Quinoa Lasagna - Sunny-style

Now, keep in mind that I am a scientist.  I am "okay" at following protocols, but I am even better at optimizing them and getting them to work for me in my kitchen, with results and tastes that suit me and my health choices (or lack there of - ahem - shortening). Occasionally this leads to flaming failures, but once in a while, as in the case of the recipe below, what comes out of the oven is an instant classic, a recipe so yummy it must be shared and shared again with other self-proclaimed foodie scientists and kitchen commandos.

A few months ago, I walked into my boyfriend's work to pick up our dog on the way home. He handed me a recipe from one of his co-workers saying, "Here, Andy and his wife made this last night and it struck them so strongly that we would enjoy this dish, too, that they printed off the recipe for us and gave it to me." It was a recipe for Quinoa Lasagna, origin unknown. If a "healthy" recipe in which quinoa is substituted for the lasagna noodles among other modifications reminds and inspires our friends in such a manner, then my work here is done!

I went home that very night and made the lasagna. I had to make a few modifications, not having everything on the ingredient list. But I had enough of the important things to make a good go of it. And it was every bit as delicious as Andy purported, and an instant addition to the cluttered drawer I refer to as my recipe book.

So without further ado, I give you Quinoa Lasagna - Sunny-style.

See the ingredient list for potential substitutions.

Bring water and quinoa to a boil in a medium saucepan. Reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for 15’. Fluff with a fork.

While that is going, heat oil in a saucepan on medium heat. Add the onions; cook until transparent and starting to brown. Add the mushrooms; cook until mushrooms are softened and very little moisture remains in the pan. Add the garlic and tomato sauce. Stir occasionally until hot. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 °C. Lightly grease a 13x9 inch casserole dish or spray with cooking oil (I prefer veggie oil, but olive oil or coconut oil will do the job, too)

In a medium bowl, combine the cottage cheese with the egg. Mix well, stir in the parmesan, basil, and oregano.

Blanch first the zuccinni and then the kale (if you are using it instead of spinach) in boiling water for a few minutes, strain and pat dry.

Start your layering. Evenly spread the cooked quinoa in the casserole dish.  Spread one-third of the tomato sauce over the quinoa. Make a layer of all the zucchini, then all the cottage cheese mixture, then one-third of the tomato sauce, then all the spinach, ending with the remainder of the tomato sauce. Spread the mozzarella cheese evenly over the top.

Bake for about 35 minutes, until the lasagna is hot and the cheese is melted, bubbling and slightly browned around the edges. Serve (or wrap up and hide it in the fridge away from your guests and boyfriend so you can keep it all to yourself).

Serves 8 (or two for three meals)

2 cups 500 ml) water

1 cup (250 ml) quinoa

2 tbsp (30 ml) extra virgin olive oil

1 cup (250 ml) chopped onions

1 cup (250 ml) sliced button mushrooms. I substituted sliced carrots and it was perfect. Use whatever root or earthy vegetable you can slice up from the fridge.

2 cloves garlic, minced

3-4 cups (~500 ml) your favorite prepared sauce. I used a combo of leftover sphaghetti sauces from the fridge, and when I didn’t have enough of that, I combined one 6 oz. can of tomato paste and 6 oz. water.  In reality, the dish requires 4 cups of sauce, scrimp if you only have three.

2 cups (500 ml) cottage cheese

1 large beaten egg

¼ cup (60 ml) grated parmesan cheese. Fun hint – I had shredded parmesan that I put in my coffee grinder to get a good grate, and it worked great J

2 tbsp (30 ml) minced basil (fresh or dried, no matter)

1 tbsp (15 ml) dried oregano

2 cups (500 ml) zucchini (essentially 1 medium zucchini)

2 cups (500 ml) packed fresh spinach. I substituted kale here, and I will keep doing it. Blanche the kale for 2-3 minutes in boiling water. Blot dry with a paper towel before layering on the lasagna, stays firm, and adds it coarse and slightly sweeter flavor/texture combo to this great dish.

1 ½ cups (375 ml) shredded mozzarella – in a pinch, colby jack works as a good substitute.

Race Report: Berryman Adventure Race

Fraternizing with the "enemy" pre-race.

In the warm predawn of Saturday morning, somewhere in the Mark Twain National Forest just East of Fort Leonard Wood and the Big Piney River in South-Central Missouri, a group of 150-odd adventure racers with head lamps on, stood looking every which way under the inflatable arch of Bonk Hard Racing, LLC, awaiting the start of the 2013 Berryman Adventure 12-hour, a real ass-kicker.

Our four-person coed team, 34Down, had now been together for a year. The 2012 Berryman Adventure Race had been our first race together. It was bittersweet to be racing without one of our own (Jason welcomed a son into the world just last week, and therefore was excused), but Jay, an outdoor adventure veteran in every sense of the word and all-around cool guy, offered to step right in, pretend that he was 34 years old for a day, and run around in the woods with us.

Now, Gary, megaphone in hand, counted down from three, and then we all scattered in the general direction we had been looking. 34Down headed back into the parking lot, passed the Honey Buckets, and jumped immediately into the tall grass, up to our waists (Jay’s shoulders).  No one followed us. Jeff surged ahead, and within two minutes we popped out onto a single-track trail paralleling the road.  Another team came out of the grass onto the trail just behind us. Less than two minutes later, we left the trail, headed for the hills and our first planned checkpoint (CP). One minute later, we were thigh deep (Jay’s waist) in shoe-sucking marsh water, and I wondered if I was going to have to do the rest of the race in my socks.

And that was just the first five minutes. Jeff took us up onto a spur, and we fanned out across a clearing looking for the first CP. I had the passport, and I swept my headlamp in a full circle hoping to catch the reflective tape on the otherwise orange and white flag that indicated our target. Nothing. Jeff looked at the map and led us down a reentrant and onto the next spur, where we found the trail again. Not good. We had been on the right spur. We took the trail back around to approach the spur from the top and came practically face-to-face with the CP. Sometimes that is how it goes.  We shook it off and checked off the next four CPs in quick succession.

