1,000 miles

I was on vacation this past week. I didn't have any vacation type trips planned for the year, so I figured I might as well use the paid days I have while I can. I planned to clean the house, finish some projects I've been meaning to do... that sort of thing. But my main goal was to ride up to 1,000 miles on my bike (my goal for the year.) I had about 200 miles to go and 9 days to do it in. It seemed very do-able. I have friends who have ridden over 3,000 miles this year, so it can't be that hard right? I ended up pushing myself and doing 30+ miles a couple of days, which made me quite sore and tired and very unmotivated to cook dinner let alone clean the bathroom. The hard work really paid off because I only had 17.3 miles to go on my ride today, which was the last day of my vacation. It had rained at least a couple inches the day before. I don't like riding in the rain, I will if I have to, but I didn't... which was ok, I needed the break. So I went to my usual starting point to find that the road was very flooded. Being a scenic road through a flood plain that sort of thing happens. I thought maybe I could ride through the lower areas, but when I saw a group of ducks swimming over the road I thought better of it. At 8:30 in the morning it was very quiet and there was a bit of a fog hanging in the valley that made everything look so serene. I wish I had a camera with me. I imagined that this is what the world would look like if humans no longer existed. But anyway, I got onto a road that wasn't flooded and had one of the most pleasurable solo rides in my life. I was in no hurry I just rode along enjoying the view. Every rider or runner I saw seemed as happy as I was. When I reached 17.3 miles I felt like thrusting my arms in the air and yelling... but I probably would have gotten hit by a car. At that moment I was passing by a church and I thought to myself, "This is what church should be like...."

Balsamic grilled veggies over Couscous

I came home from work today and thought to myself... what shall I do with the huge load of veggies I got yesterday from our CSA. Itching to try out a new recipe I opened up The Garden of Vegan cookbook by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer. I decided to try the balsamic grilled veggies with couscous.
Recipe:
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 medium zucchini, chopped
1 eggplant, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 Tbs olive oil
1 cup veg. stock
1 cup couscous
1- 14oz. can diced tomatoes
1 1/2 Tbs balsamic vinegar
1 Tbs tomato paste
1 Tbs sugar
1 tsp dry basil
2 Tbs capers (optional)

Confusingly, the veggies are roasted and not grilled as the title suggests, but whatever... So I had most of these ingredients on hand, but I made a few substitutions. I don't keep canned tomatoes around because I'm sensitive to high acid red tomatoes. I did however have fresh low acid yellow tomatoes so I diced up 4 medium ones. I also omitted the tomato paste. Rather than dry basil I used fresh. Also, something I've never understood is that the ratio of liquid to couscous is always equal in recipes. Maybe it's just the kind I'm buying, but 2 cups liquid to 1 cup couscous seems to produce better results. To give the meal more substance I added a can of white beans. Oh, and I didn't have any capers...

--- Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In foil lined pan, lay out pepper, zucchini, eggplant and onion. Drizzle with oil and stir. Roast 15-20 minutes, or until veggies are browned. (My veggies were well cooked before they browned!) In small saucepan heat vegetable broth until boiling. Remove from heat, add couscous, stir and let rest. Fluff couscous to prevent sticking. In large pan stir together tomato, vinegar, sweetener, basil, (beans) and roasted veggies. Cook 5-8 minutes. Serve over couscous.

Thoughts... Good, but the sweetener was a bit off-putting. I really don't know why it was added. I would this again, but I would make a few more changes. I think some mushrooms would be a nice addition. Re-hydrate a 1/2 cup dry mushrooms in 2 cups water and you'll have your couscous cooking liquid too.

Good Morning

Construction crews have been tearing up our neighborhood replacing water pipes for the past 2 months. Now they've made it to our block. I'm glad I was awake already, because at 7:01 AM this thing started busting up our sidewalk. Sounded like a woodpecker on steroids, and it made the house shake.
When I left at 7:30 I was greeted by two backhoes digging a 6 foot hole across the street. Had I left later they would have most definantly blocked me in.
I was actually happy to go to work today (first time for everything) So I would not have to deal w/ all the banging and water being turned off. When I came home that evening I found they removed three slabs of concrete and filled it in somewhat nicely with dirt. The pipes are full of air and spattering and the water is brown.. yay.... Why am I writing about this? Well, not much else has been happening, so there you go.

Not my dog...

Cute picture though.

