Things you find in the kitchen surprise!

It's time for another recipe! Brought to you by...the miscellaneous foods that have been accumulating in my kitchen! I think this one turned out excellent- and now I have lunch to bring to work for the next five days.

Take 1 cup Quinoa and boil it in water unless it is soft, and all the seeds pop open. I mixed the last of the red quinoa that's been in my cabinet with some white quinoa.

Then take all the vegetables that have been hanging out in your fridge starting to whither as you try to figure out what to do with them. Saute them! I sauteed the 2 carrots, one zucchini, and half a turnip in olive oil, then sauteed the onion, and seven scallion stalks, and red pepper in vegetable spray.

Then I threw in the can of kidney beans I've had sitting around since the last time I made chili.

Then after everything was cooked to perfection I mixed it in a big bowl with the nearly full can of tahini, a splash of lemon juice, and a few shakes of cumin and paprika. Heavy on the cumin.

Its delicious- looks like mush though.

Then I divided it into five containers and threw it in the fridge. This might even be good to eat cold.

According to Myfitnesspal each serving has about 534 Calories (23 grams of fat), and 17 grams of protein! It's also loaded with iron, 78% DV of vitamin A, and 46% DV vitamin C.

Just keep running, just keep running...

This past weekend I did the Run the Rocks 5K up at Red Rocks Amphitheater. Before it started my foot hurt so bad I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it. But once the race got started I found my stride, and my foot felt great! The first two miles were amazing: downhill and flat, with the Rocky Mountain foothills providing such beautiful scenery it made me remember how lucky I am to live in Colorado! Mile 2-3 was all uphill, and with the added altitude (6,400 feet above sea level) I enjoyed a steady walking pace while enjoying the day. At the third mile marker uphill turned into stairs. After climbing the stairs the race ended at the top of the amphitheater with a cool expo featuring evol burritos, skinny girl smoothies, and ice cream!  I wore my new five fingers for the first time too, and after those three miles they are broken in quite nicely.

Last weekend Adam and I did the Zombie Dash. That was a scavenger hunt that led us to several downtown bars where we had to perform challenges like moving a stack of can using a piece of spaghetti in our mouths, zombie movie trivia, and getting ping pong balls into cup in a "Z" formation
(which we dominated). As we ran from bar to bar we had to figure out the clues telling us where to go and we got to be dressed as zombies!

Aches and Pains and gulp! A Diet!

My body feels like its falling apart! I think I may have fractured a bone in my foot during the Rock and Roll Marathon (just a hairline fracture, most days it feels okay). Since the race I've cut back my exercise drastically. Every time I run my foot starts to hurt, and swells up. I'm trying to not run as much, but its hard to quit! When my foot swells up it doesn't fit into my vibram five fingers, so yesterday I wore my sneakers for a walk-workout on the treadmill. The heels of my shoes are so beat up that a mere hour of walking caused a giant blister on my already injured foot.

After the post marathon workout slow down I started to gain weight. My intake of calories hadn't dropped as fast as my exercise did, and I found the scale telling me I was back up toward 139 lbs. I haven't weighed that much since I started marathon training a year ago, and since I can't run like a maniac for a while I've decided to go on a... diet!

I've been trying to work more low-impact exercise into my day- taking the stairs instead of the elevator, doing weight lifting classes at the gym instead of running, and trying to do more yoga. It's not the same! The spike in adrenaline, the dripping sweat, the extended caloric burn- they're just gone! So I'm trying the ichoice diet (groupon'ed it!) which includes a daily multivitamin, a carb blocking powder you add to water, and a high fiber/protein meal replacement shake.