A racer's sock covered in Beggar-lice (mine
my teammates were similarly besnaggled).

We came out of the woods, peppered in Beggar-lice (and as time would tell, tick-bombs), but near the front of the pack. At our bikes, we packed in our new kayak paddles, donned helmets and cycling shoes, and plunged back into the woods once more. The first CP on the bike confounded us a little as it was buried deep in a beautiful “natural tunnel”. I had already taken off my headlamp, so I fumbled with it before I could negotiate the darkness. Not immediately clear on where the trail went from there (and NO Bike-Whacking allowed, as per race directors instructions), Josh suggested there was a trail on top of the tunnel, and I led our exit stage left through the tunnel, and onto the trail.

The single track was rocky and sandy in turns, with unrideable uphills, and washed out sections of little rocks we quickly dubbed “Pop Rocks” for their ability to suck all of our momentum and pop us off our bikes. The rest of the bike went by in a blur as we came out on the road and made our way to the Big Piney River bank.

At the riverside, we found ourselves in second! This section required us to put the bikes in the canoes. So while, Jeff and Josh carried boats to the riverside, Jay and I put together our shiny new paddles that were supposed to make us uber-fast in the water. And I suppose they did (no one passed us on the river), but I still felt like I was paddling with toothpicks (my arms). Josh was having a little trouble in the back of our boat; the bikes were too close in front of him, and he was forced to sit on the back of the boat to get the full benefit of his long arms and paddle stroke.

We heard a team come close to us, but they opted to beach the boats and go for two “FREE” CPs by riding their bikes up a river road. We thought it might be faster to paddle almost the entire seven miles to the other side of the peninsula and then trek for the free CPs after beaching the boats across from the takeout. There was no question that we would go get them (they were worth two points each). As we left the boats, I asked if we were going to take our packs. Jay and Jeff insisted that we should (duh they have our race numbers on them), and it was a good thing we did. One of the CPs was a gear check!

At this point, Jay and I were trekking behind Jeff and Josh as they navigated us through a sea of stinging nettle, tiptoeing and sashaying like uncoordinated ballerinas.  As we skirted the contour of a particularly heinous uphill, I almost stepped on a turtle just as Jeff called from ahead, anyone want a deer skull? But, it was the hive of yellow jackets that we encountered next that I would have loved to miss. Both Jay and I got bit, both of us yelling in surprise and pain.

Back in the boats, I ran straight into the river to cool the hornet bite on my leg (through my leggings). The others thought this was a good idea, and jumped in too, Jay even dragged/guided both boats from the water across the shallow river to the take-out. Once on the beach, we reattired our helmets and bike shoes, and rode our bikes up the biggest hill, granny gears all the way.

Eventually we came to another riverside where we dropped our bikes, chugged cokes and trail mix out of our gear bag, reloaded on water (we had been at it for ~five hours), and mapped the next big O-section.  Team Fusion/Kuat was just leaving the CP in first place. Looking around for a flat spot to map on, Jeff pulled down the tailgate of an ancient Chevy truck that looked like it had been abandoned there a long time ago. The volunteers informed us that the front of the truck had caught on fire earlier that morning, and the owner had just rolled it out of the way and left it there, so maybe “a long time ago” wasn’t exactly accurate. Maybe it should have been. As we mapped, I noticed a foul smell tickling my nose. The area was swampy and marshy, and probably recently flooded, but it wasn’t until one of the volunteers mentioned duck heads did I place the smell. Apparently, the area had been littered with animal carcasses/pieces when the volunteers arrived and they had had to tidy it up. That is above and beyond.

Jeff took a few minutes to study the map, and then commented, “This is going to take a while”. Between every CP and us was a sea of tightly spaced contour lines, indicating the ups and downs we were about to experience. And we were tested. We did not see a single other team in the woods until we were heading to our last CP in the section, Bushwacker and the inimitable Rachel Furman passed us going the other way. We also found another yellow jacket nest. This time, I received two stings, one in the arm and one in the back. The one in the arm seemed to simultaneously seer and put my arm to sleep! But, Jeff was dynamite, and before long and still in full daylight we arrived at the riverside for a second paddle. And we were in first!

PIcture

All four of us jumped into the river bodily before floating the boats into the rapids. Almost immediately we were faced with a tricky section filled will half submerged trees and debris. Years of paddling experience between the four of us (I may not have brawn, but I can keep a boat afloat), we moved through it quickly. Paddling might be simultaneously my most and least favorite section. Josh kept my spirits up and the boat moving rapidly forward. It wasn’t long before we were paddling along glassy expanses, and Jef and Jay helped us out with a short tow. Rather than singing "row, row, row your boat, we tried to remember and sing off key the refrain to “Some Nights” by Fun. I asked Jeff if he thought we might be close, and he called out (as he is apt to do) the chorus to Disney’s Pocahontas “Just around the river bend!” The sky had been threatening rain since “lunch”, and halfway through the paddle, a warm steady rain began to pour down.

It was about this time in the race that we could almost taste the cheesy potatoes and BBQ chicken that we thought surely must have been delivered to the finish line by then. And we were sure that once we exited the boats, we would be told to hop on our bikes, and head back to the start/finish for a victory celebration. Bonk Hard had other plans.

We were handed another course to plot at the paddle take out, and my heart sank as I saw eight CPs listed, including three “FREE” CPs this time. Jeff pulled down the same tailgate once more to map, I chugged another coke and we divvied up the remainder of our water between the four of us, emptying every last drop into our packs. I had sucked my bladder dry during the paddle, so I was happy to onboard another liter. With night falling, Jeff plotted our course in the rain, making ghostly red watermarks on the map in the general vicinity of the CP.  I packed the non-water proof clue sheet in a sandwich bag previously occupied by a PB&J.  Just then the truck owner came ambling up. We apologized for using his truck, but he absolutely cared little, instead starting to tell us the storied history of the earlier fire. We politely listened as we finished up the mapping, and soon he turned his attention to the business of getting his truck “fired up”. As we rode out of the transition we heard behind us, “It’s a good thing we brought the fire extinguisher. Keep it close by.”

