Challenge

Last week as I was trudging along on my 3M run I decided that I needed to put focus back into my workout life! Yes I am ashamed to admit that as soon as I stopped working with the coach well I stopped working out all together. The only excuse I was able to come up with is that I lost direction, I lost the passion that was driving me. All of sudden I was deflated, racing totally lost its appeal and thus training had no purpose.

I guess this year is the year of finding a new balance. Maybe playing the game "who is Sophie?" is the purpose of my life it sure feels like it most of the time.

This year though has been a bit different, I crossed to the dark side of the 30is.. I know I am not old and gosh I hope I look half as good as most 40+ year old I know but working with people who graduated from high school the year I got married doesn't do much for feeling young!

I think the harder part was to have my daughter leave daycare. A school we have been going to every single day for the past 7 years. Leaving people who saw and took care of both of my kids from 3month old until 5!

So back to my challenge and lack of gusto in training. I decided to try something new. I obviously don't feel like racing these days the mental pressure I put on myself is simply too much. But I thought what about challenging my self to do the following for the next 12 months:

- Monday Yoga/Off

- Tuesday 30-45 min run

- Wednesday 30-45 min run

- Thursday Yoga

- Friday 30-45 min run

- Saturday 1:30-2:00 bike (alternating between road bike and mountain bike)

- Sunday 60-90 min run.

3 weeks on 1 week lighter so on and so forth.

I don't worry about mileage or speed I just want to get out there challenge myself with the terrain and the consistency.

I am only allowed to miss a workout for another workout and only 1 run/week unless sick!

This is my challenge lets see if I can do it.

Today: - 41min run

The other challenge that I think every other woman has is to lose those damned 5-10lbs. I won't bore you with the details but I decided to really try this time...

Tonight I cooked:

- Ono steak which is a Hawaiian fish much like sword fish B cooked it on the BBQ (yes we did have fish tonight)

- Green pea sauce

- Orzo pasta

- Cherries

- 1 glass of white wine.

Now it is time to shower and go read.... Good night

BTW I'm still sewing although I have to move my stuff back downstairs and I need to post on those said projects

Cooking

So I love to cook. I find it relaxing and it also gives me a nice feeling of accomplishment. I like to create new simple recipes. I just love it.
Lately I made some jams strawberries/blueberries! I know it isn't the season and strawberries are expensive right now but I like the idea of making and eating my own jam. I still have to learn how to perfect my recipes. This batch is pretty good though.
I also made some pierogies last night. I love those things and I am really sad Trader Joes discontinued them. Every now and then I do like to make a batch. My last batch ended up in the trash since they all glued to one another making a big mess. This time instead of piling them up I made a single layer.

When sharing my love of cooking to some coworker I was a little puzzled at the reaction of some. They were poopooing the fact what I do. I hate that especially when they don't do it themselves, when they are less healthy (or at least look less healthy than I do). I do it because I love it that's it let me have my fun ;)

Holiday season

I can't believe Christmas is already there, and my birthday and the new year! I talked to my mom a few days ago and the Burgundy countryside is all covered in snow :( It is hard to not spend this holiday with my parents and sister. I'm sure we will have a nice quiet christmas since it is only the 4 of us. I will be cooking pheasant for christmas, still looking into how I'm going to prepare it. For my birthday dinner I think I may go get a fresh lobster and do some lobster pasta with home made pasta.
We have the Pisa tour of gifts in the garage. We have to open all the boxes and wrap everything up. B has yet to shop for my christmas presents. I think he got my birthday already covered. I'm super happy because his gift arrived in the mail yesterday after a annoucement telling me that it would be ship on Jan 20th!
The office is dead quiet and eventhough I have pretty tight deadline I find it extremely difficult to concentrate. I have made some good progress but unfortunately I still have quite a lot to do.
MAC has been going to a YMCA camp for the past two days and MEC has been really unhappy to still go to her regular school. If it was her choice she would already be in Kindergarten.
On the kids side eventhough we thought that the 3d kid options was killed a couple of month back it has reappeared and we are struggling to make a decision. To make things harder we have been watching our little neighbour. He is 20 months now and he is sooo darn cute. He fits in our family unit so well that a third one totally makes sense. But he is already almost 2, the idea of being pregnant for 9 month really doesn't apeal to me. I am also wondering how my gortex abb will handle a pregnancy. Will have to be reconstructed yet again after this. A baby now would be a age gap of at least 4 years between MEC and the little one at least. We are just coming out of the baby/toddle tunel do we really want to get back in. So many questions difficult to answer....

On the training side, after my really tough run saturday, I went for a short bike ride on sunday. Today I did my intervals 4x0.5M at 8:30 and it was work but easy. On a treadmill, doing intervals my mental isn't has negative as on the road. Too weird.
Anyways I can't wait for this training to be over so I can focus on shorter distance run which suit me just fine, and the bike and the swim.

I will be concluding this post with my carnitas recipe a new favorite:

- Pork shoulder remove as much of the fat as possible.
- Saute onion in a pan, brown the meat a little add some cumin and "Mexican spice" I think. This jar isn't labeled so I'm not too sure. If I had to make it I would put cumin, paprika, cinamon I think.
- Put the meat and onion in a crockpot, put chicken broth up to the middle of the meat
- Let it cook on low for 6-10 hours.
FYI I put my pork which was a really big chunk frozen in the crockpot, I started on high for a few of hours then switch to low. I did turn the meat after about 2hours.
- Take the meat out of the crockpot onto a plate
- Remove the fat pieces and pull the meat with fork.
- Add a little juice to moisten the meat.
- In a pan mix 2 tbsp of tequila, 4 tbsp of brown sugar, some more spices, and 2/3 cup of cooking juice.
- Add the meat and let simmer then caramelize a little bit.

Use it to make carnitas tacos or burritos....