So I've been eating a lot healthier than I usually do. My normal day's meal usually looks like a fruit smoothie for breakfast. All last week I added kale from the CSA to the smoothies. I'm finally out of kale! With breakfast I take the multivitamins, and an iron supplement. Then at work I have some kind of fruit for a snack, usually an apple, or a banana. Then about half an hour before lunch I'll drink the carb-blocker powder. Lunch is usually a salad- filled with carrots, celery, dark leafy greens, spicy pumpkin seeds, tomatoes, and Ken's light sesame-Asian dressing. If I'm feeling like I'm not getting enough protein I'll throw a pouch of tuna in there as well. When I get home from work I'll have a small snack, maybe carrots with nutella and peanut butter, or a half-cup of veggie chili. Maybe a cup of tea with honey. Then later in the night I'll drink the meal replacement shake. I usually either blend a banana into it, or make a side of roasted veggies with sea salt to bulk up the meal, and finish it off with a calcium/vitamin D supplement. Using the myfitnesspal app I was able to track my iron and calcium intake, and without the supplements I wasn't getting enough. While trying this diet I've stopped taking my normal multivitamin- extra vitamins just get peed out anyways.

I think I'm already seeing results (its been less than two weeks) but that all might be psychosomatic.

A Week full of Awesome

Last weekend was the Rock and Roll Marathon. A great race to end the summer running season. Though I solemnly swear to train harder next time I sign up for a full marathon. Although I finished this race in 4:52:04 I walked a lot. I ended up finishing the last half o the race with a serial marathon runner who was using this run as a long slow training run for his next marathon. He was walking 1 minute then running 1 minute and I joined him for miles 13-26.

Then Sunday Adam and I volunteered at October Fest selling beer at the Rocky Mountain Feline Rescue booth, to raise money for the shelter. Beer for Cats! Little did I know that would be a great start to an epic week of volunteering.

Tuesday after work I got a message from my friend Alisha because they didn't have enough volunteers setting up for the Project Homeless Connect event at the Convention Center, so I went over there to set up chairs and tables for the event the next day. The Project Homeless Connect is an event held to help the homeless of the city get connected with different services available. At the event people are given medical exams, referrals for shelters, food banks, clothing, etc as well as help finding different services. It seems like a really great event; directly serving the homeless population.

Yesterday Liz, Lupita and I went to the CH2M Fall River Sweep volunteer event to clean up the South Platte River Trail. We ended up working with the new batch of Americorps NCCC Team Leaders, cleaning and painting the green railings around the trail. It was a great event with tons of people and a great picnic lunch after!

And finally a big shout out to my sis: Little Molly for running her first 5k yesterday!!

Adam at the RMFR Octoberfest booth!

Rock and Roll Denver!

This Saturday is the Rock and Roll Denver Marathon! Am I ready? Nope!

I haven't been working out as much since the Rattlesnake Triathlon. So I'm just going to wing this race...How hard can it be?

Two weeks ago I ran the Denver Half Marathon. That was a pretty epic day for me. The race was in Aurora, at Cherry Creek State Park. It was a trail race, scenic, beautiful...14 miles away from my apartment. So I had to leave the house before the sun came up to bike there on time (about 14 miles). I biked probably about 30 minutes before the sun touched my skin. I was freezing! My the time I got there my toes were numb. I arrived mere minutes before the race started (approximately with enough time to spare to eat half a banana). While running from the parking lot to the starting line I managed to work the kinks out of my muscles and warm my fingers and toes. The race was amazing- beautiful, good weather, about halfway through I took my sweatshirt off and tied it around my waist. It was in the same racing series as the Louisville Half, but the trail was better marked (I didn't get lost at all!) Finished in about 2:18 and then had a leisurely bike ride home. The ride home seemed much shorter, and I'm pretty sure was downhill the whole way.

I've started taking classes- I'm currently enrolled in Seminar in Not-For-Profit Organizations, and Practicum in Nonprofit Organizations. I've read a couple interesting Case Studies so far, and have really been learning a lot.
 
Sunday Adam and I are going to volunteer at Oktoberfest- working at a beer booth to raise money for the Rocky Mountain Feline Rescue. Sounds like a super fun event, and something cool to do together!

Last weekend Liz and I went rock climbing at Garden of the Gods. It was so much fun! I would love to learn how to set up the ropes, and rock climb all the time! We had a blast, then hung out in Colorado Springs for a bit (lunch and visiting my favorite used book store).
Below are some rock climbing pictures.