It was still daylight, but we knew that would end soon.  We would be forced to do our first ever night navigation to finish the longest adventure race any of us had ever done.  Our strength was waning, but our resolve was strong as ever, and at each CP we would decide to keep going. Navigation on the bike is tricky enough without night falling, but a lot of the CPs were on unmapped roads or off-trail a couple hundred yards. I knew something was up as I approached one in particular. According to Jeff, the CP was “just ahead on the saddle” adjacent to a feature called the “King’s Sink”. As I approached it, passport in hand, my energy faltered. The sign on the CP read, “the punch for this CP is at the bottom of the deep depression to the East”. And an arrow, pointing east. I called out to the guys, “Hey, you’re going to want to come check this out!” Good sports that they all are, Jeff called back, “Is it cool?” as he and Jay came down the hill. “You might not think so.”

Did I mention they were good sports? They accompanied me down into the deep depression, using trees like climbing ropes to repel us down what felt like a vertical slope of loose soil. And just like the sign said, there was the CP, at the very bottom of the deep depression. Climbing out was no picnic, but as I approached the guys, I called out, “Race you to the top!” and we all took off scrambling.

Darkness was falling quickly, but the rain had for the most part ceased. The next CP was three kilometers out of our way, at the end of a road and off the beaten path. The clue suggested it was near a small pond, and as we reached the end of the road and found the edge of a farmer’s field, we realized that the rain had turned every dip in the proceeding jeep trail into a small pond.  We did our best to skirt the big puddles, taking furtive glances at the gorgeous sunset, and trying to maintain speed. One puddle came up to fast for Jay, and he went in up to his hubs.  We found the CP practically in the pond, banks swollen with rain. The rest of our ride would be in darkness.

Riding along the trail back to the road, the beams of our headlamps on the ground became our focus. Two teams came in hot pursuit up the trail as we were exiting, and we knew we had to see this one through to the bitter end.  The next CP came on singletrack.  Mountain biking at night is hard enough without having to navigate, but Jeff was really going above and beyond. We ran into a couple of teams going back and forth along the trail looking for the same CP.  We were looking for the second of two hills off to the right that came after a deep reentrant as we climbed up to a ridge.  I tried to help out by turning off my headlamp and looking through the trees for sky and stars that would indicate we were going past the reentrant.  At the same time I spotted the sky, Jeff let us know that we should be about there and pointed into the darkness. Thankfully it was close to the trail, but as I punched the passport, I was plunged into darkness, and a momentary stillness and sensory-deprivation swept over me.  <shudder!>

We rode on, Jay illuminating the way for all four of us with his 300+ lumen lamp.  We kept looking at the clock, not wanting to get too close to the 10:30 race cutoff, but not wanting to leave any CPs out on the course, either. But as the minutes ticked by, and the miles didn’t, we had to face the fact that we were not going to make it to the last CPs. We held a 34Down summit on the trail near one of the connectors to the road, the finish, and the cheesy potatoes to discuss the prospect of calling it a night. We were all in agreement. It had been a great day filled with firsts and adversity, but it was time finish.

We came in with ~45 minutes to spare. We had to wait until all teams finished, and the 10:30 PM mark passed to see if we had cleared the most CPs.  After 14 hours and 52 minutes of racing and 36 checkpoints (out of a possible 38) cleared, we had won the Berryman Adventure Race, a real ass-kicker.

34Down - Berryman Adventure Champs 2013

Huge thanks to my "enemy" Doug for building such a sweet mountain bike for me to ride, to my teammates for being such good sports, to the Bonk Hard organizers for laying down such an amazing course the was equal parts fun and ass-kicking, and to all the volunteers who kept us safe and organized out there! Picture credits also to the volunteers, spectators, and race organizers.

Triathlon Race Revisited: Nationals and Nationals

As summer in Missouri insists on making me a prisoner of the air conditioning today, it only seems prescient to take time to reflect on the adventures and awesomeness that have made this season a "hot" one.

Particularly a set of races I did back-to-back a few weekends ago. I couldn't do just one, couldn't drive all the way to Milwaukee, WI for the olympic distance race and leave the sprint race on the table. That is how I found myself racing two triathlon National Championships on back-to-back days in the same weekend.

I was feeling "sharky", after all, it was Shark Week. And so, as a special treat and favor, I worked with Splish to design and print a cartoon of an open-mouthed great white shark across the torso of my race suit, and to display the word "JAWESOME" with the "O" formed from the same open-mouthed design, in bold letters across the butt.  Who wouldn't be feeling sharky with a race kit like that?

Off to the races! My travel buddy, Maggie, herself a first time Nationals competitor, arrived lakeside at the 3000+ person transition area to set up our stuff alongside our bikes that had spent the night there. We arrived right on time, after taking more than a few "detours" because of closed roads and construction. I was barely awake, and still suffering indigestion from the worst pre-race meal of my triathlon career (USAT, we're going to have to talk). No matter, it was 7:15AM, and my race didn't start until 10:20! The advantage was, I got to watch, cheer, and picture-take the start of Maggie's race, her emergence from the water, and her transition to the bike (smooth) all before beginning my warm-up.

The morning wore on, I walked around, cheered a bit, tried to look nonchalant (fail), visited the Honeybuckets, and finally headed back to the car to start gearing up... nothing really to write home about.

The start was something else though. In the best-tasting (yeah, I pretty much sample all of them), most refreshing water I have swum in all summer, 200 women between the ages of 30-34 years old clung in a wide swath to the dock outside the Discovery Center, shivering until the horn blew. And then churning, as the course narrowed to a sliver beneath a pedestrian walkway bridge not far enough into the race to spread the field. The bridge is a perfect spot to view the race, but it forced that wide swath to bunch together, slapping arms, legs, and torsos one against another. And on it went. It has been a long time since I spent an entire swim leg swallowing water and getting slapped in the face (I did my own slapping, too, of course).

