Frustration

Do you ever wonder what ever happened to YOU?  Sometimes I wonder if everything I do is a product of everyone around me.  I wonder if the only reason I do some of the things I do is because someone else thinks that's what I should be doing.  I have decided to go on a self discovery quest!

Right now I'm training for the St. George marathon, wondering if it will be my last. . .

I had a really big start to my summer with the Little Red Century, Rockwell Relay and Ragnar.  I've had a hard time keeping my body out of recovery mode, not to mention I found myself eating fudge stripe cookies and peanut butter for lunch (yes Mom, that's what I had for lunch today).  I tend to feed my stress and then beat myself up for it later (my dear, sweet husband LOVES it when I do this, bless his heart. . .).  I'm hoping that if I can find myself somewhere then I won't have as much stress to feed. . .

Rockwell, what an experience!

Soooo. . . I did it and I cannot tell you how fun it was!  Our team was so fun!  It was Jon and I, my friend, Melanie Stewart and Eric Jensen.  Eric was the innocent bystander.  What a great guy.  The people alone, have made these experiences awesome.  I have met the nicest people ever doing these races.

This race was challenging, it was a very humbling experience.  It leaves that "want" in me to go out and train harder.  I didn't complete all my legs, no one on my team did but we tried and we had so much fun doing it.  To not complete it, is gonna eat at me.  I want more than anything to really prepare and come back with a vengeance.

Little Red

Well, I did it. . . I rode my bike 100 miles!  It was so fun, a little scary, but so much fun.  I'm not gonna lie, there were times that I really questioned my mental health.  My longest training ride, before the actual 100 was 28 miles, I had only been on my bike three times since September, AND I'm really quite scared of going down hills (the big steep ones) on my bike.  I always have these thoughts of losing my breaks or just losing control of the bike.   I have high anxiety when it comes to trying new things which causes me to nervously eat, but that's a different subject for a different day.  I'm extremely excited that I did it, this is a very proud moment for me.  It was 100 miles and 6 hours of overcoming my bike fears.  I won that battle!

I'm heading down to Moab this weekend to do the Rockwell Relay with Jon.  I'm so excited, it will be our first event together.  Again, I'm a little nervous, but I sure am glad that I did Little Red, it really helped me to feel much more comfortable on my bike (Jon made some adjustments to my bike as well, that really helped me feel more stable, he's so good to me).  I guess we'll see how this one goes.  Oh, and Ragnar, that's the weekend after Rockwell.  Wow, again, I find myself questioning my sanity. . .

Rockwell Relay

So, I have decided to take on biking. . . talk about baptism by fire.  Jon and I are part of a four man team that is riding from Moab to St. George.  It's called the Rockwell Relay.  It's a total of 516 miles spread out between the four of us.  Each one of us rides three different times and each individual ride averages out to about 44 miles.  Jon, bless his heart, is out on the course right now.  He is with Dan Stewart (who put the race together) and two other guys giving the route a trial run.  I'm extremely excited and nervous.  Not to mention Ragnar is the week after.

To train for this I'm going to do the Little Red century bike ride (which is 100 miles).  This has been very spur of the moment.  It was an opportunity I just couldn't pass up.  We'll see how it goes.  Talk about taking on my fears of the bike. . .

Our "Date Nights"

We don't really have a typical "date night".  My sweet husband, Jon, has Fridays off, so we send the boys off to school and we hit the mountains.  Jon on his bike and me, on my feet (I'm still working on mountain biking, it scares me, a lot).

We love, love, love the great outdoors.  Today we went to Ogden to the Shoreline Trail.  This, I have to say, is one of my absolute favorites.  It is so pretty.  It has rolling hills winding in and out of small canyons.  It has trees that bend over the trail, so you're running (or biking) through this beautiful, leafy tunnel.  It's awesome!  

Deep breaths. . .

Please bare with me, I need a minute to vent. . .

I went with Zack (my nine year old), on a school field trip.  I love going on the field trips and watching him with all his friends, it's so cute.  I usually second guess my decision to ride the big, yellow bus with them by the time the day is done, but what do ya do, right?

My irritations come from lunch.  When we sat down to eat I was floored.  These kids had cinnamon rolls and other pastry items instead of sandwiches, with candy and chips.  To top it all off, they had big, 16 oz bottles of Coke and Dr. Pepper. . . what the. . . are you kidding me?  It's a bunch of 8 and 9 year old kids, why is that okay?  Needless to say after lunch, the kids were all over the place, bouncing off the walls.  How do we expect our kids to learn anything when their insides are a shaky, jittery mess.  And our poor teachers, that's just not even fair, really it's just rude.

I was watching Dr. Oz the other day, research that he has been a part of, is showing that if we don't change what we are feeding our kids, by the time they are our age, 85% of them will be, not just overweight, but obese.  Don't know about you, but it doesn't give me warm fuzzies.

Making Pizza Healthy

Pizza is a favorite at our house, so I had to figure out how to make it healthy and tasty enough that my boys would actually eat it.  Thank you Runner's World.

Caramelized Onion & Fig Pizza

Pizza dough for one pizza
1 Tbls olive oil
2 yellow onions, chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbls brown sugar
1 Tbls balsamic vinegar
1 C arugla leaves, packed (I use spinach)
6 dried figs, sliced
4 oz goat cheese, crumbled

Roll out dough to fit baking pan.  Preheat oven to 450.  Heat oil and saute onions with salt until brown.  Add sugar and balsamic vinegar.  Cook for 10 min.  Spread onion mixture over dough, leaving an edge for the crust.  Top with arugla (or spinach, I can't find arugla in my grocery stores), figs, and crumbled cheese. Place in oven for 15 minutes or until crust is golden.  Remove from oven and drizzle balsamic vinegar on top.  Slice into sixths and serve.

Calories: 190, Carbs: 24g, Protein: 6g, Fat: 9g