Over 600 miles

Last year I rode an estimated 550 miles. After tonights ride my total mileage for the year is now 608 miles. With so many riders on our cycling team well over 1,000 miles, some over 3,000, my riding 600+ miles doesn't seem too impressive. It means a lot to me though, I'm to a point now where I was angry at myself because I couldn't get in at least 20 miles. There was a very strong headwind tonight. I rode out from the bike shop to Hines with Brian and Scott, but I wasn't able to stay with them very long. Before the ride I wasn't feeling my best, but I knew I had to go, since I hadn't ridden for the past week. The first 1/2 was into the wind, I was pushing so hard to catch up to Brian that I was becoming less and less aware of my surroundings. I've never had such severe tunnel-vision. I was going into potholes that I've been easily avoiding for months, slipping on patches of sand, then got a branch in the face. Now I understand why Tour de France riders crash into clearly marked signs and other obstructions in the road. The turn around point for me was 5 mile hill, which I somehow got to the top of. I stopped and rested for about two minutes. Once I re-hydrated myself and caught my breath I rode down. Then just for fun... I climbed it again. After another rest at the top I headed back down and back to the shop. With the wind for the most part at my back I was able to finally get moving. I gathered up every bit of what I had left and pounded my way back. Every time I glanced at my speedometer I was doing 20-22MPH. Totally spent, I pull into the parking lot and looked at how many miles I put in tonight. WTF!! Only 17.93 miles! Crap! After an hour and ten minutes of hard, miserable riding, my average speed was only 15.3. Double Crap! It really just proves that I need to ride more, much as I hate to say it. I have to blame work... after doing the work of three people for 9-10 hours, I don't feel like riding my bike, I feel like banging my head against a wall then going to bed. Speaking of which, I really should be in bed right now....

Tour de France

I made vegan pancakes this morning. Sound weird? They're actually very simple to make and yummy. (from Vegan with a Vengeance cookbook)
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 Tbs canola oil
1 1/4 cup soy, rice, almond or any other non-dairy milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbs maple syrup
--- Sift flour and baking powder, then add all other ingredients. Mix until just combined, a few lumps are ok. Heat pan with small amount of canola oil for 1 minute. Use 1/4 cup measure to add batter to pan. Flip when top of pancake just begins to set.

So anyways, after enjoying our Saturday morning pancakes, my husband and I plop ourselves in front of the computer to watch Stage 19 of the Tour de France. We're watching a live feed on the computer because we do not have a TV. So the race is over now... there's one more day of riding, but basically it's over. Carlos Sastre won after todays time trial. Now that Lance isn't racing and riders are being booted left and right for doping... well, the tour just doesn't excite me so much anymore. That said I'm going for a bike ride tonight. Tomorrow morning I'm going to a mountain bike race to take pictures and video of our RACING GREYHOUNDS in action.

Blogging fail

So yeah, I'm not totally into doing regular blog entries just yet. A lot has happened since my first post... I'll just touch on a few things.
-I'm up to 530 miles on my BMC. I attempted, and failed miserably at my first road bike race at Cedar Creek. At that point I think I only had 250 miles in for the year... I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Our cycling team is doing awesome otherwise. I've been getting cool pictures at road, mountain and tri races. Recently I've started video taping the team in action, the goal being to create a promotional compilation video.
-At work we've had two people quit and another person has been out these past two weeks because she needed to get her appendix out. So I got promoted then ended up doing the work of 3 people. I've been so wiped out lately.... I can't even express how I feel about my boss who elected not to hire the VERY competent assistant who came in for a working interview 2 1/2 weeks ago.
-To entertain myself I regularly look at the FAIL Blog. Nothing makes you feel better than watching others' stupidity and misfortune. Sad, but true. Within the FAIL blog is a link to graphjam which I enjoy quite a lot.

My First Blog

So I started my own blog... what do I do now? Shall I bore you with my life story? No, I think I'll just touch on whats been going on with my life most recently. So a bit about myself first: I've been married 6 years. We have a dog but do not yet have kids. I work as a dental assistant, I enjoy taking pictures, knitting, cooking, and riding my bike. I'm supposed to go for a group ride tonight at 7pm, but I'm not so sure the weather will hold out. (currently a 50% chance of t-storms.) I've ridden my bike in the rain once... didn't like it... don't want to do it again if I don't have to. I especially don't want to mess up my nice new bike. My 2007 BMC women's specific Streetfire w/ SRAM Rival components... God I love this bike. I've owned it a month and put 200 miles on it already. Then again there are people on our cycling team that regularly ride double or triple that. "The team" I'm referring to is the Cycle to Fitness Racing Greyhounds. I'm not technically on the racing team, I'm actually the team photographer. I take pictures of everybody at races and put them up on Smugmug. http://chicky.smugmug.com/
I'm really enjoying my new camera, a Canon Digital Rebel Xti. Lets see what else shall I write about...? My current knitting project is a red hat, I'm currently reading "The Rider" by Tim Krabbe, listening to Acid 8000 by Fatboy Slim and I currently should be putting away my laundry. Hmm.. I don't know where to go from here, I guess this will get easier as I go along. I really should just wrap this up and get to making dinner. And so I will, thanks for reading my ramblings.