Needless to say, I was disoriented as I exited the water, hypoxic, and not a little flustered to have spent the swim that way. I shook it off, recovered quickly, and sprinted into transition like I was going for a gold medal (I guess, in a way I was). I caught up with a group of women in transition who had emerged just before me. We all dove headlong into our transition spots, and emerged in various states of cycling preparedness. I ran-wheeled my bike out, skillfully maneuvering around competitors, and executed a flying mount onto my Scott Tri bike that would make Katie Compton herself proud. And this without padding!

I could see two women who were likely suspects for my age group just ahead as I started climbing the gradually inclining course, reeling them in. Much, much, much easier said than done. I eventually caught them at the top, turned and burned around the 180 turnaround and never looked back. Of course, I did not really have to, because first one woman and then another would catch me throughout the course. Shifty winds and gradual inclines and declines meant that there would be no rest on this course, and the winner would be the one who could make her quads burn the hottest.

I entered the transition zone in fifth, I was sure, hot on the heels of my competitors. We began the run in an evenly-spaced Congo line that stretched for 200 yards or more, each of us about 15 seconds behind the next one, all the way up to the lead woman in neon green knee-high compression socks that tickled my brain like a bug-zapper does a mosquito.

I had work to do, and I set a stiff pace, finding my legs immediately and gaining ground on the woman in front of me. I had passed all but one of the women by the two-mile mark and pulled within 15 seconds of the leader (not neon green socks by this time). I knew that she knew that I was back there, and my legs could feel her inching up the pace as the race wore on. We passed the four-mile mark, and still I hadn't closed the gap. I could feel the blisters form on my left toes, a result of that foot being a 1/2 size bigger than the right foot and in a to small shoe. Still, I pushed the pace. And still, I couldn't close the gap. Onto the finishing carpet, I did my best impression of Usain Bolt coming down the straightaway, and still I finished 15 seconds back in second. It wasn't the fastest time of the day, and I was just the teensiest-tiniest bit heart broken that I didn't win. But, I was cheered when I heard the announcer say, "Sunny Gilbert, welcome back to the national scene. Good to have you back!"

It felt good to be back. And it felt even better to see Maggie's big smile at the end of the chute.

Let's do it again! Sunday's race was a sprint distance, roughly half the distance of the olympic. The story was the same: up early, a plethora of detours (also known as getting slightly lost on back roads), arriving at the transition late this time. I made quick work of setting up, but I was still putting the last touches of Vaseline along the tongues of my racing flats as the official was coming by yelling, "If I pass you still in the transition zone, you're getting a penalty." I scooted out of there quickly.

Maggie felt like one race was more than enough for her, and so she and I hung out and watched the show (the show being the multi-thousand dollar bikes being rough-handled out of the transition zone by the earlier waves). At 9:00AM, I began to don my wetsuit, but stopped mid torso as it became evident that something was about, amiss, and afoot. Racers in wetsuits and swim caps started pacing and clustering as police started strolling onto the scene, a coastguard boat and outboard motor boat with SCUBA divers in dry suits navigated into the inlet, and the announcers fell silent. The race start was indefinitely delayed.

Aside: A racer in an early wave was electronically checked in with his chip, but did not to complete the swim. Because his transition was untouched, a massive hunt was on to find him in the water or in the crowd. He was later discovered spectating, coffee in hand, having decided at the last minute not to go through with the race.

This caused a slight problem, because the race directors can only keep the roads open for so long, and the race was already delayed an hour, it became a well-coordinated rush to get the rest of the competitors into the water and underway. With no opportunity to warm-up, I jumped into the water and went from zero to something near 3 mph (hey, I was swimming), in a jiffy.

This swim was night and day to the Olympic distance swim/water-wrestling-match. Within thirty strokes, I was smooth in the water and just off another woman's feet making a bee-line for the pedestrian bridge. I had asked Maggie to snap away with the camera and look for the red accents on the sleeves of my wetsuit for pictures of the swim. She was unsure that was going to work. On the bridge, she started talking to someone about this problem, and got an unexpected response from her fellow spectators, "oh that's easy. She has the longest, slowest stroke of anyone out there." Apparently, I am notorious for this, but I was also in third place, which made it even easier!

Go-Go Gadget Arms

After such an unexpectedly awesome swim, I blasted in and out of transition, once again executing my Compton-esque mad flying bike mount skills. And that was about as awesome as the bike was going to get. I felt every muscle fiber burn with yesterday's lactic acid as I willed them to keep firing. The conditions on the bike were nearly identical, but I managed to dismount at transition in second, within spitting distance of first place (yesterday's 30-34F champion).

Perfect flying mount execution.

We started the run in lockstep with each other. I was worried that my uncooperative muscles might continue to ignore my mental instructions to fire, but 100 yards in to the foot race and I could tell that all the hard interval training with Big River Running Company  on the track were about to payoff. I started to pull away, and I never looked back, again. This time, I didn't need to because I knew that I was rolling. I fixed on a guy ahead of me that was clearly feeling good as well, and promised myself I would catch him before the finish. At around mile four I looked down to see the toe of my left shoe red against the stark white and blue Brooks logo. The blisters on my toes finally burst, but I wasn't feeling any of it. I pulled even with my target with about a half mile to go, and he wouldn't let me coast. He met me stride for stride, encouraging me along with "beautiful stride" and "you've got this". We hit the carpet in full sprint, and this time Usain Bolt would have been no match for me.

Leaving the transition area all together now. Apparently, I need
 to know the time to gauge just how fast I am about to run!

