Good case of the Monday

Yesterday, I went off on a long ride before going to work. This is something that I have started doing last year late in the season (I just didn't think of it before!) and which allows me to do one long ride (+80km) every week by alternating Sunday ride and Monday ride. This gives me a bit more flexibility but also, and mainly, gives room for more family time.

Anyway, I was planned a 90km ride, but it ended-up being 95km. Considering the pain I have felt in my hip/groin area (mainly when running, mind you), the ride went pretty well and I didn't feel any particular pain (aside from the usual muscle burns), although my neck was a little sore by the end of it.

Contrary to the tradition, I didn't run with my wife after getting home yesterday afternoon. Which was probably a good move considering I'm still recovering from that possible injury. My legs didn't feel particularly sore (neither did they this morning when I rode into work) but I was kind of tired (and went to bed at 10pm).

Early season injury? #2

So, I ran yesterday late afternoon (with the wife) an easy 8k, my second this week, and unfortunately the hip/groin pain is back ... :( Definitely not as stingy as before the break, but nevertheless there. I suppose I should go see my family doctor to get refereed to a sport physician ... :(

Early season injury?

Few weeks ago, just after I had started to ramp up cycling to work and running, I started getting a new kind of pain in the groin area of my left leg when running :( 

It started as just some minor discomfort but as I didn't really take it easy (my bad), it became painful to run without adjusting my running position. To my defense, it wasn't painful enough to make me stop when running and usually the discomfort will be worst until I got warmed-up enough ... Walking was slightly painful but when cycling, the pain was not there but I could definitely feel a little something in the groin/hip area.

At first, I though it was coming from my adductors but then the pain moved a bit along the thigh and to the hip, glute and Rectus femoris. As the result, I have been taking it easier, especially with the running with last week being totally off.

I resumed running last night (with an easy 8km) and the specific discomfort that I was feeling before when running wasn't there. My legs were pretty sore, however, from Sunday's morning 80km ride, so I'll have to see how that goes during the 2 other planned runs for this week ... However this morning, after my usual 22km ride to work my left hip and glute are slightly painful :-\

The Vegan Zombie's Neatloaf

As a flexitarian, I thrive to keep my diet plant-centric and so when I cook (which is not as often as I should ...) I only do vegan recipes. Over the months, I had some good and bad experiences with the recipes I have found on-line. The only on-line source that have been pretty consistently good, is The Vegan Zombie.

For Easter, I made the Neatloaf (a vegan meatloaf) which they posted this past week and it was pretty darn good. Even meat eaters that had some agreed!

Here's the video of the recipe:

I made a couple of change to the recipe though:

• Replaced the caraway seeds by the same amount of Provence herbs
• Added a teaspoon of Chipolte sauce for 3 tablespoon of Ketchup 

What does Rich Roll eats?

I just listened to an interview of vegan ultra-athlete Rich Roll by DocHeater on blogtalkradio and one of the question was related to what his every-day meals looked like (he appears to be training most days). Here are the notes I took from it (the sound quality was pretty bad so I may have missed or mistaken a few things ...):

• breakfast
• pre-workout
• smoothie (kale, chard, spinach, pineapple, chia seeds, macca powder, beets)
• almond butter toast (if really hungry)
• post-workout
• smoothie (almond milk, banana, macca powder, kale, avocado, walnuts)
• lunch (usually light)
• salad
• veggie burrito or rice&beans or rice with stir-fry vegetables (if really hungry)
• dinner (large)
• sweet potatoes, yams, potatoes
• brown rice
• stir-fry veggies
• kale chips
• pasta dishes
• snack(s)
• almonds
• almond butter sandwich

Spring is here!

Hullo! I'm back ... Okay well, I didn't really left but there wasn't much to report since last November. Here's a brief TL;DR of what happened until today:

• As the weather got crappier I had to wind down my usual cycling commute to work (and week-end rides)
• I increased my running to compensate, running to and from work at least once a week (at one point, my total odometer for the week was 70km, I had run to/from work twice that week)
• Since winter was kind of mild this year, I resumed commuting to work on my bicycle early February (that is a good month earlier than usual)
• In March, I restarted cycling longer distance on the week-end (and/or on the way to work)

During the off-season, my weight went up a little (+1.5kg), but it's back down to my race weight (55kg) since last week :)

This year, I was planning (if you recall) to enter two Duathlon in my area (Vancouver, BC), but I kinda dropped the ball and missed the first one and won't be in town at the time of the second one :( So no racing for me this year ... Which isn't that much of a bummer really, considering both events had ridiculously small distances. I wish Duathlons were as popular as Triathlons and had longer distances ...

My goal for 2013 is to do a couple of century rides (mile ones, so +160km) as well as maybe a half-marathon in the fall and I'm participating to this year Vancouver Sun Run (late April), but it's only a 10k so not much of an endurance challenge ...

Recipe: Vegan Crêpes

Yep, you've read that right, this post is a recipe for Crêpes (thin french pancake); the vegan kind. It came about this morning as my wife made some non-vegan ones Saturday morning. Curious to how a vegan version of the recipe will taste like, I decided to try it for Sunday breakfast. And it was a resounding success, IMHO. Here's a few pictures of the crêpes in the making:

Making the recipe animal products free was pretty easy albeit a little worrisome as I kinda suck at cooking and substituting ingredients is a bit like dark art for me, still ... Anyhow, here's the ingredients list (which should yield about 4 standard size crêpes):

• 120g of Flour 
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• 2 tbsp Sugar
• 2 Flax Eggs (2 tbsp grounded flaxseed meal + 5 tbsp water)
• 1 cup of (unsweetened) Soy milk
• 4 tbsp Water
• 2 tbsp Orange Blossoms water (or Vanilla extract)
• 2 tbsp Vegan butter (e.g. Earth Balance)

The batter preparation is fairly easy:

• mix all dry ingredient in a bowl
• mix all wet ingredient in a separate bowl (you'll need to melt the vegan butter first, the flax eggs count as a wet ingredient)
• whisk the wet into the dry

It is custom to leave the batter to rest for a bit, I didn't and it turned out fine, YMMV. Grounding the flaxseed meal my not be necessary. I have the habit of doing so as I found the one I have to be not that well grounded. I think that for a crêpe you want it to be as fine as possible as they are not supposed to be "seedy".

I enjoyed mine with some Italian Figs jam and it was just as yummy as the non-vegan one! Enjoy!