Happy Mon­day every­one! Hope you had a great weekend.

Today, I would like to chat a bit about the impor­tance of recov­ery in train­ing. Yes­ter­day was a per­fect exam­ple of my body cry­ing out to me for rest. Sun­days, are my long run days, and so, as per usual, I hopped on the tread­mill (I don’t run out­doors in the win­ter) and pressed start. From my very first few strides, I knew that this was going to be one long, ardu­ous run. I know, as all you run­ners must know, that the first 10 – 20 min­utes of a run your legs usu­ally feel slug­gish and your brain is sig­nalling you to stop but you push through because the legs begin to loosen up and even­tu­ally, you fall into your run­ning groove. Yes­ter­day was not the case. My legs felt heavy and tired through­out the entire run; my glutes were tight and sore and men­tally, it took every ounce of strength and deter­mi­na­tion to fin­ish. At the end, I felt com­pletely depleted; a far cry from a runner’s high, let me tell you.

Now I can­not tell a lie; I almost never take a rest day unless I’m phys­i­cally unable to train. I know that I should, yet I don’t and for what­ever rea­son, I seem to be able to push through on the days when I’m feel­ing low on energy. Mon­days, for exam­ple, I only teach a core strength class and usu­ally just train back and shoul­ders on my own with no car­dio work, so I kind of feel like that’s an active rest day. Well, it’s not and so today I am tak­ing a com­plete rest day (other than my class this morn­ing.) I’m hop­ing that I will feel recharged and reju­ve­nated come tomor­row morning.

I’d like you to check out this link below which is writ­ten for triath­letes but the infor­ma­tion can cer­tainly be used in your train­ing program.

http://​www​.train​ings​mar​ton​line​.com/​i​m​a​g​e​s​/​F​r​e​e​_​T​r​i​a​t​h​l​o​n​_​A​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​T​r​i​a​t​h​l​o​n​_​T​r​a​i​n​i​n​g​_​R​e​c​o​v​e​r​y​.​p​d​f

On another note, I made a really yummy muesli yes­ter­day that is so easy and good for you. I’m not a big dairy fan but I must say, Greek yogurt is pretty darn good and has a decent amount of pro­tein. You can cer­tainly change up your fruits; berries would be deli­cious as would the addi­tion of coconut, seeds and nuts.

Hope you enjoy it!

Muesli:

2 sweet apples, grated

1 can (500 mL) unsweet­ened crushed pineapple

1 cup low­fat Greek yogurt (plain or flavoured — I used vanilla)

1 cup large flake rolled oats

2 tsp cinnamon

Stir ingre­di­ents together in a large mix­ing bowl. Dig in!

Hi there,

It’s been a week or so since my last blog because I was off enjoy­ing a fan­tas­tic hol­i­day down in Tuc­son, Ari­zona. The weather every day was absolutely per­fect, low 80’s and bright blue sky. I have to admit, it was tough get­ting on that plane back to T.O. but then again, it’s always nice to come home. Thank­fully, the weather today isn’t unbear­ably cold so I’m able to gen­tly ease back into it.

If you’ve never been down to Tuc­son, I highly rec­om­mend that you visit. It is prob­a­bly one of the most bike-​friendly cities I’ve ever been to, boast­ing about 55 miles of bike lanes through­out the urban cen­tre. Cars actu­ally yield to cyclists (and run­ners, for that mat­ter), so city cycling is safe and very enjoy­able. Once you head out of the city, you will find end­less hik­ing trails (and cycling routes) amongst the beau­ti­ful desert land­scape. Every­time I get out to the desert, I’m always amazed by the sheer size of the saguaro cac­tus. Some of them grow well beyond 8 ft!

Last night, I was back to cook­ing din­ner and was inspired by the flavours of the south­west. I began by mar­i­nat­ing chicken breasts in a pineap­ple, green chile mix­ture and served it with a mixed bean salad tossed in a chile-​lime vinaigrette.

On a final note, my daily break­fast from our trip was one that I will def­i­nitely repeat here at home. It sus­tained me through­out our long hikes and was oh so yummy. What was this hearty break­fast? Noth­ing fancy, but a really great combo nonethe­less. Imag­ine an egg white omelet stuffed with caramelized onions, mush­rooms, shred­ded roast chicken and creamy avo­cado. So good and truly a break­fast of cham­pi­ons! Oh, and don’t for­get the hot sauce!

Have a great day!

Grilled Pineap­ple Green Chile Chicken

6 – 8 bone­less, skin­less chicken breasts

zest and juice of 1 lime

1 cup crushed pineapple

¹⁄₄ cup chopped fresh cilantro

2 gar­lic cloves, minced

2 tsp each dried cumin, oregano, chipo­tle pepper

salt and pep­per, to taste

In a blender, puree above ingre­di­ents until smooth.