Let's do the numbers. I finished 2nd in the 30-34F in the Olympic distance. I was National Champion in the 30-34F in the Sprint and finished third overall female. My run split was the second fastest women's split in the race, and quite possibly my fastest triathlon 5K ever (who keeps track of these things!)! And props must be given to my cycling mechanic extraordinaire boyfriend, Big Shark, and our friendly neighborhood SRAM/ Louis Garneau rep for the insane amount of support.

Sunday LSD on an oldie but goodie.

A break in the weather. One degree shy of 70, and a less than smothering heat index. Castlewood State Park and the Al Foster Trail with their proximity to the Meramec River provide the first opportunity in what seems like weeks for me to take my favorite furry running buddy to the trails.

Up before the sun again on a Sunday morning, this is starting to feel like routine. I fuel with coffee and sport jelly beans. Doug helps me out the door, and by 7:15 Gunner and I are in the car headed to Sherman Beach.

We are the only ones at the trail head. Clouds crowd the skies, and tiny rain drops fall like a slow drip from a faucet. The forest smells musky and green. I take a few starter running steps, Gunner already lost in the under foliage along the tight trail, the familiar beep from my watch signifying the start of my timer, and we are off.

And a totally uneventful, glorious, morning long run it is. For 50 minutes, I neither see nor hear anyone as I run first Stinging Nettle, then take a connector over to the base of Blue Ribbon.  The railroad under pass tunnel seems particularly forbidding this morning, but Gunner plunges ahead and I take after him.  Blue Ribbon is even more empty that the Al Foster Trail. I glance down at my watch. When I look up, my eyes focus one foot from my face where a silvery, wispy web is rushing toward me at 8 mph. No time to duck, a full-face spider-webbing ensues. For a minute I am lost to the world. Then I swipe away the remains of some poor spider's breakfast and continue on.

By now the trails are starting to fill up with runners and mountain bikers, and we head for the car. But not before Gunner takes one last dunk in the river to cool off, and I clear the rest of the trails of webs, though none quite as large as the one that got me good.

Race Report of sorts: New Town Splash 'N Dash

I made the decision to show up late rather uncaffeinated. The new Subaru was packed for its first adventure, a racing/training morning at New Town Lake in St. Charles with my fellow Michelob Ultra/ Big Shark teammates and eighty other multisport junkies.

Late I was, missed the pre-race instructions, but still race ready. I had assumed a mass start, so you can imagine the disappointed face I made when Kevin the race director announced that the men would go off and then three minutes later, the women. Pat, distinguished "Big River Running event timing go-to guy", who was looking right at me at the moment of "the face", immediately suggested that any woman who wanted to could start with the fellas. Four women took him up the offer. And we were off.

I had a great swim, strong and smooth. Except for the giant gulp of goose-poop flavored water I practically inhaled as I rounded the last buoy. That's one way to increase the diversity of my gut-flora!

I hit the transition, struggled into my racing flats and took off. I was not the first woman out of the water. Sarah Haskins and her dad Brian were cheering along the side and let me know that I was "way back". Work to do.

And that is why it says "Jawsome" on the butt of my swimsuit (thank you Splish, Inc!). I put everyone of my speed workouts into closing the distance and managed to catch a very talented 14-year old right before the turn around of the 2.5 mile run. I crossed the line in first, and my Big Shark teammate Kate swam/ran her way into second from the women's wave (she missed the earlier change).

We couldn't leave the days training total at 30:01. A 30-mile aerobar and double-lollipop road ride on the New Town Triathlon course made it a respectable adventure training day.

See you next week at the St. Louis 5i50!

Race Report: A double week-end. Part One

It took a few days to recover from my double race week-end. Three running legs in the River-to-River Relay each approximating the effort of a 5K. Followed the next day by a run-bike-run sprint duathlon effort at the Eads Bridge Duathlon. That is a lot of early season Zone 4, going lactic, speediness. 1:59:32 total,  approximately.

The weather seemed custom made for racing. My team of eight runners, formally called "Riding in a Van Down by the River", piled into the aforementioned van in the darkness before the dawn to drive to a remote part of Southern Illinois near the Mississippi (River #1). As 6th runner (the runner with the third leg deemed "The Hardest", a result of a stock exchange style leg switcharoo the night before), I had time to chill and cheer before my first leg... But not too long. It was time to warm-up before I had time to digest my oatmeal. Nothing to be done. My team was moving along quickly!

And so would my first leg. What stands out most prominently in my mind was that I had my warm-ups off before my teammate came into sight (this did not happen last year, wardrobe malfunction), and I engaged in a little pre-race ribbing with the two older gentlemen lined up with me. As luck would have it, we all got the hand-off within a minute of each other, but I used the early hills to pull away. One leg down.

In a relay race, I have to pay close attention to food. I want cookies and a soda (offered at many an exchange) but I stick to wheat thins, fruit snacks, and water. It's not like fueling on a bike ride where a Snickers bar often accompanies me on the miles. Or one of my relay teammates who chugged a Coke Classic after every leg. Anything more pre-race, and I will be making more trips to the Honey Bucket than I want. By leg two I felt fast again, energized to race. The day was going well; everyone was finishing with a smile, and we knew we were putting up fast times.

A few teams from the seeded wave (groups of collegiate men!), caught up to us, pulling into the  exchanges as we are pulled out in the van. It was only a matter of time. At the line for my second exchange, one of their runners was wearing Superman underwear and a cape. I had to stay in front of that guy! After I took the baton, on a lonely country road, all by myself, I sensed a car just behind me, following close, and maintaining my pace. My first thought was, "I must be looking good. This car is checking me out." Or, quite possibly, my delirious narcissism notwithstanding, it could have been the lead vehicle for the seeded wave. Right, definitely the lead vehicle. But, 2.5 miles at 5:58/mile kept me in front of The Superman.

And then there was "The Hardest", deemed by race management to be the most difficult of the 32 legs. 3.8 miles of nearly all uphill goodness (415 ft of gain). I ran this leg last year, so I knew what was in store, and all I can say is that I pushed my tired, not-to-sturdy, burning-with-the-flames-of-a-thousand-lactic-acid-induced fires legs along "The Hardest" leg with more speed then I deemed possible, (6:30/mile!). Faster than last year. Woah!