A Day in the Life

A Day in the Life of Bike and Build- Joplin Build Week.
6:50 Wake up call. Mike pokes his head in the girls room and tells us "breakfast!"
Then we have a few minutes to scramble around and get ready. The Abundant Life Church right outside of Joplin has been hosting us all week, and its a great place. They host volunteer groups all the time, and have made us feel so welcome! They have a room full of toiletries for those items that are forgotten (sunscreen, soap, etc). Outdoor shower facilities (really cool- basically a row of spouts separated by tarps) and they feed us every meal!
7:00 Breakfast. Sid is the breakfast chef at Abundant Life, and he goes out of his way everyday to make breakfast a special masterpiece. Today he did custome omelettes, yesterday chocolate chip pancakes with icecream, and before that crepes. We eat more for breakfast than I nor ally eat all day!
Then we finish getting ready, and a little before 8:00 get in the cars and head out to a work site.
At the work sites we do a variety of tasks (quantifiables to come in a later post) including drywalling, flooring, painting etc. The past two days we've been working with Rebuild Joplin's new crew of Americorps site supervisors, who are still doing their training and learning how to lead groups of volunteers.
Around 12:00 we break for lunch, which we packed at the church. They put out a great spread of sandwhich stuff and snacks for us to pack. I've been eating some great PB&J sandwhiches all week in true Bike and Build style! We break for lunch for about how long it takes to eat, rehydrate and take a minute off our feet. Everyone is so committed to the work we are doing here that we dont take long breaks. After eatin we jump right back into our work!
A little bit before 5 we start cleaning up our worksite and finishing as much as we can before we head back to the Abundant Life church.
5:30 is dinner. Its always delicious and we're always ravenous.
Then we hop in the showers. After we're clean we do different thing in the evenings. Monday we played jenga and banagrams, Tuesday we stayed at BJ and Grumpy's house to work late, Wednesday and Thursday we went out with Rebuild Joplin's Anericorps members for some after hours socializing, and tonight we're going to a drive in movie! Eventually we fall in our beds (completely exhausted) and fall right asleep.

Yesterday we did a little sightseeing. We drove by the Extreme Home Makeover houses, and Cunningham Park where the memorial is. The following pictures are from the memorial. Visiting the park was a super emotional moment for me.

Back in JOMO

This week has been amazing so far! Right off the bat I felt like I belonged, and felt at home. I've spent the past few days in Joplin, MO with a group of Bike and Build alumns rebuilding houses that were damaged or destroyed in the tornado last year. We started volunteering right away. Most pf us arrived Saturday, and Sunday we started working with the Americorps St. louis Emergency Response Team who coordinated the original disaster response, and has committed to the long term recovery efforts. They sent us to Wanda's house where we spent the day building a deck and a grape trellis. Then Monday and Tuesday they sent us to work at BJ ad "Grumpy's" house where we planted trees and humg drywall. Intent on finishing the work we had started, we stayed past 8:30 on Tuesday to finish as much ad we possibly could. The go-getter, not-leaving-until-we-finish attitude is something I truly love and sorely miss. It just brings back my love for the enthusiasm of bike an builders, and a little bit of frustration at my Americorps team. BJ and grumpy even fed us dinner because we missed the dinner the church provided.

Today we started working with Rebuild Joplin (Lynea, my former corps member is working for them now) and they sent us to work at Tiffany's house with the task of sanding the drywall in the bathroom, and installing laminate flooring. After we finished those tasks we made our way over to a nearby house where Rebuild Joplin was training a new batch of the Armericorps site supervisors. That house was in the process of being drywalled, so we used the skills we've cultivated over the past couple days to catch them up.

This whole week has felt more like real life to me, than my actual life does. I love hanging out with these people who were strangers 5 days ago, but now are friends; ad having and instant connection. Not only have they all done Bike and Build, but half of them are NCCC alumns as well!

Catherine installing drywall!