St. Paul. We were running through a very pretty neighborhood with some great old houses to look at (I love to “shop” for my next house when I’m running in a new place), and the views when we were crossing the river were stunning. My one complaint about the course was that the 5k runners merged with the 10 mile runners with about a mile and a half remaining in the race, which meant that I spent the last 10 minutes or so of the race trying to navigate through a crowd of 5k runners who weren’t running at my pace. I heard from my friend and sister who ran the 5k that their race started about 18 minutes later than scheduled, so I’m not sure if that had something to do with the congestion.
Aid Stations: There were six aid stations along the course. Gu gels were available at two of them. The aid stations had plenty of volunteers, so there weren’t any slow downs waiting to get water. It would have been nice to have had Gatorade available at a couple of the stops.
Post-Race Goodies: Free Starbucks….need I say more? I was really impressed with the food and drink selections at the end of the race. They had your typical bottled water, bread/bagels, and bananas, but they also had bags of Old Dutch potato chips, mini Pearson Salted Nut Rolls (yum!), bags of BoomChickaPop Popcorn (produced here in MN and so, so good), and full size bottles of Muscle Milk and Muscle Milk Light protein shakes. I LOVE that they had Muscle Milk there. I understand why post race food options are usually so carb-heavy, but I always feel like the need that some of us have for protein is over looked, so I was thrilled to see the Muscle Milk tent.
Swag: The shirts for the 10 mile race were long sleeve, half zip technical shirts – I was really happy to see such nice shirts for a 10 mile race. The medals were also high quality, fun, and bright – the design was perfectly suited to a women’s race.

Results: This was my first 10 mile race, so I was guaranteed a PR. I wanted to use this race to gauge where my speed and conditioning were in relation to the end of marathon training in May. I anticipated that I would be a bit slower because I haven’t been as focused on running this summer, but I was going to leave it all on the course because I knew I had a week of vacation and taking it easy coming up before I officially kick off marathon training in October. I was pleasantly surprised when I ended up finishing in 1:15:14 (7:32 pace), which put me at 36 of 1129 finishers. According to a calculator of equivalent race times based on the Jack Daniels Running Formula, I am still right where I was in May. I guess training with future IronWoman Maria all summer has paid off. :)
Overall, I would highly recommend this race to any women in the Minneapolis area, and if I ever happen to be in town for it again, I will definitely participate. I especially enjoyed it because my sister Miranda and my best friend since second grade ran the 5k. Both Miranda and Jolene are relatively new to running, and it was so exciting for me to see them finish strong and to be able to share the sport that I love so much with two amazing women who have been constant sources of support and encouragement for me my whole life. I wish we would have gotten a picture together, but we were all a little focused on getting out of the cold and getting food into our bellies after the race. Next time, I guess….and I know there will be a next time since Jolene is already signed up for the 10k in Fargo next May!

Weekly Recap – Competitive Week #10

Competitive Week # 10 went well.  I skipped one running session, a swim session, and a strength training session.  I skipped running because I could feel my knees starting to get a little tweaked from all the running from the previous week.  I skipped a swim because you know how much I love to swim.  I just wanted the extra sleep .  And, I skipped the strength training because I knew I would be doing a lot of crawling and pulling myself up and over things during the Highlander III Adventure Mud Run. 

But, here’s the recap with the Garmin links:

Tuesday: swim, bike

Wednesday: tempo run, long swim

Thursday: Davis Island bike

Friday: off

Saturday: Highlander III – recap in yesterday’s post and can also be found on the Recap page

Sunday (65% of full distance trial run): swim, bike, brick run

Sunday was a planned trial run of doing close to 3/4 of the full distance triathlon.  For the swim, I put on my wetsuit and swam around the little pool that I have at my place.  It’s really important to get used to wearing a wetsuit before the race.  When I get into the water, I want to make sure that I’m focusing on my breathing because I want to be steady as opposed to I can’t breathe at all.  I’m swimming tomorrow at LA Fitness and will be doing about 20 minutes in my suit.  I don’t want to ruin it with the chlorine…  I made sure to plan out my nutrition as if it were race day as well.  I’ll summarize that below.  The bike was 70 miles (well, 67 and change), and the run was exactly 16 miles.  I stopped 5 times.  The second stop was a about 5 minutes longer than it should have been because I got stopped and was chit-chatting with someone.  The very last stop I didn’t even stop my watch because I wanted it to be a quick stop-and-go.  All I did was re-fill my water bottle with cold water and went.  I was very happy with my overall finish on this trial run.  So, on to nutrition:

