Enjoying the fruits of someone else's labor

I've been keeping up with my farm goodies much better this year and am excited by some of the new recipes I've tried.

Last week's box featured cabbage and cucumbers. I remember the first year with my farm, I just ignored my cabbage while it sat in a back corner of the fridge slowly getting crispier and crispier. This year, I made an Asian sort of coleslaw and this awesome buttered cabbage dish.

I've also been keeping ahead of the decay rate of the peaches and apricots by eating 1-2 peaches a day and at least 4 apricots. It's hard work.

There's a nice farmer's market near where I work on Tuesday nights, so if I figure out what I want to do with my farm veggies early in the week, I can go get the extra veggies from the farmer's market. Like last night I tried making quinoa for the first time as part of a spicy cucumber, tomato quinoa salad, so I bought some tomatoes and a jalepeno pepper from the market. There's certainly room for improvement as my quinoa turned out decidedly gluey, but it was a nice adventure in cooking with a hot pepper. Like, don't dig the seeds out with your fingernail or you might get burning oil between your nail and your skin and experience a burning thumb for the next few hours.

This week I got a 2 zucchini and 3 yellow squash, so I'll be trying out a raw pasta recipe (something like this). There were also 5 ears of corn, so I think I'll try again with the quinoa and make a corn, tomato and quinoa salad.

I've also been enjoying cucumber sandwiches -- a little cream cheese on a mini bagel, three slices of cucumber per half a bagel and some seasoning salt. Yum!

Before diving fully into this cooking adventure, I went up to Geneva, NY to do the Musselman triathlon (actually the mini-Mussel, since I did the sprint distance). I had a great time and had some nice results, but have been having a hard time getting motivated to do the workouts since. Oh well. Next race is in about 3 weeks, so I'd better get some focus back.

Musselman Sprint Race Report

What a beautiful, fun weekend and what a great way to earn a raspy voice for two days now.

I did the sprint race on Saturday and was mostly out there to enjoy myself. I had some goals, but spent more of my 2 hours of racing enjoying the scenery than worrying about my pacing. As a nice aside, I did meet my goals (sort of) and managed not to get sunburned.

On Sunday, I had a great time cheering and worked on trombone-ing with one of the Z-horns. I learned that I am still unable to ring a cowbell with my left hand and that if I give away my cowbell, I am likely to try to ring the Z-horn.

Now I'm looking forward to a repeat of this successful feeling at Luray



Race Details:

* Swim - the swim was beautiful. I've never been in open water with that kind of visibility. While it was probably warm enough to get by without a wetsuit, I'm glad I wore one. It's more fun to imagine being a seal if you're all neoprened up. (Goal: < 15 min, met the goal)

* Bike - went out a little hard and sort of felt like dying at the top of the first hill 3 miles in. It got much better from then, and I thought of Iwan who yelled "Use the big gear" frequently on this relatively flat course. Did anyone else see the big metal fish between miles 8 and 9? It would have helped to notice that the race was 16 miles, not 12 - 14 like I thought. The last two miles felt very long considering that I didn't know they were coming. (Goal: < 70 min, met the goal)

* Run - I still have to get better at bringing the resolve that I have at Weds track practice out to a race. I did run/walk intervals and was very disciplined in keeping the walks brief, but I would have loved to have been able to make the run intervals longer. I set my goal for this part thinking it was a 3.1 mile run, when actually it was 3.2, which is more than a minute difference at my running pace. (Goal: < 40 min, did not meet the goal, but did set a new best running pace at a triathlon, which would have been < 40 if it had only been a 5k)


Future Goals:
This year, it will be my third year doing the Luray Sprint (coming up in August) and I'm excited to see my progress on that course.
Swim - < 16 min non-wetsuit or < 14 min with wetsuit
Bike - < 80 min (stretch goal)
Run - < 40 min (stretch goal on those hills)