George's First Haircut and Snowboarding

First things first, George got his first haircut last night! It was kind of a sad event, and I'm pretty sure Pete's still mad at me for doing it. Here's a couple before shots:



George did pretty well, and only fussed a little bit. Here he is with his short hair:



In a way I miss his long hair, but I don't miss it always getting food in it, and always having a big rat's nest in the back. Sigh. He's still our cute, sweet little baby and that's what matters.

Today was a wonderful day because Pete and I got to go snowboarding! Thank you so much to Amber and Ginny for taking care of my babies!


That's my man! :)

The mountains, as aways, were beautiful.

I was totally spoiled last time with the nice soft, deep snow. This time there wasn't really any powder and I'd get going much faster when I'd try to turn so it took some getting used to. We had heard they were getting dumped on up there on Saturday, what the heck?! I eventually got back into my groove, though, and we had a great time.

We did 3 runs, stopped and had some apples, walnuts, boiled eggs, and split a Ritter Sport before heading back up for 2 more runs.

We were sad to be done after that, but knew we needed to get back to the kids, and decided it was better not to totally leave everything up on the mountain. I didn't want to be dead for the rest of the day like I was last time! Of course, that may have been because I was sick too. Who knows.

Eat For Health

Yesterday I ran 8.4 hilly miles in the wind, and I thought about food the whole time.

Not in the way you would think like, "I'm eating a burger after this!" Or, "I deserve to make cookies when I get home." Quite the opposite.

This week Keebler cookies AND Oreos went on sale at Smith's, which is where I do most of my grocery shopping since it's a block away from my house. The first time I saw the huge display of the delicious E.L. Fudge cookies, I had to stop and look at the ingredients list to remind myself why I was NOT going to buy them, even if they were half off. Here's the list:

ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE [VITAMIN B1], RIBOFLAVIN [VITAMIN B2], FOLIC ACID),

SUGAR,

VEGETABLE OIL (SOYBEAN, PALM, AND PALM KERNEL OIL WITH TBHQ FOR FRESHNESS),

DEXTROSE,

CONTAINS TWO PERCENT OR LESS OF HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP,

COCOA (PROCESSED WITH ALKALI),

EGGS,

COCOA,

SALT,

WHEY,

CORNSTARCH,

BAKING SODA,

BUTTER (CREAM, SALT),

NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, SOY LECITHIN.

Now why do you need all that junk in your cookies?!

They are not food.

I got home that day and told Pete that I think I need to stop shopping at Smiths because I'm sick of being bombarded by these things. I really do love E.L. Fudge cookies. They are one of my favorites, but I just can't feel good about eating that anymore.

Then he showed me this video:

I could go so far as to say this video is life-changing.

At least to me.

This lady basically cured her MS with food!

It is unbelievable to me that she had all the best care and medicine available, and yet she was still getting worse. She could hardly walk and was unable to sit up in a chair. She went from that to riding her bike 18 miles and riding horses in the Rockies in a year!

Seriously, how much money do we spend on research to find cures for things like MS or cancer or whatever in this country, when the answer is right here. Maybe we should spend more time and effort on educating people about this, instead of trying to treat the symptoms.

Maybe I'm over-simplifying it, but I don't think so. We need these nutrients to live and be healthy. One thing she said that really stood out to me is that we are literally starving ourselves. Here we live in this land of plenty and we are starving ourselves and getting fat and sick at the same time, while we're surrounded by all this good food.

And we are doing this to our children.

She also mentioned that these foods could help with behavioral problems. How many of us would LOVE for our children to behave better? I remember the day after Halloween, several people posted on facebook about how terrible their children were acting that day. Coincidence? On the other side of that, my kids have been so good these past 2 days! Coincidence again? Maybe. But they have been getting along so well, and obeying us so much better. Maybe they're just feeling better.

On my run yesterday, while I was thinking about all of this, I also thought about how grateful I am for my healthy body and that I'm able to just go out and run eight miles.

I want to keep it that way.

We are going to try to start building our meals around the vegetables instead of grains or starches. We don't need those things, and like she said, if you get all the vegetables in and you're still hungry, then you can have the grain. We are really excited about this.

Now, I'm not saying I won't ever have sugar again. I mean, cookies are my favorite thing, but they need to be a much more rare treat.

