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!

Double runs, double trouble?

Last week, I ran to work and then back home twice (Monday & Friday). That's the first time that I did such a repeat twice within the same week ... I also ran Tuesday (8km), Wednesday (10km) and Thursday (8km). I took the week-end off (crappy weather helped) since that was a total milage of 62 kilometers for the week. Since the weather is declining and that the cycling season is now in its twiligt, I have been trying to ramp-up my running by doing such repeats. I'm not sure I can do it more than a couple of time per week without risking some sort of injury ... In fact, after a ran yesterday (on top of my usual commute by bicycle), I started to feel pain in my left lower calf (Achilles tendon?) ... So I'm taking it easy for the next few days. #fail

The Victoria Marathon

I have been procrastinating on this post for a week now and I'm not too sure why ... Maybe it's because I don't really want to move on, especially now that Autumn is now unleashing the full force of his wetness on us. Anyway ...

I ran the Victoria Marathon last Sunday in 3:22:07 (chip time), which turns out to be not to bad. This is only my second Marathon (first one was 9 years ago in Paris) and possibly my last one. Why? Mainly because training for one takes too much time away from cycling. I'm an aspiring duathlete, after all ;-) However, as soon as I was done with this one, I was kind of pondering on registering for some more ... So, who knows, I may do the Edge 2 Edge one which is located in a very scenic part of Vancouver Island. In any case, I'll definitely do some Half-Marathons.

So ... I got up Sunday morning at 5:30am (my usual wake-up time on week days) and had my usual long run breakfast (bagel + peanut butter + banana + chia seeds) and also drank 0.5l of water in which I had disolved a Nuun tablet. At 6:45am, 2hrs before the start of the race, I had half a cup of (strong) coffee. I could have waited some more as to have the full effect of caffeine at the start of the ace, but I wanted to make sure I will not have to stop during the race to pee (this had been an issue during my first Marathon). At 8:30, my father-in-law dropped us near the starting line and after a short line-up for the porta potty we were all ready for the start at 8:45. The weather was pretty good with a nice empty blue sky, however it was a little chilly, so since my running outfit was pretty minimal, I wore a plastic bag to keep myself a little warmer. That is something I have picked-up from racing in Europe which isn't as popular in Canada.

Since I wore my bulky Garmin GPS device, I was able to map the whole race on Strava:

After the start, the wife and I stayed together for the first 2 kilometers or so. The idea is to ramp-up slowly and to avoid succumbing to the excitement and over do it so early in the race (a classic mistake). At the 3rd kilometer, feeling pretty good I accelerated and maintained a pretty good race pace (as fast at 4:11/km) up to kilometer 30 where, un-surprisingly, the quads on both of my thighs started to ach rather painfully. During the 28 kilometers I ran at an higher pace than usual, I was well aware of the risk I was taking. I was feeling pretty good and decided that this was a good time to see what I was capable off. During my first Marathon back in 2003, I had taking it so easy (and finished it in a very un-glorious time of 4h15) that I had enough energy left at the end to sprint the last kilometer. I just didn't want to do the same thing this time around ...

With both my thighs becoming painfully sore, I had to choice by slow down my pace to 5:09/km and up to 5:41/km during the 41st kilometer. I probably could have stopped and walked a bit (like many other runners did), but this isn't something that I have ever done during a race, and I wasn't going to do that. When people started passing me, which had not happened until I had to slow down, I definitely started to feel like an idiot ... :( Anyhow, I was happy to reach the finish line within the time I have set for my goal.

Nutrition wise, I had taken with me 3 dates to be consumed in case of emergency, but the occasion never came up as I relied, rather heavily, on the race provided energy gels. This wasn't my original plan, but as went for most of the race on a higher pace than usual, I though that I may run myself into the infamous wall. So, I gobbled-up as much as gels as I could snatch from the volunteers handing them out. I probably had 3 or 4 of them and drunk at most water stations (mainly energy drinks). As the result, I didn't feel out of stamina during the whole race.

Before the race, I was expecting my knees and calfs to cause me some pains, but I barely felt them during the race which was pretty cool. Overall, I'm not dissatisfying with my performance, just a bit disappointed at myself for not having the judgement to lower my pace to something that I could have maintained up to the finish line.

Lesson learned, I suppose ...

Last run before the big day

Yesterday we ran our last run before this Sunday's Marathon and we're now in full tapering mode for the race. Overall, we lowered our training volume this week with only 2 runs but I did commute on my bicycle 4 days of the work week.

I'm pretty excited for Sunday, but also a little anxious to see if I can do a good time. I'll be happy with anything under 3:30:00 ...

1/3 Marathon before The Marathon

This morning we did our last long run before next sunday Marathon. I didn't push myself much as at this point I'm mainly focusing in not getting injured right before the race :P