Breakfast (about an hour before swimming):

• 1 cup of peanut butter cheerios and 8 oz of So Delicious Unsweetened Almond Milk with Protein – 170 calories
• After swimming – 2 Powerbar Oatmeal Raisin Energy bites, 1/2 bonk breaker – 205 calories
• On the bike – 2 scoops of infinit (200 calories) with 3 squirts of MiO Energy, 1 Clif bar toffee crunch (240 calories), 1/2 Honey Stinger (80 calories) – total calories – 520
• Execution: Sip Infinit mix every 10 minutes.  Every hour on the hour eat instead of drinking Infinit.  Wait 20 minutes after eating before continuing to drink Infinit.  Hour 1 – 1/2 Clif bar, Hour 2 – 1/2 Clif bar, Hour 3 – 1/2 Honey Stinger.  Sip water along the way.
• Transition from bike to run – 1 Clif Shot Espresso – 100 calories, 100 mg of caffeine
• On the run – 4 gels and water 
• Execution:  I was going to have a gel every 3 to 3.5 miles.  But, I was still full from the 1/2 Honey Stinger and Clif Shot.  So, I took the first gel, a Clif shot Strawberry flavor, at mile 5.  This was also my first stop. 
• Stop 2, mile 9.5, Roctane Blueberry Pomegranate
• Stop 4, mile 12.5, 2nd Surge Double Espresso – 100 mg of caffeine + 3 g of protein

Amazingly I only had to pee once and that was during my transition from the bike to the run.  I spent 7 minutes dropping my bike off, using the bathroom and getting my run gear on. 

On an even better note.  I didn’t have any stomach issues after the run.  Normally I have to run to the bathroom immediately after I eat something.  But, felt fine the whole day.  After the run, I took a bath and kept my legs up for a little while to let the blood flow back the other way.  When I got out, I put on my compression pants and calf compression sleeves.  I rewarded myself with a turkey burger from Green Iguana and two Guinness’  .  I felt pretty good today and I am ready to get this week over with to get to the real stuff on Sunday (Augusta HIM) and then focus all my attention on one last century ride and then the highly anticipated tapering period.

Good night!   

Race Recap - Highlander III 6-mile Adventure Run 9/22/2012

Race season has officially started! YAY! Saturday I did the Highlander III 6-mile Adventure Run put on by Rock On Adventures.  It was a very well put together race.  This is my recount.  I can’t guarantee that the obstacles are in the right order, but I will try to list them as accurately in the correct order as possible and hopefully will remember all of them:   