Two short legs later, and we were finished, in record time... I use "record" here to loosely refer to a time faster than any other River-2-River team I have been on to date. And we demolished the corporate handicap division!

But no time to celebrate (okay a little time to celebrate with the best BBQ East of the Mississippi), I had another race to do the next morning. Really. Really.

Race Report: Bonk, Hard, and Chill

The thorn scratches, chapped skin, and cedar branch-slap inducing wounds are healing a week after our adventure race, but the memories of what we were doing this time last Saturday have faded little. Three days after my 34th birthday, me and the other members of the newly re-monikered "34 down" (Jeff, Josh, and Jason had already turned 34 years of age), towed the line for the 2013 Bonk Hard Chill alongside the best in the midwest, for what would prove to be a chilly, bonkish, and admittedly hard 12-hour adventure of a race in the heart of Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks.

Smack-talk and a little fraternizing with the Enemy, er Boyfriend.

At 7:06 sharp, competing teams ran into the gathering dawn. We were among the front crowd, with Team Alpine Shop (odds on favorite for the win) right there with us.  I noticed their navigator, fleece jacket in hand, veer right through the parking lot as we kept straight into the woods. The entire field followed them, and for a minute I thought "everyone is following him to his car to drop it off!" In reality, that did sort of happen, except that one of two routes to the first CP on the other side of a pond took teams through the parking lot, and we were the only team to choose the other route!  Things were already getting interesting, and we made it to CP1 near the front of the pack.

The first leg was a trek, and our navigator ("map", "nav", "captain") Jeff bee-lined us to each of the check points (CPs) 1-6.  For about an hour, we traded the lead with Alpine Shop and the two-man Team Fusion, approaching points from different sides, different ridges, ping-ponging our way through stands of cedar trees (low-hanging, sharp branches), clothes-ripping thorns, and snaking vines worthy of a sci-fi film. Finally, we emerged from the woods at the bike drop in first (!), Alpine Shop and Team Fusion in hot pursuit.

The bike leg proceeded along rural highways and byways, up and down so many hills, I lost track. We were all feeling pretty good, and this section passed quickly.  At CP9, we dropped the bikes, now just barely in third, and rummaged around in our packs for a gear check.

In "hot pursuit" of Team Alpine Shop.

Despite the fact that I had to pull items from the very bottom of my pack, we made this a fast transition.

First on the water with our canoe paddles!

We had a few trekking CPs to hit before the inevitable paddle on the Lake of the Ozarks.  More low-hanging branches, bramble patches, and cedar stands. At one point, I got slapped so hard in the face by an errant branch that my vision went white.  Quickly though, we popped out on the beach, running up along the water a short ways to where the canoes were stowed. Josh and Jeff got the canoes in the water as Jason and I grabbed canoe paddles and PFDs.   Team Alpine Shop and Team Fusion were there right along with us. We gained a slight advantage getting out on the water first - short-lived though it was. The other teams had to put together their kayak paddles. In hind-sight, this might be the next piece of gear we incorporate into our race strategy. Jeff and Jason in one boat, and Josh in the back of our boat, we plowed those canoes through the chop like a Navy Seal team. Our strategy on the paddle in the past was to bungie the boats together, taking advantage of Jeff and Jason's strength relative to my girlie strokes, and it worked really well on the rivers and calm lakes.  But the cross-winds and speed-boat traffic combining to make waves and steering difficulties made it almost dangerous to tether.  Besides, after eight weeks of consistent swimming for triathlon training, I shocked my teammates almost as much as I shocked myself with my new found paddle muscle!  And we found ourselves only minutes behind when we went to beach and trek for a few CPs mid-paddle.

At this point, we were in a solid third; no boats were visible behind us. We scrambled onto the bank, and I struggled to pull a jacket out of my pack and put it on (I had gotten chilled on the water), as our team pushed on. I was running just behind Jeff, but when I looked down to buckle my pack back on, my foot hit a root, and I belly-flopped onto the ground, submerged in a pile of leaves. I didn't utter a sound, save for an "oomph", and when I gathered myself together, pulling leaves out of my hair and face, at first I couldn't see my team, so steep and dense was this little section. I spotted them above me, and quickly navigated the branches to latch back on.  We navigated several obnoxiously steep reentrants on this otherwise undisturbed peninsula of land, coming right along the ridge to the first CP16(ish).  Somehow, major props to Jeff and team for so quickly moving through woods, we actually came back out to our boats, after the three-CP trek, in first once again!

The winds had not abated, and the waves were now parallel to our boats as we traversed the main channel in the water. Josh and I had a stomach-in-our-throats-fright-or-flight moment as a wave hit us just as we both dug for water with our paddles. We took a pause, thinking that would have made things a "little" more difficult had we gone in. We both took on some comfort food, peanut butter and jelly, and followed Jeff and Jason up a much calmer side channel, finally docking the boats, and preparing for a trek back to our bikes. Here we also had a chance to get more food and water. I scarfed down Jeff's classic gorp. But, I looked longingly over at Team Alpine Shop (having arrived just before us) and the Coke classics they were guzzling. It's been a long time since I so desperately craved a soda!

Check out that secret smile!

No time to daydream! Time to bushwhack. A couple CPs and we were back at the bikes. By now it had been five odd hours total, two hours + on the paddle, and my toes were wet and frozen. But the rest of me was dry, and we were doing really, really well together.  And we were about to ride bikes, which is one of my favorite things to do.

Up and down, and up, and down again before coming to single track. I was pretty excited to see what the bike beneath me was capable of doing - a loaner from one of my and Boyfriend's (tall) friends (hugely grateful) - a ridiculously light, carbon, hard-tail, 29er. (I really should just get one for myself)  Right away, the single-track proved to be rutted, rooted, run-off, horse trail. Grrr...and often unrideable.  But, there were points of awesome, and a few sections where I gleefully yelled out "29er!" as if I were yelling "Eureka!" after proving String Theory. But by and large, it was a difficult slog for all of us, hike-a-biking, and staving off untimely bonks as the race approached the seven-hour mark. We did not see a single team around us until we hit the roads again to return to CP28, at which point we encountered teams just starting out on the bike.

