Food and Fit Updates

Since the Tavern triathlon, I've continued to cross-train and enjoy my time off. This past weekend, John and I had an activity-filled weekend. To start, we hit up SEAL team practice on Saturday morning. I have done SEAL team and X team training in the past, so I was excited when they offered a deal on Living Social that's more affordable then joining the full program. I wish I could afford it because I had a blast. Afterwards, we biked to the South of the James farmer's market and back. All of this before brunch. It felt great to be so productive and active first thing in the morning. And the bloody mary that followed was a great reward too. On Sunday, we started the morning off with the same energy, except this time we hit the road on our bikes for about 10 miles or so, then ran a mile downto the James River by Huguenot Flats. We decided to swim across the river and back. I'd say it was about 300-400 meters across, but Icould be off. We ran back afterwards, finishing our morning workout. I enjoyed this type of workout very much. Lots of variety and interesting things to see and do. Sunday brunch was even more tastier as a result. I took John to Kuba Kuba down in the fan. He had never been before and we both were craving California huevos rancheros, the best thing ontheir menu besides the tres leches cake. I even tried to re-create it this morning, which was pretty good but definitely not the same.

Admits all the intense workouts over the weekend, Monday morning did not bring good things. I had slightly rolled my ankle on the run the day before, so when we went on our usual 4 mile loop to Pony Pasture and back Monday morning, it started to act up. On top of that, my back has been off for a couple of months now. It keeps flaring up here and there and I'm unable to move my lower back for 2-3 days. I know I should listen to my Dad when he says I honestly have to rest longer in order for my back muscles to completely heal, but I don't want to listen. I've got the Merrell Down and Dirty 10k coming up in 3 weeks, and rest is not an option. But I guess should take my injury more seriously if I don't want to screw anything up permanently. I'll keep you posted on how it turns out.

So back to the food it is... This past

Thursday, a few of my UVA girlfriends went out for dinner and drinks at Blue Goat, a new restaurant on Grove Avenue, owned by the same guys who run Osaka, Sushi O, and Wild Ginger. I had heard mixed reviews so far, and I was dying to try it out myself. The atmosphere and location are excellent. The food was quite good too. I am not sure I would go back for a full-meal, but definitely a great bar scene to enjoy appetizers and cocktails. The ravioli was my favorite, followed by the fries with pork dust. I wasn't a fan of the pork cheeks, and the pig tail gorgonzola polenta had a weird gravy that overwhelmed the rest of the flavors I was looking for. Otherwise, I had a blast and I can foresee Blue Goat being the next big bar scene in the near west end.

Friday night I took my best friend to Lady Nawlins (thank you Living Social once again) for dinner and drinks. I love raw oysters so that was a great start to the meal. We split the sampler platter of jumbalaya, gumbo, and red beans and rice with shrimp. It was the perfect amount of food to split with someone and tasted great. Exactly what I wanted. We hung out at the bar after dinner and enjoyed a few drinks courtesy of Jack Laughterback. It was a nice evening out in the fan - haven't done that in a while.

So - what has the rest of the weekend brought? Other than work and back pain, I enjoyed a wonderful day at the beach with Brett, John and Nanny. We headed down to VA beach Saturday morning with no traffic. We had the best time playing on the beach near 31st street next to the Hilton. My favorite lunch spot during high school beach week was a sandwich deli shop called Taste Unlimited. John and I walked to 36th where we picked up a few "Northenders" and enjoyed our lunch on the beach. I of course had to buy the house dressing to take home. It's delicious. Our ride home had no traffic either. The other side of 64 was at a standstill. How lucky are we?

Tonight I made steak fajitas and I'm currently enjoying a glass of wine on the back deck while Brett and John play golf in the yard. Life's pretty good.

I Love the Tavern Triathlon

I've got to work on updating my blog more often but so many other things come up that take priority. For starters, work has been super busy. I'm studying to become a PMP this year and OPEX Blue Belt certified. It's hard work but I absolutely love it. I just hope I do well and learn a lot.

On a personal note, I'm all moved in, and just got back from a wonderful family vacation down in Ft. Myers, Florida. John and I flew down last Wednesday thru Tuesday to celebrate the long holiday weekend. We read a lot, went on morning runs, played tennis at the club, went on the boat, went to the club pool, and enjoyed many tropical drinks and incredible seafood. It was a blast and very relaxing. I didn't bring my work laptop and for the first time, I was somewhat disconnected from work-hurray!