When I told my sister about this, she said, "You always do such weird diets." But first of all, it's not a "diet" and secondly, how is it weird to eat fresh, real food? I sent her the video, and I hope it helps change her way of thinking too.

Please try this with us! If you do, post on here and let me know how it's going or what you think of it.

PS - Building Mitochondria also helps with running!

Recovery Week & Return to Healthy Eating

Boy am I glad this week was a recovery week because I needed it! After snowboarding on Monday (which was awesome!) I got sick, and didn't workout at all Tuesday or Wednesday. I just tried to sleep as much as possible and think recovery thoughts. The trouble is that when I'm not working out, I have a hard time sleeping! Arg!

Thursday, I slept in again because I had a tough night, but did end up doing a trainer ride that night. I decided I would try out Downton Abbey because I keep hearing about it, and luckily it's on Hulu so I get to watch it! It even has the whole season so far on there so I don't have to miss anything! Nice.

It was a nice, easy, hour-long ride and Downton Abbey was fun to watch while I rode. I actually wanted to go for another hour so I could watch the next episode! But I had to get to bed so I could make sure and get to swimming on Friday. And what do you know, I slept really well that night!

Friday I did really good getting up early and getting ready for swimming, but then George woke up, and I couldn't get him back to sleep until after 6 so I ended up being 18 minutes (Yes, I know exactly when I got there!) late for masters. I just did a short warmup and jumped right into their drill set. Chris left early, but we did get to do a hard set of 8 x 50 on 1:10 first. Fun stuff!

Saturday I did a really easy run. I was going to go 6 miles, but on the way back I was still coughing and not feeling great so I reminded myself there was no need to push it, and took the shorter way home. I ended up with 5.41 miles, and I was tired! I hope next week I can be back to my normal self!

That night, I went to the Banff outdoor film festival with Pete, and it was so much fun! We saw some great films documenting things like a 9-year old bouldering prodigy, a guy who took 3 years to cross Asia on horseback, and some guys who climbed an 8000 meter peek in winter. Wow, people can do some pretty amazing things!

I also made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and have eaten like a million of them this weekend! Not good. I mean, they are good. They are SO good! But I don't feel good eating them, and I really want to get back onto the healthy eating train.

Pete and I did really well for a while, and we've kind of fallen off. For the most part, I still eat mostly really healthy food, but I just love cookies so much!

I just ran across this video that starts out kind of slow and cheesy, but they really have some good information! It explains really well what we try to eat, and why it's better to eat butter, eggs and bacon than a muffin or even "healthy" cereal. It's a good reminder for me to be more careful with my sugar intake and to eat more sweet potatoes. Yum!

They are going to make a spiel at the end to sell their program to you, and you can watch that if you want, but I'm not trying to sell you on that, and she pretty much says it all in the video.

Click Here.

PS - Gotta love Isabelle, she's awesome! :)

Snowboarding With Brittany

I love Brighton Ski Resort so much! Ok, so I've only been to one other place, and that was Wolf Mountain, but they are like apples and oranges! I had been planning a snowboarding girls trip to Wolf Mountain with my friend, Brittany, and some of her friends because we all had passes there for Monday, Wednesday and Friday this week. I was the only one with a pass to Brighton on Monday because we have different Pass of All Passes, and Pete couldn't go Monday so I was ok with just going with them to Wolf Mountain. But her friends both wanted to go Wednesday, and it was snowing in Park City (which usually means Brighton too) on Sunday! I asked Brittany if she would just go to Brighton with me Monday if I paid for half her lift ticket. That was a good deal for her, and still a good deal for me to be able to go to Brighton for only $25!

Monday morning I took my recovery socks off from the half marathon, and put on my snowboarding socks!

It was a beautiful day, and we were so excited to see all the pillows of snow on the trees! It looked really cool.

Excited to get going!

We did so many runs, I didn't even keep track of how many. Maybe 5 or 6? I don't know, it was just go, go go! Brittany was so fun to snowboard with. I would just follow her lead, making turns all the way down the mountain. It was awesome because I really felt like I was finally getting it! She was also really encouraging and fun to ride with, telling me to find a jump to try out and things like that. There was one particular place we got to where I was like, "It's pretty steep!" and she was just like, "go head." I started down, and she told me, "just cut it." So I did! I turned, and I made it! It was such a good feeling! I did do one little jump too. It was nothing big, but it was fun and made me feel good!

It's just so magical up there, I can hardly even stand it!