Happy to be trekking once again!

A welcome sight, CP28. We dropped the bikes and bike gear, received new points to plot, on-boarded glutinous amounts of nutrition, and gathered together our muscle, moral, and momentum. No teams entered the CP while we were there plotting, so solidly had we positioned ourselves in third!

The last trek was long, and hard. A few of the CPs were the same ones we had picked up on the original trek, but we were confounded by a few of them.  The approaches differed, and the terrain was at once familiar and unknown.  Jeff did his very best with the nav, and we were quickly back on track. Nearing the end, Jason and I were counting down the CPs, I inhaled my emergency candy bar ("break wrapper in case of emergency"), and Josh put on almost every piece of clothing in his pack.  The temperature had dropped, the clouds had thickened, and the breeze picked up. Jeff announced that we had perhaps 1.5 kilometers, and two more hills to traverse. Over the next hill, he told us he had lied, and that "now" we have two more hills. And somehow, that was comforting both times, as I figured I had two more hills in my legs. This worked kind of like when someone tells you that you have a half-mile to go in a marathon, but really, it is more than a mile, but just them saying it gets you through that half-mile to the next one.

The finish line came into view, and we actually debated whether to take the shortcut or go the long way so as to approach the inflated Bonk Hard Racing balloon "properly"! Wouldn't you know it, we took the long way, always game for a photo-op.

Very happy to be done with another romp in the woods with friends.

Race wrap - up: (9:25:01, 2nd place 4-person co-ed, 3rd overall).  Props to my team for another great time racing. Congrats to Boyfriend's Team Alpine Shop and Team Fusion; you pushed us so hard at the beginning, what a race!  Thanks to Bonk Hard Racing for putting on another great race, and all the volunteers for working all day, taking pictures, checking our gear, maintaining our safety, the list goes on.

Team Alpine Shop, overall champs, and Boyfriend! CONGRATULATIONS!

Race Report: I picked my nose twice in one week-end.

The conditions were perfect for a half-marathon-ish trail race through the single track of Cuivre River. A week's worth of snow, rain, and thaw ensured that there would be mud, creek crossings, and questionable footing. In hindsight, I suppose there was one mudding section, from about 0.01 to 13.2ish miles!

Getting to start in the first wave (me and "the guys") has its advantages, among them being first on the course. It really didn't matter much today. From the first steps in my new Brooks PureGrit trail shoes and my bright green Big River Running jersey., I was ankle deep in puddles, mud, and horse tracks. The start and finish proceeded along an out-and-back dirt road for a half-mile each way, which meant that 618 legs, with feet at the end, tread that course at least once before I came along for the finish.  But, I get ahead of myself.

From the start I settled into a comfortable pace. The steady downpour hadn't materialized yet, and I was one of the first (sixth) to enter the trails. I had someone on my keester for the first few miles, which was great because it helped me set a good pace and be aware of hazards to call out. I spent a lot of time scissoring from one side of the trail to another to avoid the worst of the mushy bits, dancing around trees, fallen logs, and the occasional briar bush. 

By mile three I had lost my tail and was running "alone" (relatively speaking since I was still aware of unseen and unheard competitors in front and behind me). The course entered a gloomy, scented cedar forest. Here the trail was slippery with pine needles, and more than once I found myself doing a passable impression of The Roadrunner as I tiptoed my way around sharp turns. There was little room for error with the tight trees and low boughs. I passed a few aid stations, very much running a solo race at this point, when I spotted a white shirt running about 30 seconds ahead of me, a pacesetter materialized.

I picked up the pace, gaining valuable seconds as we ascended uphills and into even more questionable footing. I lost sight of the white shirt at a section that required superior focus and masterly foot-placement, as we ran a hairs-breadth from the edge of slight ridge that hung above the swollen river, all while negotiating mud, roots, and moss-covered rocks. It was hear also that we ran through an almost surreal setting - remnants of snow on the ground, a verdant fog hanging in the air, and the sound of footfalls and running water simultaneously muffled and jumbled into a cacophony of suspended animation.

I was perhaps less than 10 seconds behind white shirt when I came around a corner, and, my eyes on the trail, almost ran into the back of him. He was paused at the widest and deepest creek crossing yet. The water moved swiftly over an unseen river bottom. I simply said "onward", took one short step, and then long-jumped into the rapids, my foot hitting bottom just as my knee became submerged.

Now I was in front, and white shirt hung with me, even chivalrously allowing me to remain in front as I took four steps down the wrong trail. But he was running his race, and I was running mine (in pursuit of Boyfriend), and soon, my footsteps were alone again.

At 10ish miles (the mile markers all read "6ish miles", "9ish miles", etc), a cheery aid station volunteer and friend indicated that Boyfriend might not be to far in the distance... "How come you are letting Doug beat you?" to which I responded, "He never does what I tell him, ha!" It was at this point that the course doubled back on itself so that for the briefest of sections, runners run both ways on a single-track, and I got to glimpse the faces of fellow runners as they calculated their foot placement. It was also about this time when the thought popped into my head that I was "sure glad that steady rain never started", and right then it started.

And suddenly, I emerged onto the same mud road we hit in the beginning, this time a quagmire of bi-directional footprints. Just ahead of me, a blue shirt, with a familiar gate, if slightly altered by the degraded conditions. I added some steam, shortening the distance as much as I could over the next half-mile before Boyfriend hit the turn around and realized it was me splashing along behind him. I didn't catch him, but he gave out a pleased holler when he made the turn-around and saw me.