1. Run through tires
2. Run through, over or under criss-crossed ropes
3. Climb over a 4 foot wall
4. Run for a little while
5. Run through mud
6. Walk over a sand pit on tree
7. Climb over an 8 or 9 foot wall
8. Carry a sand bag on your shoulder while you walk through mud that’s like the scene from the Never Ending Story where Atreyu and his horse, Artax, get stuck
9. Climb over a slanted wall.  The first ledge that you can actually grab onto is about 6.5 ft.  So, if your legs aren’t too tired, then you can attempt to run and jump.  Otherwise, you have to have someone help you up, like me.  Thankfully my boyfriend was there to push me by butt
10. Climb over a tree
11. Swim over two barrels in the water
12. Run for a little while
13. Swim under two barrels in the water
14. Next obstacle you could choose from either a pull up bar with another bar on top that you have to get over or picking up a tire and putting it over an 7 or 8 ft pool and then lifting it back off.  The pull up bar was out of commission.  So, we were forced to do the tire over the pole.  I am way too short for this one.  I could barely lift the tire over my head, let alone lift it another 3 feet to get it to go over the pole.  I had to have someone help me on this one too  
15. Run some more
16. Run through some more criss-crossed rope
17. Crawl through tires suspended between trees
18. Jump into a watery mud pit and climb out with a rope
19. Walk through some more mud carrying a sand bag.  This mud was not nearly as bad as the first one. 
20. Crawl through mud under barbed wire
21. Walk through more watery mud
22. Crawl through mud under barbed wire again
23. Run for a little while
24. Climb up a rope and touch the top
25. Climb over fallen trees
26. Carry a tire and walk around a circle
27. Run for a little bit
28. Carry a sand bag and walk around a circle
29. Walk over another pit on trees
30. Jump about 15 ft into water
31. Run for a little bit
32. Cross water walking on a line and hanging on to a rope above you
33. Climb over a wall of sand – there were actually about one of these for every obstacle a little after the half-way point.  Instead of mud, it was climbing over a wall of sand.  Although, there were still a couple of more mud obstacles near the end, but not nearly as many as in the beginning
34. Hop in a potato bag and go about 20 ft
35. Cross slippery monkey bars
36. Swing like Tarzan into muddy water
37. Zip line
38. Climb a wall with a rope and/or use little steps to help you up
39. Walk through an ice pit about three feet wide.  This was actually kind of refreshing because it was closer to the end of the race when it was getting hot.  So, it cooled my legs off. 
40. Climb a wall of tires
41. Carry someone on a stretcher (one or two people carry the person on the stretcher) or use blocks with ropes under your feet and walk around a circle
42. Slide about 15 ft into water
43. Crawl through some more mud
44. Run up and over some more sand hills

I think I got everything.  I may have missed a couple of mud pits, but I definitely listed all the different kinds – walk through knee-deep to chest-deep, jump into and climb out of, and crawl through on hands and knees under barbed wire.  Some mud pits were really thick and tried to each your legs, others were watery but had just enough gross clump stuff to make you want to hurry up and get out before you threw up.  It’s quite a few obstacles all packed into 6 miles.    I mentioned earlier that I really like races that give out unconventional awards.  Rock on Adventures has this down.  Overall male and female winners get a huge 6 or 7 ft Viking sword.  Age group winners get a beer stein.  Better placing gets a bigger stein.  I finished in 1:29 and placed 3rd in 20 – 29 age group.  Finisher medal on the left, a/g award on the right: Not sure if you can see the scratches on my leg.  Here’s a better shot: It was another take home . 
Summary:  This race is pretty awesome.  I will definitely do it again.  It’s kind of like Tough Mudder but less commercialized.  You can actually have your friends and family come out and support you for free!  What a concept, right? 
Pros:

• They have local food trucks out so you can get your choice of grub after for pretty cheap.  I had some coconut gelato, sausage corn dog, and a Portuguese  Piri-piri (spicy) grilled chicken sandwich.  This sandwich was delicious! 
• Their shirts are really comfy and they are cool enough to wear out when you just want to wear something relaxed and comfy. 

• They have a LOT of obstacles all packed into 6 miles. 
• There aren’t any electric wire that aren’t going to shock you so that other people can laugh
• There isn’t any fire to run through where you have to breathe in smoke and/or possible catch fire
• The ice pit was cold but you weren’t in it long enough to lose feeling in any of your body parts
• The awards are SUPER COOL!
• Water stops (with cold water) every about 1.5 miles.  And, the way the course was set up you passed the same water stop twice in less than .5 miles
• The waves were far enough apart with roughly 50 people per wave making it easy to get through the obstacles without having to wait long.  I never had to wait longer than a minute, if at all, for any of the obstacles
• They really care about safety in this race.  Tree stumps in the woods were spray painted so you could see them, you didn’t have to complete any obstacle that you weren’t comfortable doing any water that you had to jump in was deep enough, if the water was shallow they warned you and with the wall of tires, they instructed everyone to go between the tires at the top instead of going over the top railing of the wall
• The water to rinse off at the end was good once the knobs were removed and the water was coming out faster.  Could maybe use one more station like this or make sure that the water can flow freely from all sides. 
• Chipped timing.   

