Another 4 miler, only faster!

11 minute miles, booya! I felt pretty good after each of these runs; I'm sure the slower pace has something to do with it. I'll be ratcheting up to around 4.25-4.33 mile runs next week; I haven't mapped them out yet, so I'm not sure what the final mileage will be.

Go Fish

I have been trying to incorporate more fish into our family's diet. As I am usually responsible for preparing dinner, I have a pretty big say in what we actually eat for dinner. Couple that with the fact that my wife and I like to eat tasty food, and, hopefully without sounding like a total tool, I've developed into a capable chef.

Of course, I've bragged, uh, I mean, told you all, about my Indian cooking, my leet Mexican soup making skills, my beer, and some other food that I've forgotten about.

But today, I'll run down a very tasty meal that you can make in the comfort of your very own kitchen! We had it tonight, and to say, "I was very pleased with myself," would be a huge understatement.

We had Orange Roughy with a roasted red pepper cream sauce, red potatoes, and asparagus.

Orange roughy is a very mild fish that my wife really liked (she doesn't like real fishy fish.), and I really liked the flavor combined with the cream sauce. Ok, ok, here's what I did:

Set oven to 350 degrees
Ingredients:
2 lbs Orange roughy (thawed)
1 medium sized tomato, sliced
1 lb Small red potatoes, quartered. (the potatoes I had ranged in size from a golf ball to a racquet ball)
1 bunch of Asparagus
Olde Thompson Fish and Seafood Seasoning (or your favorite seafood seasoning)
Olive oil
Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce

In a large cooking dish (I used a 12x12 Polish pottery deep dish, anything but metal will do), place the fish in the middle, with the tomato slices laid in a single layer on the top of the fish.

Put the potatoes around the edges and the asparagus on top of the potatoes around the fish.

Sprinkle the seasoning on everything and drizzle with olive oil. Cover and bake 40-50 minutes at 350 degrees.

While that is baking, make the cream sauce! I followed the linked recipe with the following exceptions:

For roasting my peppers, I put a little olive oil in a frying pan, set the heat on medium, plopped the whole peppers in it, and occasionally turned them. When all the sides had some nice black char on them, they were done, and I removed them from the heat and covered them.

I didn't have any green onions, so I used 1/2 a small yellow onion, diced. I had to fry it a bit longer than green onions to get them cooked.

I did not strain the puree; I hated to waste all that goodness...

I added the called for amount of cream and then added more as I...uh, felt like it. I was shooting for a little creamier sauce than the recipe apparently makes. shrug. Of course, having all that pulp in my sauce probably accounted for having to put in more cream.

Now, I didn't follow this order because I'm giving you all the benefit of my hindsight. You might have to start the peppers roasting while you prepare the fish for baking; that's what I did.

And, because I did that, I was done with my sauce about 20 minutes before the dish was done, so the sauce had time to sit, off the burner. I do believe that time helped the flavors to meld together.

When the fish dish was done (the potatoes took the longest to cook), I warmed up the cream sauce.

My wife had the sauce just on the fish, but I had it on the potatoes as well. My son declined to have any sauce; he doesn't do sauces...

Ok, now comes the broken arm patting myself on the back part.

I'm sure that everyone has had a vision of something that they'd like to make, whether it's a dinner, or a structure, or a garden, a drawing, or, well, just about anything that one might create, and after you get through crafting the item, you stand back and are so amazed that it turned out not as you envisioned it...

...but even better. That was this dish for me tonight. It was better than I ever could have imagined!

5 Miles

What? Biking, of course! I was going to swim, but I forgot my Ironman watch. So, then, I figured it was such a beautiful day, that I would go for a bike ride.

After airing up my tires, finding my bike clothes, and getting situated, I headed off to the grocery store: Asparagus, red potatoes, and some tomatoes.

It felt pretty good to be back on the bike; I'm remembering why I like it more than running: Coasting, FTW!! (Ro, that's "For The Win" just in case you were wondering). It's really hard to coast when you're running; it's possible if you're running downhill AND you trip. And it's not really coasting as much as it's rolling. I would not recommend it on hard surfaces such as asphalt, concrete, steep frozen ponds, or buildings.

So, yeah, iBike!

4 Miles

I ran the whole way! I purposely started slow and kept it slow to make sure that I could make it the entire four miles without walking. At that pace, I felt like I could have probably squeezed in another mile, so I'm pretty happy with my condition.

I'll run another 4.07 miler on Wed, then on Friday, I'm planning on running a 5 miler with a friend. That run will be a mix of running a walking as we'll run a half mile, walk a half mile, run a half mile, stretch, then run about 3.75 miles. So, while it won't be all running it should be a nice workout, not to mention, I get to run with someone!

Making the switch

Ok, so, we all know that I'm no stranger to cold (to the newbies, I biked through two winters in Anchorage, AK. /flex), but, I'm finding that after 5+ years in Indiana, my body...has adapted.

And I'm also older.

And I figured why be out in the cold when I have another option for now.

So, this week, I'm going to run in the afternoons. If all goes well, I plan on switching for the winter; now next spring/summer is another ball game and I might switch back to mornings. But for now, I'll run in broad daylight.

Oh, yeah, let that be a warning to everyone that plans on being in my neighborhood around 3-4:30 PM time frame on M-W-F. Remember, the shambling zombie corpse that you may shoot might just be me!

A side note, so, I'll be posting my results after my run some time this afternoon.

More Perspective

My father-in-law (my coach) ran a 5K yesterday too. Now, he's got a couple of years on me, so it really shows that experience pays off. He is in the 60-64 age group...

...and ran it in...

...

...

...21:30...yeah, min:sec....

I don't know if I'll ever be THAT fast!

Race!

There were no scoring pads to start the race, so my official time was 29:31, which is still a PR. I'm going to go with my unofficial results, though, 'cause 28:59 is sooooooo schweet!!

I've been following http://bendoeslife.tumblr.com/; he's the guy in the 120 lb journey video that I "liked" on Facebook. Anyways, that guy, Ben, sells "Do Life" t-shirts, and I espied someone wearing one!

So, being the quiet little wallflower that I am, I immediately went up to him and started talking about bendoeslife and the video. Nick shared that he had just started running three weeks ago and that this was his very first 5K.

After I finished (in record time, mind you...did I mention that? oh yeah, I guess I did. 28:59, baby!!), I waited around for Nick and acted the fool cheering for him as he finished. It was a great time!!

Race temperature was a brisk 27-29 degrees F. I was a little concerned about keeping warm as our race was starting just after the sun was rising, but I ended up being ok in my Under Armor shirt, long sleeve shirt, shorts (SHORTS!!), headband, gloves, my chili pepper racing sockies, and my running shoes. Basically the same outfit I wore for my first race adding the headgear and handgear.

Alrighty then, 2 races in the books, both of them PRs. I believe that I am going to sign up today for the mini marathon here in Indy in May. I've got another 5K scheduled for Thanksgiving and plan on signing up for the training races for the mini. I might do the Jingle Bell in Dec.

Of course, the most important thing in all of this is....I DIDN'T DIE!!!!