Mini Peach-Ginger Pies

Disclaimer : If you have a sweet tooth, this is probably not going to satisfy you.  

If you are like me and prefer your desserts to be less sweet, you might love it. 

preheat the oven to 350

The Crust

1/4 c butter

1/4 c whole wheat flour

1/2+ c white flour

1/4 tsp sea salt

3 tbsp cold water

The Filling

2 peaches, peeled & chopped

1 inch ginger root, grated

1 tbsp brown sugar

1/8 c flour

1 tsp ginger powder

1 tbsp mint leaves, chopped

1 tsp butter

I rolled the pie dough out and then used the mouth of a large plastic cup to cut out circles, which I then placed in 6 cups of a muffin tin, with some dough left over for the pie tops.  I mixed all of the filling ingredients together and then spooned them into the little pie shells.  I used the extra pie dough to put Xs on top of the pies.  

Bake for 20-30 minutes. 

I almost threw out the peach skins, but then I decided that instead of letting them go completely to waste, I could make a nice, refreshing, cocktail out of them.  

Peach-Skin Cocktail

skins from 2 peaches

2-3 sections of grapefruit

2 sprigs of basil

Jameson

Club Soda

muddle together the skins, grapefruit, and basil

add Jameson and Club Soda

add ice

stir well

2 months and counting

71 days, to be exact.  71 DAYS since my last run.  I have not run since my birthday at the end of May.  2 months came and went, and I still have not run.  At this point, it is a difficult decision for me, for various reasons.  And the longer I wait, the harder it might get.

At this point, I have no delusions about the fact that I may be starting from scratch.  I have never in my memory taken this many weeks off in a row.  So I am rather afraid of what it will feel like when I try to run again.  Part of the problem is that I really, really, really want to go for a run.  But I want to walk out the door and take off like I used to, and fly through the miles at a sub-7 minute pace and feel great doing it.  But realistically, there is a 0% chance that I will be able to do that.  There are days when I think about going for a run, but I don't trust my ability to keep it slow.  And so, I don't let myself run at all.  When I start running again, I have to be able to start slow.  And knowing myself, I know that will be the hardest part.  And sometimes it's easier not to run at all than to think about going for an easy jog.

My personal desire to run fast and hard aside, there is also the fact that I really have no clue what the state of my tendonitis is.  Most days my foot feels perfectly fine.  Sometimes it aches just a bit, but not necessarily in the precise spot that it used to.  10 weeks and 1 day after my last run, and I have no idea if my foot is actually better or not.  I am pretty sure the only way to find out is to run.  And to start with a flat mile or two and slowly build up if there is no pain.

Obviously I'm going to have to make a decision.  I'm going to have to pick a day when I think I can make myself jog (right now I'm thinking I will have to go for a long bike ride first to tire myself out...), and I'm going to have to find out whether or not I am pain free.  When precisely that day will come...I have no idea.  I have some vague notion that it will coincide with the beginning of school (in last than 2 weeks!!).

In the meantime, I will continue biking.  I have had to take some time off to let my back recover from the wheels of hope ride.  Last week I had content myself with my minimum weekly mileage of 75 miles, rather than pushing for 120-ish like I usually do.  However, despite the fact that I had to lower my average daily mileage and my average weekly mileage due to back pain, I have recently noticed that my legs have gotten significantly stronger.  Some of the hills that used to wear me out even in the easiest gear, I now find myself climbing easily in harder gears, sometimes without even changing my front gear.  Stronger legs help me keep more pressure off my back.  I've also had to start doing some yoga stretches for my back, which have helped me loosen it up.  The fact that biking has finally started working for me is another factor that is helping me take extra time off from running to give my foot as much time as possible.

Wheels of Hope Metric

I'm still not running...and will probably be taking off another month before I attempt running again.  And since I've been biking so much (I'm now up to 110-120+ miles per week) I had no excuse not to ride in the  Wheels of Hope event yesterday.  There were 4 different distances to choose from.  The 18 and 31 mile options were too close to my normal daily mileage, and the 112 option was definitely much too long for me.  So I chose the 63 mile option.  I had never ridden more than 50, but thanks to my new yoga-ish 10 minute morning stretching routine, my back has been doing better.  And I'm always up for a challenge when it comes to exercise.

Lewisburg has been suffering from a drought all summer.  We have been in need of rain for awhile now.  The rain picked yesterday to finally show up. (Also, it was barely 60 degrees out...not my ideal weather!)  Running in the rain stopped bothering me a long time ago, but I had not yet gotten brave enough to really ride in the rain.  However, I had signed up for this thing, and I had paid for it, so there was no way I was going to let myself wimp out.  There were some changes made to the course because of something wrong with a bridge somewhere on the course, so the course was shortened to 58 miles.  I had no complaints about that.

When I run races, I am used to starting at the very front and doing my best to stay ahead of the pack so I don't get pushed around or boxed in.  I had no such delusions with biking, so I tried to start near the back.  It was still a miserable traffic jam at the beginning.  Being boxed in on a bike with people swerving all over the place and rain spraying off of tires into my face was not a pleasant experience.  It was rather terrifying.  I had to deal with that for the first 2 miles or so before I could finally get around the craziness and find a nice empty stretch of road between packs of people.  It meant riding faster than I had planned, but at that point all I cared about was feeling safer.  And getting the ride over with so I could get out of the rain.