Cons:

• I really did not enjoy needing help for the first slanted wall climb.  It was impossible to get up without help unless you have springs in your feet or are really tall.  I don’t know why I was, and still a little am, so insistent on completing the course without any help.  There were teams signed up and that’s fine if they want to have obstacles specific to team work.  But, I signed up as an individual racer and I wanted to finish it that way.
• So, for the same reason as above, I did not like the obstacle where you have to pick up the tire and put it over a pole and then take it off.  There was an alterative, but it was not being allowed to be used.  Probably for safety reasons.  Which is fine.  Some guy was nice enough to help me with this one.  Daniel didn’t realize that I needed help and was working on getting his own tire on and off the pole. 
• This is more of a wish list item.  But, there was a lot of crawling through mud and a lot of times the mud splashes up in your face.  This isn’t a huge deal except when it gets in your eyes and you don’t have a single clean inch on you anywhere to clean the mud out with.  So, it would be nice to have someone with a little wash cloth or a tub of water to clean your hands and face
• The walk-around for missing an obstacle wasn’t always a long enough route to make up for missing the obstacle  

Take Two, BOSTON!!

This is my road to Boston 2012.  I did the West Palm Marathon on 12/5/10 as my first marathon ever.  I finished with a time of 3:50:01.  I was so stunned about completing my first marathon and was on such a high that I wanted to sign up for another one in the next couple of months before it started to get too hot in March.  Otherwise I would have to wait too long for another one.  I found the Melbourne Beaches & Music Marathon which took place on 2/5/11.  I finished with a time of 3:39:10.  A huge, unexpected improvement from my first one.  The biggest difference was the weather.  It was around 78 and sunny for the West Palm race and about 60 with overcast and a light mist for literally the entire morning of the Melbourne marathon.  At this point, I honestly didn't even know what Boston was.  I knew it was a marathon race, but I didn't understand the significance of it.  I just thought it was another huge race like New York or Chicago.  Someone mentioned that I may had qualified for Boston and so I went online and found out that I did indeed qualify.  But, but :50.  I didn't think this was good enough since they were going to take the fastest runners first starting that year.  What was I to do next?  Look for other marathons to get in before Boston registration opened of course.  I found the Santa Rosa Marathon in CA which I HIGHLY recommend.  It's a small race, but flat and in Santa Rosa where it's always between 50 and 70 degrees, even at the end of August when it's held.  I also found the Via of Leigh Valley Marathon in Allenton, PA.  This race is held in the beginning of September.  It was a good race, but a little hilly and warmer than I like.   

I trained hard to get a better time for Boston.  And, at the awesome Santa Rosa race I pulled off a time of 3:29:54.  Since this race is around a bunch of CA wineries, age group winners get a bottle of red wine for the prize.  I love races that give out unconventional awards.  That was my journey to Boston 2012. 

Unfortunately, Boston weather was very uncooperative this year and decided to be hotter on race day than the Florida weather that I had been training in.  It was an amazing weekend and I was very grateful to get to be involved in the experience at least once.  But, it's a little upsetting when you can't enjoy such an awesome race to its fullest because you're concentrating so much on hydrating and doing a body check and looking for the next water stop instead of enjoying the scenery and the complete strangers out there cheering you on.  Although, it was kind of fun running through the fire hydrant water.  How often are you ever going to get to do that?  I know I've never done it before. 

I wanted a redo.  Bad.  I qualified for Boston 2013 at the Disney Marathon 2012 with a time of 3:30:42.  This was fortunate because I did the Miami Marathon 3 weeks later and had the worst marathon I've ever had and was not anywhere near the realm of qualifying.  At exactly 10:00 AM on the Monday of the 2nd week of registration I logged onto www.baa.org and put in my applicaiton.  I have been checking the updates every day since.  B.A.A. was nice enough to post this update shortly after the 5:00 PM registration cut-off time for the second week of registration:

"BOSTON – The Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) announced today that registration for the 2013 Boston Marathon® will continue on Monday, September 24 at 10:00 a.m. ET for runners who have met the qualifying standards necessary for the submission of their application. Following an initial two-week, rolling admission registration period, which began on September 10 and concluded on Friday, September 21 at 5:00 p.m. ET, the B.A.A. will accept applications until the maximum field size is reached."
...
http://www.baa.org/news-and-press/news-listing/2012/september/registration-for-the-2013-boston-marathon-will-continue.aspx


What the above statement from Boston means is that anyone who qualified, registered within the first two weeks, and their times can be verified, are accepted.  This means I'm in!  I get my redo.   