On the fitness front... I successfully completed my first open water triathlon 2 weeks ago! I was great. I loved the open water swim in the James River. The water temp was 83 degrees and outside it was only 66 by the time the race started at 7am. You could see the steam on the surface of the river just before the race. This year they reduced the swim distance to 400 meters but extended the bike to 18.5 miles. Fine by me since my swimming isn't all that great. In fact, I'm pretty bad. The bike ride was beautiful... Mostly country road with farms and animals; plenty of hills and one gigantic hill at the turn-around point that honestly took my breath away. I thought I was going to have to walk my bike up the hill because I was pedaling so slow - but I made it!

The run was a trail run thank god. I love trail running so as soon as I hit the 5k, I was in heaven. And by heaven I mean I couldn't feel my legs at all, but I somehow managed to grit through it. When I came out of the woods and saw the finish line, I was happy as a lark. Or insane from exhaustion as you can see I'm smiling like crazy in my running photo. All in all, it was a great race and I can't wait to do it again next year. The atmosphere is friendly and casual, with lots of athletes from all levels. I felt very comfortable and welcomed. I highly recommend this race to anyone!

Tri-ready in 6 days

So I thought I'd quickly share the fact that I have my first open water Triathlon coming up this Sunday (June 26th) and I haven't really trained for it at all. I have been so busy with work and life that I haven't been tri-focused during any of my workouts. Yeah, I run, bike, swim and lift on a regular basis, but I have not been mentally preparing myself for what's to come, until today, 6 days before the race.

But let's back up a bit. The past few weeks have been quite busy. For one, I was recently pulled into a project team at work where my role is to provide feedback, research and present the best options on how to design our new fitness center at work. we are moving to a new building next year and I am on our health and wellness team to support the move. What a cool project, right? It certainly has been fun to research and find best practices related to corporate fitness centers, but also very time consuming with the tight deadlines. I never imagined I'd get to help design a fitness center at my company as part of my ad hoc projects for the year, but here I am! It's been a great experience so far.

On top of work, I'm also moving. I'm finally out of the fan and into the suburbs, and moving has been quite the time vacuum. Between packing, cleaning, unpacking and cleaning some more, plus coordinating utility deactivation's and the like at my old place, then errands and furniture planning... It seems my life (and work) has been nothing but residential and commercial interior design these days - at least it's something I enjoy!

So... between work and life, training for this triathlon has been put on the back burner just a bit. I still work out almost every day, but these past few weeks they are not as intense, and I skip a day here and there. This weekend I didn't even consider working out during the move, and I only squeezed in a 5k on Friday afternoon on a treadmill. Ah well.

So what better to the week than to do a mini triathlon... er... not really. I went to spin during my lunch break, then followed up with a 400-500 meter swim after work in the James River at Robious Landing Park (where my triathlon will be on Sunday), then a short 2 mile fast run. It felt great today. Even though it wasn't a full triathlon and quite spread out, it felt great to get out there and hang out with other amazing athletes. It definitely brought me back to the place I want to be - excited about working out, and not finding excuses to skip. I look forward to the opportunity to get my heart rate up and sweat a little. What a feeling.

The trail run was short but sweet and fast. My co-worker Kali and I hustled the 2 miles - a nice burst of energy to pump blood out of my legs after the swim. Can't wait to do it again soon. Let's hope this is all I needed to get the confidence to finish the I Love the Tavern Triathlon this Sunday. Wish me luck!

Weekend of reunions, food and friends

Lately my weekends are either over stuffed with events or nothing

but packing and catching up on the day-to-day. This weekend was definitely packed. My 5 year reunion from the University of Virginia was this past weekend, plus John had birthday/graduation party up in DC. We managed to pull off both despite our exhaustion. We headed to Charlottesville after work on Friday, and met up with my good friends Bane and Jen. Our standard hot spot in college was the Virginian on the Corner, which of course brought back great memories. We also enjoyed some of our favorite food joints like the Tavern and Take It Away. It was absolutely wonderful!

Back in Richmond, it was also a big foodie weekend, and somehow I managed to fit that in as well. Thursday before my reunion, my friends and I headed to the Greek Festival. It's one of the largest food festivals in RVA and it just gets bigger every year. Gotta love a cheap bottle of chilled red wine on a hot summer day with a side of dolmades!

Sunday was yet another food festival called Broad Appetite. My sister and I approach this festival very strategically... A co-worker friend of mine came along to tag-team each of the food vendors so that we could split them to save money and room for all the food we were eating. It was awesome... Below are a few food shots from today:

Marinaded skirt steak tacos with cilantro, red onion and parmesan cheese. YUM.