On our second to last run, I cam around a corner and heard Brittany calling my name. I saw her pointing and thought she was just letting me know where she was going, but then I got closer and saw a bunch of people stopped and something in the middle of the groomer. After a second, I realized it was a porcupine! (See the little dot in the middle of the above photo?) He was just walking around calmly like it was no big deal. Of course, this was his home! One snowboarder, got really close to him, and kind of shooed it off the path. It was just so calm and cute, but I didn't dare get very close so you can't even tell what it is in this picture:

As you can see, he was off in the trees when we went past, but he acted like he wanted to get back up on the packed snow, which I can understand - It's much easier to walk on!

We spent most of our time on Snake Creek over on the right side, but for our last run we made it way over to go up the far left run (I can never remember the name), and we got to cut through some fun powder on the way. We were lucky to get on since Brittany had a half-day pass which expires at 12:30 and it was like 12:38 when we got on the lift! They didn't even check, though, so that was nice!

It started snowing when we got to the top, and it was really pretty so we had to take some pictures (not that you can even tell):

As you can see, we're right off the lift, in everyone's way!

At one point Brittany said that she was starting to get tired, and I said, "Yeah, I think I am too." I said that because I knew I should be getting tired, but I really wasn't feeling it. It was weird! The only time I started to feel it was at the very end when we cut way back to the right to get to the lodge before heading home, and I was on my toe edge for a long time. Then my calves just started burning! Then I knew, even though I hated to leave, it was probably good to be done too.

It was just such a fun day snowboarding, I loved it! The snow was soft and beautiful, I did really well and only had a few soft falls, and I had great company! Hopefully we'll get to go out together at least one more time this year.

My legs were so sore that night! I wish I could tell when they were that tired while I'm up there so I know to stop. Maybe it's a good thing I don't.

That night I also starting to feel sick! I didn't know if it was just from over-doing it snowboarding or if I was really getting sick. The next day I knew for sure that I was sick. My body just couldn't regulate its temperature, and I just didn't feel good. My legs felt better, but now my neck, shoulders and biceps were really sore so I just tried to get as much rest as possible. Even though it was Valentine's day, I didn't really do anything special for dinner, I just got soup and sandwich stuff from the store. I did make heart pancakes for breakfast, though!

Today I felt much better, and even though I really wanted to go to swimming, I decided to take one more day off. Mindy was home sick today with the same thing I had so hopefully she's better tomorrow.

Outside The Ice Half Marathon - Race Report

Oh man, I totally slept in this morning! I set my alarm for 6am, but I guess I never turned it on. The awesome thing was that I was able to sleep in. George slept all night, and so did I! It was so nice. He had gotten back into the habit of nursing a couple times during the night because he got sick and I got soft. Finally, the night before last, we decided to have him cry it out again. He cried for over an hour before going back to sleep so I was ready for a repeat of that last night, especially since he's got a cough, so I was happily surprised when I suddenly woke up at 6:30!

I was also really happy that I hadn't woken up any later since I had agreed to pick Amber and Cheryl up at 7 for the race! Yikes, I got ready in a hurry, and just grabbed a Larabar for breakfast on the way.

This race was at the Olympic Oval. It's inside, and there's an ice rink inside the track where the olympic speed skaters practice. It was interesting to see the different things they do to train.

All that rush and stress, and we got there with about an hour to spare so we just hung out, and took advantage of their nice restroom a couple times. Way nicer than your usual race port-a-potties! :)

I had made a playlist just for this half marathon that started out with the kind of slower songs, then had the fast songs in the second half. It was a 2.1 hour long playlist and I was excited to listen to it and try to pace myself with it, and hopefully not have it loop.


But when I started out, the music there and everything else going on was too loud so I could hardly hear my music. I could have turned it up really loud, but that seemed kind of silly since their music was pretty good anyway. So I just took my ipod off and put it with our stuff.

As usual, it took me a while to get warmed up and feeling good. After about half an hour, I passed Amber and Cheryl for the first time, and I was starting to feel really good and getting into a good rhythm. I told myself that I'd stop and get something at the aid station at 40 minutes, but I was just didn't want to stop so I put it off until about 50 minutes.

I really wish I would have remembered my own gel or shot blocks because they just had bananas, oranges and trail mix (what?). I grabbed a piece of banana, and it seemed like it took me forever to peal. Then it seemed like it took me forever to eat because it wasn't ripe at all. It hardly even tasted like a banana, and I had to chew it a lot! I was a little worried it would make me sick, but it was ok.

