Laugh, Train, Eat and stuff...

LAUGH
Here are some more photos from the Tri Alliance EOSPN and a link to the rest of the photo album (you need to have access to Facebook).

Tim, Belinda, Dave, Kerri, Me and Narelle

Bdette, Mick, Daz, Greg, Des, me and Paddy - Some of the Tri Alliance Coaches.

TRAIN
The 2nd week of training hasn't really gone off to the best start. Due to my lack of going out over the last few months, I was badly dehydrated over the weekend (from the TA party) and as a result, the not-so-good news is that I currently have a kidney infection. I won't go into detail about what I have had to go through over the last 48 hours or so, you can google search that stuff. I will add however that my lower back and my hips feels like it has been compressed tightly for a while. I had kidney infection about 6 years ago which left some scarring on one of my kidneys but I am not sure if the infection is on the same one or occurring on the other one too...anyways, I was home-bound on Wednesday and Thursday due to the urgency of toilet stops, visits to the doctors and this morning (Friday) had a little sleep-in due to the effects anti-biotics. But all that infection/sickness aside, I am feeling ok and grateful that I have access to modern medicine and good doctors.

This weekend's training is to be mixed up a bit to accommodate some minor changes. My ride will start early again at Studley Park before the Week 3 of the Bike Skills course which starts at 8am. As I don't have any plans other than a 3pm appointment near my house, I may stay back and do a few more laps - lets see how I go.

Last week, I could only get in 2 laps (< 30km) prior to 8am and as part of Bike Skills, we only did a 10km TT of the tear drop loop (my slowest 10km TT ever due to my lack of strength) and then some slow bike skills sessions (at which I had a stack). I ended up only having done 40-45km of hills (short and steep) rather than a 90km of Beach Rd. To better prepare me for Lorne Weekend, I want to ride close to 60-80km this week and happy to do this on Studley Park.

On Sunday, we won't be going to Fairfield for the run as Coach Greg is away. I will either join the MSAC group or run close to my house, see how I am feeling on Saturday night.

EAT
On the side, I have also been exploring more recipes - for training (see my other posts on homemade gels) and for meals. I have been following The Natural Nutritionist and so I have been trialing some ideas. I don't follow recipes (never been good at being told what to do) and so I look at the ingredients and just do my own thing.

For dinner one night, I made quinao again. The difference between what I had been doing (which lead me to stop eating quinoa) and what I am doing now is that I am soaking them to remove the stuff which causes inflammation... I followed her quinoa cooking tips and I just cooked something which I felt like eating - salmon with quinao salad (quinoa, olives, avocado, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, celery, lemon zest and juice, white wine vinegar, olive oil, salt). Don't ask me for the recipe as I don't measure - never have as I just cook based on instinct.

This meal took me about 12min to do (the total time for the quinoa to cook). A tip I have is to buy fresh fish rather than the frozen stuff from the frozen food aisle - I find that the fish will be cooked  more evenly (no frozen spots) and you will save on packaging waste - a small plastic bag which can be used for waste scraps when chopping vegies versus cardboard, plastic sealed wrapping etc.


Obligatory food photo - don't mind the Endura bottle on the side.