Shrimp and Pork meatballs with papaya salad plus hoisin and sriracha sauce dollops.

Smoked salmon toast with baby spinach leaves and jalapeños... Spicy!

Crab stuffed ravioli in a lobster cream sauce. OMG.

So that's the quick update. Definitely hopping back on the routine tomorrow. I can't wait to get my ass kicked in boot camp after work and eating healthy meals this week. Bring it on!

Graduation at The University

I swear it feels like yesterday that John first set off to UVA to pursue his Master's degree in Systems Engineering at the School of Engineering and Applied Science. I remember he told me it would be a tough year for him, balancing school, work, his son and me. But he did it, and I'm so proud of him. Last weekend we headed up to UVA to watch John walk the Lawn and later on receive his diploma. It was a great weekend, busy, hot, chaotic and fun as hell. My family gave him a wonderful UVA diploma frame for graduation and it looks quite impressive hanging in his office. I will most likely bring my UVA undergraduate framed diploma to hang up as well, because we are nerds like that.

I will write more later but wanted to share this news and congratulate John on his amazing achievement. I'm proud of you babe - you are a lifetime learner.

Down and Dirty

Just wanted to share two more photos from last weekend's adventure races. This weekend was HUGE - Brett's birthday, John's graduation, his whole family in town to celebrate... It was a great time and I'll share more later this week when I'm not about to pass out from exhaustion. I'll leave you with some pics from last weekend for now... Enjoy!

Muddy, Rugged, and Butt-Busting Weekend

This weekend kicked off the summer series of muddy military style runs that I've signed up for in an attempt to train for the tough mudder. Well, Friday's race was designed more for fun than anything. RVA hosted the 3rd annual Dominion Riverrock events this weekend on Brown's Island. Mud runs, dirt bikes, rock climbers and music lovers came out to enjoy Friday Cheer's concert and wet dogs leaping for toys into a pool of water. My roommates and I headed down after work on Friday, dressed in our matching camo t-shirts and ready to get muddy. The race this year was a lot smoother than last year. They took out a mud pit that had been placed along the trail last year, which had caused bottlenecking delays at the entrance of the trail. The mud pit at the finish line was significantly improved too by adding a cargo net on top that racers had to crawl under. Overall, the race was a lot of fun. We wrapped up the night with Blue Moon beer and Boka Truck takos, which definitely made the night a success.

But wait, there's more! I dragged myself home and washed my muddy clothes, only to do it all over again the next day. I managed to dry my shoes in the dryer for the Rugged Maniac, a 5k military style obstacle course race held at the VA Motorsports Park in Petersburg. We signed up for a 12pm wave so that we could sleep in a bit and head down there without rushing. My co-worker Daniel and his friend Winslow rode down with me. We got there an hour before our wave-time and the first thing I saw was a mountain covered with a tarp and streaming water, with racers flying down into a pit of mud. We headed to the start line and hit the trail. The first few obstacles were easy - jumping through tires, climbing over short 4-foot walls, maneuvering between twisted ropes, etc. It wasn't until we exited the trail where we witnessed a huge field of halfpipes and obstacles. We hit our first mud pit with the thickest mud you can imagine. Our feet were covered and weighed us down. We climbed up and down the halfpipes and approached a series of walls to scale over. At first I had no confidence that I would be able to climb on my own but somehow I managed to jump high enough to get one hand on the top of the wall and then pull the rest of me over the top.

Then came the river obstacles. We came upon a series of planks over muddy water that you had to walk across. I couldn't reach the next plank and decided to jump. This was such a mistake. I slipped and landed right on my tail-bone, bumped my head and fell into the water. Daniel and Winslow fished me out and made sure I was okay. I honestly thought that I broke something but the only thing broken was my dignity. The pain was awful but I didn't want a little pain ruin the fun I was having. We kept going, swimming over tubes in cold muddy water, crawled through a pit of mud covered by barbed wire, a few more halfpipes and finally the mountainous slide at the end. The 3 of us went down together. I was honestly scared out of my mind when I slid down. I picked up so much speed, I thought for sure I would run right into Winslow below me, but we skidded along the mud pit to the end and ran through the finish line.

What a weekend. After all of that I celebrated with a BBQ stock-the-bar party and the Lebanese Food festival the next day. My tail-bone is quite sore and I have no idea if I'll be able to go back to the gym today, but I'll give it a try. I'm definitely enjoying adventuring racing so far, even with humiliating injuries.