The track is 442 meters, so a half marathon is 47 3/4 laps. They had us start on the far side of the track, and I started counting laps when I first hit the timing mat. I guess I should have waited until next time around, though, because when I thought I was at 24, they told me I was on 23.

That was at about an hour in, and since I hadn't done 23 laps, I knew my goal to finish in 2 hours was probably not going to happen. It was hard because I didn't know my pace, and I never did the math to figure out how fast my laps needed to be to make 2 hours! Too bad I'm not smart enough to do that in my head while I'm running! Anyway, I was still hopeful that I'd make it because I had started out slow and was running faster now. The music seemed to have turned down now too, so I grabbed my ipod and fast forwarded to the fast songs.

At around 1:30, I was wanting some more energy, wishing they had just chocolate instead of trail mix (I didn't feel like eating nuts, and I don't like raisins) when I realized I could just grab the trail mix and pick out the M&Ms! So I did that, and that was nice. Next time around I grabbed some water to wash it down. Who knows how much energy it gave me, but I was able to keep going. I also stopped and grabbed an orange slice at one point, and that was really good, but it got all in my teeth! Haha

When I got to what I thought was 43, I heard them announce that I was on 42. I was like, "What!?" But I just kept going - 5 laps to go!

Then my left knee started hurting! Dang it! I tried to really run through it, ignore the pain, and keep pushing. I had a few slower laps, but I was able to push it hard at the end.

I felt good pretty much the whole time and ran at a pretty steady pace, averaging about 2:40 a lap until those last few. I felt good about it, but it wasn't fast enough to finish in 2 hours. It's hard running on flat for that long! I was really longing for some nice downhills to help my time out!

I did not love my time, but I may have done one lap too many. We'll see when they go over the times and fix any mistakes. Fingers crossed! :)

Amber and Cheryl were about 10 laps behind me when I finished so I just stretched for a few minutes and had some more M&Ms -uh, I mean trail mix, and water. They did great, I can't remember what time they finished in, but it was their first half marathon and they both finished strong!

I was so glad they came with me. It's so fun to have friends that run now! Afterwards we went to Apollo Burger and got way too much food! (Don't worry, I didn't eat all those onion rings, or all the shake)

My legs, and mostly my knees are pretty sore tonight. I'm sitting here icing them with my feet up. I'm excited to say I did a half marathon today, when I hadn't even planned on it 2 months ago! It was a great training run, and it was good to see how fast I could do a totally flat half marathon which is kind of reminiscent of Utah Half so that's good!

When the race results came in a few days later, I found out that I WON MY AGE GROUP! Oh yeah! That's the awesome thing about small races! :)

Also, looking at my Garmin data, I did run an extra lap. So I ran 13.37 miles which brings my pace up to 10:10 min/mile average.

Friday Flashback - Jordanelle 2007

Jordanelle Triathlon - August 25, 2007 - Sprint

This was me on my 27th birthday, after cutting my hair, 5 days after the race.

I remember working so hard to get to where I could run the full 5k for this one, and then just crying when I had to stop and walk. I also remember a lady doing the olympic passing me and giving me some encouragement that helped so much! I don't even remember what she said, but I remember her. And looking at my run time, it looks like I did really good!

Swim 750m - 21:07

Bike - 47:48

T2 - 3:02

Run - 27:56

Total Time - 1:48:27

I was #29 out of 59 in my age group.

I don't have any pictures of the race, but these were taken the day after when Elle was almost exactly 11 months old.

What a sweet little girl!

Quick Heber Visit

Today we went and visited my dad in Heber, and it was quite a beautiful day as you can see:

We didn't think there would be enough snow to bring snowsuits, but bare legs were a little extreme, Elle!

I ran 8 miles yesterday, and it was not fast. I'm a little nervous about the half marathon next week because I only did 8 miles for my last 2 long runs, and felt sore afterwards. Sometimes I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing! Let's hope I do and that I'll make it the 13.1 on Saturday because, as of tonight, I'm officially registered!

Friday Flashback - Spudman 2007

Spudman Triathlon - July 28, 2007 - Olympic

This was my first olympic distance tri! I thought it would be a good first one because the swim is downstream and the bike and run are pretty flat. It was still really hard to run that 6.2 though!