Sarah, being as awesome as she is, was able to register on the third day that registration was open.  I was so happy when she said she got her confirmation back.  And, if I hadn't gotten in, I would still would have been just as happy for her.  I know that she would have had an amazing experience and an enormous, giddy smile like the one she got after finishing her first marathon and when she sees dolphins on our runs down Bayshore.  But, I'm even more happy that I get to enjoy the race with her as well.  This is more of a selfish reason.  This year, my friends and family were happy for me.  Most of them are not runners.  So, they were happy for me because they knew it made me happy.  Now I get to enjoy the race with someone who is as excited about it as I am.  It's like going to an amusement park.  It can be fun by youself.  But, it's even better when someone is with you that enjoys it as much as you do.           

Cheese! And Wine!

For once, superwoman Maria wasn’t training for her IronMan last night, so we decided to hit up a Cheese Class and Tasting at Whole Foods. We were served samples of five different cheeses paired with wines meant to highlight the different flavors of the cheeses. As we sampled, the cheese expert gave us the background on the production of the cheese and explained what flavor notes we should be picking out.

Source

We started with Brillat Savarin, a decadent triple creme Brie. Like most Brie cheeses, it was rich and buttery; we were also told to take note of a hint of mushroom in the cheese. It was paired with pepper jelly and an Extra Dry Prosecco from Cantine Pirovano. I liked the overall combination of flavors in this selection. The creaminess of the Brie mellowed the bite of the pepper jelly, and the prosecco was light and fruity, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the Brie on its own. It was a little earthy for me.

The second selection was a 5 Year Gouda from the Netherlands. The cheese is sourced from small scale dairy farms which typically only have 30 – 100 cows. The Gouda was sweeter than most I have tried in the past, and it was very easy to pick out the butterscotch flavor we were told to expect. It was paired with a really nice Port whose name I unfortunately don’t remember. It seems that someone else was also a fan because the empty bottle disappeared after the class before I had a chance to look at it. An interesting tidbit I learned during the discussion on this cheese – Gouda is actually pronounced “Gowda."  Who knew?

The third cheese was a Tarentaise out of Vermont. It is an organic Alpine-style cheese made with raw milk from Jersey cows and produced in specially imported copper vats. It was served with a raw Marcona almond and a Block No. 45 Pinot Noir. The cheese had a slightly nutty flavor and a little bit of a bite. The wine was just okay; I don't have anything good or bad to say about it. This trio was probably the most unremarkable of the tasting courses.

Cheese #4 was Gabietou, a semi-soft cheese made with a blend of raw cow and sheep’s milk. It comes from a mountainous region in southwestern France, and the animals used in the production of the cheese are moved up and down the mountains, allowing them to ingest a variety of flora and fauna. It was served with a 2009 Aletta Garnacha. This was probably my least favorite combination of the night. Both the cheese and the wine had earthy notes, and I am starting to realize that I am not a huge fan of that characteristic in my food.

The final selection was a revelation for me. When I saw that it was a blue cheese, I was slightly disappointed because I am not a fan of blue cheeses. It only got worse when the expert told us to expect a cheese that would “sit heavy on the tongue”. The cheese was a Persille du Malzieu from France. It was served with a piece of dark chocolate and this light, fruity, refreshing Riesling, which just might be my new favorite wine.



The cheese on its own was creamy and spicy and was definitely blue, but unlike some I have had before where the pungent flavor is completely overwhelming, this one also had a sweetness that seemed to mellow the tang and sharpness. And paired with the dark chocolate, it was pretty amazing.

This was my first time attending one of the free classes at Whole Foods, and now I can’t wait to check out some of their other events. While I love eating cheese, I am by no means educated on the topic, so I felt like I learned a lot, and I sampled cheeses that I never would have otherwise tried. The Cheese Class & Tasting is held the third Thursday of every month at the Whole Foods in Tampa, and I will definitely be going back next month.

To top off an already awesome night, we ran into Target, where I finally found this gum.

Nicole Wilkins had posted a picture of this on her Facebook page months ago, and I have been looking everywhere for it since then because the Dessert Delights are my absolute favorite. The verdict? It's probably the second best flavor, right behind Apple Pie.