We finished about 30 seconds apart. I managed a 1:50:50 for first overall female and fifth place overall. I'll post links to the race picks when they are up - I hope the photographer posts the one of me giving a comical "nose-pick" to the camera as I ran by. (Apparently, I didn't get enough nose-picking at yesterday's Runnin' of the Noses 5K, which I also won!) 

Race Report: USA Cycling CX National Championships 2013

"Sunny Gilbert", the race official called me to the start line. Seventy-nine women lined up in front of me, so technically, the start line was a ways off. Friends Seth and Robyn, who were there to collect my jacket and see me off, started joking around immediately, "it's so warm out here!" It was decidedly not warm, the sunshine doing little to take the bite out of the 18 degree temperature Madison, WI was treating us to.  I gave it right back though, "yeah, I think I'm wearing too many clothes. Maybe I didn't need the long underwear under my long underwear."  I looked ahead at the sea of helmets in front of me and commented with a grin, "I think I see the starting line up there."  A woman next to me leaned over and whispered, "I like your socks" about my sparkly-neon-argyle knee-high socks, a signature feature of my race uniform. The two-minute warning rippled back just then and I grudgingly removed my jacket, handed it to Seth, and told him I would see him at the finish line.  Then the whistle blew and 90-odd shoes clipped into pedals as the wheels began to turn.

There is no way to practice starting in the back of a field so large, and certainly no rules for trying to move up. I wound my way around a few riders before we moved as a group into the thawing mud.  Two narrows tracks on either side of the course had been carved by early riders amid the rutted remains of previous days' races. The quickly became stop-and-go-traffic as first one woman went down, another wobbled into the tape, and still others struggled to keep the front wheel moving in a somewhat forward direction. I took my opportunities to pass where I could, at times churning the big ring like a pepper mill up the bumpy middle or plowing through a giant frozen puddle.  According to friendly spectator reports (thank you, Seth!), I was in the 40s before the first pit.  I managed to run past several women riding on the first hill, and keep it upright when another woman veered into me at 90 degree turn onto the pavement. At the stairs, I took full advantage of my long legs and motored to the muddy top past a few more. By the time I hit the barriers, my rear brake was a block of ice mud. I went to lift it onto my shoulder, and at double its normal weight, I was nearly pulled over.  A few seconds later, I appreciatively approached Travis in the pit for a bike change to the Raleigh. He asked if there was anything specific, and I threw over my shoulder, "just clean, please".

It was at this point that the rutted nature of the course really started to become a problem, with ice patches, and off-camber turns, it was hard to find a line anywhere. I was passing a woman on the right when a rut suddenly grabbed her front wheel and sent her hurling into my rear. For a moment, I resembled a jack-knifed tractor trailer, sure I was going to go down, but the rut that my front wheel was in proved to be so deep that I remained upright and was able to flip the rear around and continue on my merry way.

I hardly shifted, so quickly did the mud clog my derailleurs (I would later learn that the rear derailleur cable holder had broken off the frame, leaving a gaping hole in the carbon seat stay... hence the "difficulty" shifting). I spent most of the race in one gear and big-ringing anyway, using the power pedal technique to stay upright. I did not know where I was in the race, only that I was still racing, the embrocation had stopped working, but that my hands were starting to thaw. Travis was working the pit for me as best he could, and I was back on the Cannondale SuperX the next time around.

Lap two proceeded without too much incident, just turning the pedals over and passing a few more women. I wobbled my way out of severe danger a few times.  Though, I did manage to take out a post and lay myself out flat on my back around one corner.  Two spectators cheered me up.  As I picked myself off the ground, I joked that I "thought that post was in the wrong place anyway" and they laughed.  A smile snuck its way onto my face during this lap, and a number of spectators commented on it. "Nice smile." "Less smiling, more riding." "Your having too much fun." Never!

I approached the pit at the start of lap three, ready to get on a new bike. But Travis waived me through, saying "one will be ready next time." If you enter the pit and don't get a new bike, you have to touch a foot down (I did not know this, and several pit crews called after me to do so... Thanks!), so I tagged the ground a couple of times in front of the official and rode back out onto the course.

By now, I was climbing great, and finding lines on the course. Cheers I heard as I pedaled past included "Missouri representing!", "Go Big Shark!", and "Way to go, Socks!".  I rode with power up and over the hills and down around to the base of the stairs. I flashed a smile at Seth and his girlfriend Robyn cheering. Half-way up a spectator thrust a $5 in my general direction, and I threw out a hand for the grab, shoving it down my front in one motion. At the top of the hill I hopped on my bike to find my cranks frozen in place. I coasted down the hill and around the corner before resigning myself to running it in. Along the paved section, two woman passed me as I ran. I managed to shove a gloved hand in between the rear wheel and the rear brake to get it somewhat moving. I was able to churn my way up a little riser and coast down the next big hill to the barriers. Over the barriers I once again heaved up the deadweight of my mudcicle Cannondale and trotted into the pit, but not before grabbing a slice of bacon from a topless male spectator with a big blue letter on his bare chest.

Travis saw me coming and was ready with a bike I did not recognize as one of mine (it turned out to be a neutral 54" Moots with Shimano, a whole other animal from my slightly larger, SRAM groupoed Cannondale... Happy to ride anything with two moving wheels!). I passed back the two women who had passed me while I was running, and I picked up a third before I was whistled off the course.  Sad not to get to cross the finish line, happy to not have been lapped, ecstatic to have had the opportunity to race against such fine competition!

Wrap-up: 35th out of 95 entrants (highest finish out of three, to date) in the Elite Women National Championship Race! Second lap was 1:20 faster than first lap. I also managed a hard won podium finish two days before in the Master Women 30-34 (5th overall, baby!). Couldn't have done more than one lap of that race course without my wonderful boyfriend Doug outfitting me with a pit bike, the tireless efforts of Travis to keep it clean in the pit (or find a suitable substitute as the case may be!), or Seth's week-end long hospitality in Madison. Not to mention the endless support of Big Shark Bicycle Company and the St. Louis cycling community.