Pete did this one with me also, and it was really fun because we left the kids with my dad and just had a little trip by ourselves. We drove up to Burley, Idaho the night before and slept in the Jeep amongst hundreds of other athletes on the golf course which is right on the race course.

I love this race! It's so fun swimming downstream, then jumping in the river after your done to cool off and play around. I was still nursing Elle so the main thing I remember is being really uncomfortable during the run because of not nursing for so long! Ouch!

Swim 1500m - 20:32 (about the same as my sprint times!)

T1 - 5:25

Bike 25 miles - 1:18:33

T2 - 6:21

Run - 1:13:09

Finish Time - 3:04:03

On the way home, we saw this crazy little cyclone!

Swimming, Running and Spinning in Circles

Elle likes to play this dress-up game and take pictures of her creations on my phone. I found this on there today.

Fitting. :)

Of course, Ethan was sick again yesterday, so I didn't get my run in, but I did go to early morning masters! Yay, I always love to swim! Here's what we did:

200 swim stroke

100 kick

200 swim free

2 x (200, 100, 50) first time with paddles and pull, second time free

500 ladder (started out with fins, but my foot was cramping too bad so I took them off and tried to keep up!)

2 x 50 all out for time (:42 both times)

150 cool down

1850 total

That boy is going back to school tomorrow!

Last night, Pete gave me a massage. Taking that couple's massage class back in like '07 was one of the best investments we've ever made! I never paid for a massage the whole time I was training for Ironman. I had kind of forgotten that Pete gives such a good massage, and my back felt so much better afterwards! It's still a little sore today, but not nearly as bad. I'm planning on talking him into another one tomorrow.

Here's a little article about what massage actually does to your muscles.

This morning, I slept in a little and had a hard time getting out of bed, but I made it! I went and ran on the track at the gym.

It actually wasn't this crowded the whole time. These ladies would run in every once and a while, do one lap, and run out. It must have been for a class that was going on or something.

I ran for 10 minutes to warm up, then I alternated fast/slow laps for 20 minutes, using my iPhone to keep track of laps and time.

Here's my first 4 laps:

And, here's the last 4:

This is such a good, hard workout. I love being able to run as fast as I can just for 30 seconds. I can actually focus that long and stay on track.

So, let's see, the track is 15 laps to a mile, so the 30 second ones were 7:30 min/mile pace, and the 50 second ones were 12:30 min/mile. Not too bad right? I mean, it slows you down having to turn so much!

A total of 32 laps is a little over 2 miles. Oh yeah!

Then another easy 10 minutes to cool down.

I really wanted to wear my heart rate monitor today for this, but I couldn't find the watch that goes with it in the dark. I'll have to try to find it before my next run.

After dropping the kids off at school, getting George down for a nap, and Ethan started on his homework (I really should have made him go to school today, but he said he still felt sick! It's so hard to know.), I got on the trainer and did an easy ride for 45 minutes with just a few 1 minute pick-ups at the end. It was good to just get on the bike.

And here's just a cute picture of George, he was in such a get-into-everything mood today! Such a sweet little trouble-maker!

Groundhog Day Treat

This is my Groundhog Day treat (Warning, this is very decadent!):

We do our family night on Wednesday nights since that's when everyone's home, and that's the night I get to make a treat! Last night we wanted to have brownies with ice cream. I found this recipe by Alton Brown. We love Alton Brown! Pretty much anytime I'm looking for a recipe, if I see one by him, that's the one I pick. These brownies are so chocolaty, there's more than twice the amount of cocoa than flour! Yes, please. (They were actually too chocolaty for Elle, she didn't like them)

I made this in muffin cups so we would have little individual brownies.

Then we topped it with Haagen Daz dulce de leche (carmel) and/or vanilla ice cream. We take our ice cream seriously! We love Haagan Daz because look at the list of ingredients for their vanilla: Cream, Skim Milk, Sugar, Egg Yolks, Natural Vanilla. That's it! And it's just so, so good!

Anyway, I wanted to have it again tonight with the left-overs. Then I got the idea to try making some chocolate syrup to go with it, and found this recipe using agave necter. I ended up adding another squirt of agave, and about 2-3 tbsp. butter, and it's really good! No sugar! :)

Put it all together, and OH. My. Heavens. Such a treat!

This would make a great Valentine's Day treat too.