Training, Cooking, Family Reunion, Training

My blog seems to be overloaded with posts about workouts and training.  It's just easier to write about numbers. Recipes are the same...recipes are basically numbers.  It's easy to post a captured still photo from my training video and/or a snapped picture of a salad or pot of soup!  Mostly though it's because training and food/diet, as it relates to health, are such a big part of my life.  I don't have many friends that also don't train and/or pay attention to living a healthier life not centered around getting together to eat foods I would not normally want to eat, or to eat at times of the day I feel the most comfortable eating a meal....therefore I do not have many friends, friends I socialize with that is.  It's not literally about food and eating.  It's caring about health.  Their own health, not mine!  I care about my own health just fine!


Three weeks ago (yikes, maybe 4) I switched my Saturday Swing classes to Sundays so I could drive to Juno (in Berkeley) and train for Kettlebell Sport Competition, which doesn't start until 11:00 am.  And yesterday was the first week that I really felt comfortable about the change.  I woke up not anxious and feeling lost, or missing something.  Good thing I had some extra time because I had a small family reunion to go to at 4:00pm and I volunteered to make a couple of salad and pot of chili!




My mother is visiting from Colorado, along with my youngest sister Brooke, her husband and two children (also from the Denver area).  Another sister, Erin, is here too, with her husband and two kids (one on the way).  My oldest sister Christy was there with her son, my nephew Jeff, who came from Seattle with his new family, and my other sister Donna had an announcement of her own...her daughter, my niece, is expecting her first baby in Jan.  Whew!  Along with our own two grown sons, their significant others and my granddaughter Sophia I don't think anybody was missing!  I think it may have been a first!


Since my family has been plastering photos all over Facebook I'm going to assume it's okay for me to post our group photo here on my blog!  And yes, five sisters!  L to R in photo: Donna (3rd), Christy (1st), Tracy (2nd), Mom, Erin (4th), Brooke (5th).



Saturday

Worked on salads (chili was done the night before)

Juno 11:00am-1:00pm.  14kg jerk 50/50.  14minute 14kg snatch set 129 R/123 L

2:00-3:00pm, nap.
3:00-4:00pm Finish and dress salads, heat chili.

Curry Coleslaw with golden raisins (slightly wilty :( )
Quinoa salad w/grilled summer squash, corn, tomato and baby greens, crumbled Queso Fresco cheese, and dressed with a Lime Scallion vinaigrette (recipe soon!)
Smoke City Chili w/sausage

I decided to heat the chili in my small 4qt pressure cooker, leave the lid on and pack it in a box (w/towel) and carry it to the park.  It worked out great and it was still super hot when I took off the lid for serving!

4:30-7:30 Family Reunion!

Sunday morning

7:15-6:30 Advanced HS workouts.  Double clean and presses (30 min).  Short snatch set (+ warm up 15-20 min).  20kg Swing Roundabout Ladder:

There are 5 "Roundabouts" in a one minute interval, and 8 swings per Roundabout.  Using a Roundabout ladder we only increased the one hand swings by one rep R and L each set until we reached five one hand swings R and L in between the transfer swings and two hand swings (I'll post a link to a former blog post using this workout later).  Every time you add an additional one hand swing (R + L) you add 10 reps, and 15 seconds, onto the 1 minute set.  We took 1 minute rest periods between all sets.

rdbt + 1 (40 reps 1 min / 1 min)
rdbt + 2 (50 reps 1.25 min / 1 min)
rdbt + 3 (60 reps 1.5 min / 1 min)
rdbt + 4 (70 reps 1.75 min / 1 min)
rdbt + 5 x 5 (80 reps 2 min / 1 min)

24.5 minutes
620 20kg swings (350 of the reps were 1 hd swings)

Okay, so pretty much everything you may want to know about recent Roundabout Ladder workouts can be found in one of these past blog posts:http://tracysfoodandthought.blogspot.com/2011/11/roundabout-swing-ladders-and-20-kg.html
http://tracysfoodandthought.blogspot.com/2011/12/20kg-roundabout-part-2.html
http://tracysfoodandthought.blogspot.com/2011/12/20kg-roundabout-part-3-of-4.html

8:30-9:30 Intermediate Swing/Kettlebell Group Training

First 30 minutes is SWINGS!  Omg....I have a new routine that I absolutely LOVE!  I had done it three times this week and tested it out on my whole group this morning.  I also was lucky to have a former student, now Instructor come and join us this morning, Anne Jelenik Sfg.  Good thing to because I let her lead half of my group while I lead the other.  I have yet to title the workout, but it uses a simple ladder (don't they all), and Anne suggested "Ladder of Doom"!  Love it!  Not 100%, but I love the work "Doom" in a workout title so it will be used at some point!  lol

Last 30 minutes was clean/squat/press practice.

10:00am Bikrams yoga.

4:00pm.  Watching the last edit of "Side by Side" featuring Jeff Sokol! Yes, you heard it here first!  (and not on Facebook!)  The title of the partner Kettlebell Swing workout I taped with Jeff Sokol Sfg last month is "Side by Side"!  Fingers crossed, Side by Side and Give and Take 2 will be available in a couple of weeks!

6:00pm blog post!

How's your weekend going?

PS I had fun trying to make a super smokey flavored chili!  I used smoked sausage to start, (they were serving chicken and hamburgers I did not want to make a protein based chili), I used smoked paprika, chipolte chili pepper powder, cumin, oregano for the spices (I did not want to make it too hot), roasted red bells, fire roasted canned tomatoes, and low and behold I found some smoked pork stock made from ham hocks in the freezer!  I should call it "Smoke City Chili"!  Yep, that's what I'll call it!

I also used pinto, red kidney (similar), and black beans, along with the usual veggie base of onion, celery, jalapeno.  I did end up adding 2 tbl of brown sugar to try and counter balance the tomatoes, then it became too sweet, argh!  So a generous splash of red wine vinegar and all was well again! In fact I think that made it one of the best chilis I've ever made!