Place chicken in a seal­able bag and pour mari­nade over top.

Refrig­er­ate overnight or a min­i­mum of 6 hours.

Remove chicken from bag and place on hot grill and cook until juices run clear.

Hi there,

Hope you’re all try­ing to stay warm! Will win­ter ever go away?

For­tu­nately, I’m head­ing south again on Sun­day. Off to sunny Tuc­son, Ari­zona with my hubby, for a won­der­ful week of hik­ing, run­ning anf hope­fully, cycling. My hubby has been deal­ing with a vari­ety of pesky injuries this year, so I’m not sure we’ll be able to cycle the way we’re accus­tomed to. How­ever, we both love to hike out in the desert and I couldn’t find a bet­ter or more peace­ful spot on earth to enjoy a long run. If you’re into out­door sports, you must check out the city of Tuc­son. Every­one seems to be fit and active there; it’s a really cool city with a great vibe. I also love the amaz­ing Mex­i­can food, and after a day of work­ing out, I can indulge guilt-​free.

Last night, I made one of my family’s favourite meals, pulled chicken. My son and hubby enjoyed it heaped on top of a toasted cia­batta bun, while my daugh­ter ate it along­side some multi­grain corn thin crack­ers. I served mine over a yummy cau­li­flower mash and was it ever good!

Pulled Chicken

6 bone­less, skin­less chicken breasts

water, to cover

1 cup bbq sauce (I use a smoky vari­ety but choose your favourite)

4 gar­lic cloves, peeled and smashed

1 onion, sliced

¹⁄₂ cup apple cider vinegar

hot sauce, to taste

In a large pot, cover chicken with cold water; add remain­ing ingre­di­ents and bring to boil.

Reduce heat to sim­mer and cook until chicken is cooked through. (about 15 – 20 minutes)

Care­fully remove chicken and let cool. Pull chicken into strands using 2 forks.

Bring sauce back to boil and reduce liq­uid by about a half. (15 min­utes or so)

Mix 2 tbsp corn starch with about 4 tbsp cold water; add to sauce and stir until thick­ened and glossy.

Return chicken back to pot and reheat gently.

Enjoy!!

Hi there,

Hope your Sun­day is going well! What a beau­ti­ful day it is, here in T.O.

This morn­ing, I taught a smaller than usual spin class, due to the fact that most good Cana­dian folks were at home cheer­ing on the men’s hockey team. What a great way to end the olympics! I’ve really enjoyed watch­ing the cov­er­age of the games; I always find the olympics so inspir­ing. I think there are some really good lessons learned from the games — work hard towards your goals, per­se­vere when the going gets tough, focus on the present and rel­ish the moment, and of course, when it’s all said and done, hope­fully feel­ing like it’s all been worth it.

On another note, while I was in Florida, my cousin intro­duced me to these really good crackers/​cakes made out of non-​GMO, gluten-​free, organic corn. I really like them slathered with dijon mus­tard and topped with roast turkey, tomato and red onion. They’re only 70 calo­ries for 3 nice sized crack­ers so you can enjoy them guilt free. I like to stack them up and throw them into a ziploc for a yummy on-​the-​go meal. Try them with humus too.

I whipped up a batch of banana pecan muffins today, for my hubby. He likes to take one to work and enjoy it with a cup of cof­fee. They’re not low calo­rie but they’re not full of sugar or high in fat. I sub­sti­tuted the but­ter with home­made apple­sauce, used half white, half whole wheat flour and reduced the sugar to ¹⁄₂ cup. I pre­fer to use brown sugar but that’s up to you. I also added about a half cup of chopped pecans for a nice crunch. The recipe says it yields 12 small muffins but my hubby likes them big, so I only ended up with 5.

Here’s the link to the recipe…http://allrecipes.com/recipe/banana-muffins-ii/

Have a ter­rific Sunday!

Hi there,

Just thought I’d share a favourite fish recipe of mine which I enjoyed while watch­ing House of Cards last night. If you haven’t seen this show, I highly rec­om­mend it. Kevin Spacey is fantastic!

Any­ways, this recipe is from the famous restau­rant, Nobu. It’s so sim­ple, quick and oh so deli­cious! The recipe calls for black cod but I used salmon instead and it was equally scrump­tious. The only thing that I sug­gest is if you can, plan ahead and mar­i­nate the fish overnight. It really does make a dif­fer­ence. I served my salmon with roasted yuca and a kale salad.

Enjoy!

http://​www​.thek​itchn​.com/​r​e​c​i​p​e​-​n​o​b​u​-​m​i​s​o​-​m​a​r​i​n​a​t​e​d​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​c​o​d​-​1​1​7​2​3​8

This is mirin:

This is white miso. Do not sub­sti­tute with red!

And finally, this is sake.

Din­ner is served!