After a lot of back and forth with the local bike mechanic (mostly me pulling ahead on climbs, and him pulling ahead on flats/descents), we ended up riding together.  We still had some back and forth with climbs and descents, but whoever was behind always caught up to the other eventually.  It was really nice to have someone to ride with and complain with about the weather and our various aches and pains.  My back held up remarkably well, didn't really start bothering me until somewhere around mile 40.  By mile 50, I was beat.  My neck and shoulders got really cramped, and my legs were worn out.  There were a few small climbs in those last miles, that normally wouldn't be a big deal, but I'm pretty sure they caused my legs more pain than I have ever felt before while on a bike.  I really wanted to give up and lie down on the side of the road until someone came to get me.  But of course I just get spinning the pedals and eventually the ride was over.

We finished the 58.3 mile ride in 3:41.  There was 4,538 feet of elevation change in that ride.  There was a 2.5 mile climb somewhere in the middle of the ride.  Thankfully, I had ridden that part of the ride once before, so I knew what to expect on that hill.

Overall, I'm really happy with how the ride went.  It was cold, wet, and miserable, but I didn't wreck, and I didn't get injured.  Aside from the cold/wet part, I actually felt pretty good throughout the ride.  I thought I would be really sore today, but there's just a little bit of stiffness in my shoulders.

Pesto, Pesto, and more Pesto!

I bought a pound of basil from a friend's farm this morning.  I wasn't quite sure what I would do with a whole pound of basil, but I was happy to help them out and I knew I could find something to do with it.  It baked in the car for a bit while I was visiting my horse, and it made my car smell fabulous.  Then I finally brought it home and decided to make some pesto.  I made 3 batches...and there is still basil left.

3 jars of pesto

still enough basil left for a 4th jar...

I used my little food processor for each batch.  It worked like a champ, but it was getting a little tired by the end...I could smell the motor getting burned out. 

These pestos are great for pasta dishes or as a dip with crackers. 

Sour Cream Basil Dip

3 small cloves garlic

handful of basil leaves

1/4 c chick peas

3/4 c sour cream

As usual, measurements are approximate...I don't really know exactly how much chick peas or sour cream I used. I put the garlic cloves in the food processor first, then when they were chopped up I added the basil, when it was chopped up I added the chick peas, when they were chopped up I added the sour cream and let it all get blended together. Simple and tasty.   

In other news, something is eating my basil plant.  My INDOOR basil plant.  I haven't decided yet whether or not I need to freak out and throw away the whole plant in order to save myself from whatever tiny little  bugs are destroying it. 

Ground Beef Surprise

It's been too long since I concocted something random in the kitchen, so I decided to remedy that yesterday.  I went through the fridge and cabinets and came up with some random things to throw together.  It came out quite tasty, just like all my other experiments.

Ingredient List

I also used about 1/4 c of marinara sauce, which I forgot to write down.

Brown the onion and garlic, then add the chickpeas, corn, and tomatoes.  Cook for a bit, then add the beef.  Mix well, then add the mushrooms and pineapple.  Add seasonings. Add marinara sauce.  Cook until it reaches whatever level of thickness appeals to you.  Serve over pasta. 

Adventures of a frustrated athlete, episode ?

Yesterday's episode of "adventures of a frustrated athlete" ended with a broken spoke 6.5 miles into my ride. The only brightside to this episode was that it happened 3 blocks from home, instead of 8 miles from home like the broken chain episode. I was riding a loop that is just under 7 miles long, with the intention of repeating it 2 or 3 times, depending on how my back felt. But, as I was flying down the hill into town at the end of the first loop, my bike suddenly started making this horrible clanking noise. I pulled over to find out what was wrong and had trouble locating the problem...until I realized one of my spokes was sticking out. A kind gentleman on his way to lunch tried to help me rig it so I could at least get the wheel to spin quietly on the way home. He said you can often just pop out the other end of the spoke, but on my bike apparently they are not made to do that. So we managed to twist the broken end around another spoke and I was able to drag the bike home. I was only a block away from the bike shop, but of course it was the one day of the week that the shop is closed...

I really wanted some exercise yesterday, and 6 miles on a bike was nowhere near enough. So I had to drag myself to the gym and torture myself on the elliptical for 35 minutes. At least I had some good music to listen to, and a good book to read, while I was enduring the torture. 

Between my foot pain, back pain, and broken bikes, I am getting very frustrated! The back pain got so bad last week, it was shooting down into my leg and making my leg go numb. That resulted in me being unable to ride much more than 10 miles at a time, which was realy frustrating after all my 30-50 mile rides. One of my DO (osteopathic doctor) friends fixed my back for me Sunday night, which helped a lot, but I know it is not going to stay fixed for long. Too much bad muscle memory. I had made it 18 miles with no significant pain on Monday, and was hoping for some decent mileage yesterday as well. 

I head to RI tomorrow, and I'm not bringing the bike with me. I'm planning to try running on grass to see if that hurts my foot or not, since it's softer than pavement. If that fails, I guess I will be stuck exercising indoors on torture machines for the week. When I get back to WV, I will have to make a decision about whether I am going to get my foot injected, or whether I am going to try to find a sports medicine specializing foot doctor who might be able to tell me what is actually wrong with my foot...