Starbucks Coffee Hazel 5k

What a fun day Saturday was!  Although we missed our running gal Tanya (getting ready to leave for Paris); Enz, Beverly, Pauline and I had a great time.  Pauline (our Parisian friend) came only to support us...and take photos.  She was a bandit, someone who ran the race, but didn't register.  She also brought dark chocolate brownies (that she made) for us.  I admired them, but only had a tiny morsel to see if they did indeed melt in your mouth like Beverly claimed.  They really did!

Enz, Beverly, me and Pauline hamming it up before gun time.

The Hazel 5k had a very different energy than the Chocolate Race in Port Dalhousie.  It seemed more official and serious.  Even Beverly had some nerves going in.  Her back was a bit sore and she wasn't feeling her best.  We took some snaps and waited for the gun to sound.  The last 20 minutes of waiting were the worst because after you've visited the porta potty, there's really nothing else to do but stand around.  I just wanted the race to begin already!  I want to give a quick shout out to Cintya.  She introduced herself to me while we were waiting to begin because she recognized me from my blog.  The Hazel 5k was her virgin race and from the results, I can see that she kicked ass.  Congrats to you Cintya and thanks for coming to say hello!  I really appreciated it!

The racing gals!

It was a great day for a run.  No too warm, not too cold.  Once the gun sounded, I started out too fast.  Never a good strategy, because you tire early that way.  We ran this race using 8:1 intervals.  Unfortunately (for Pauline), we all ran different speeds, so we broke up pretty early on in the race.  I pretty much ran the whole thing without a buddy, except for Pauline who ran back to check on me a couple of times.  She must have been tired!  She was running between the three of us!

The route was really pretty, along the Mississauga waterfront.  I did not notice one professional photographer until the finish line, but apparently they were all over the course.  After viewing my photos, I'm not too impressed with the results, so I didn't purchase any.  If you are feeling so inclined, you can view them here.  Pauline got one of me crossing the finish line as well as one of me along the route.

Enroute!

And the winner is....Not me!

I had a better overall time than the previous weekend.  Maybe I'm a touch faster, but there also weren't any hills.  The medals were real nice, and afterwards we stood in line for all the food freebies.  Pauline was in luck because I can't eat any of the freebies.  So even the "bandit" made off with the free food!  Here is my official time and stats for the race.

I bettered my previous time by almost a whole 2 1/2 minutes.

Again, I'm not the fastest runner, but I'm getting better every week.  My next race is in 2 1/2 weeks.  I'm "training" now to get below 40 minutes for that 5k.  With determination and hard work, I know I can do it!  I'm still amazed that I can run any distance at all since nine weeks ago I could barely run a minute.  And prior to that, I did absolutely no exercise what so ever!  It's amazing how quickly the human body adapts.

Yesterday I ran with Enz.  She is nursing a bruised knee.  She fell during the Hazel 5k because she was cut off by another runner and lost her footing.  This happened fairly early on in the race.  I know she would argue, but I thought she kicked ass!  If I fell during a race, I'd likely have given up.  Enz got up and kept on going.  What an inspiration she is.  I know she's down on herself because she didn't have a great finish time, but the fact that she finished at all is the true victory.  Beverly also had a bitch'in race.  She has a healing tailbone to contend with and bettered her time by almost 3 minutes!  Both of these ladies inspire me to keep on going.  Thanks for the memories gals:)

Commemorative t-shirt and medal.

Phase 1 friendly garlic lemon chicken with spicy baby bok choy

Although this is a very long awaited recipe post...I did want to mention briefly that I ran the Hazel 5k yesterday and bettered my time by 2:24.  I'm waiting for the official race photos to be posted tomorrow to see if I wanna buy any before I do my race post.  I am proud of the fact that I bettered my time by more than 2 minutes...and now I'm looking to better that time on the 26th of May when I do the Run for Wells.  I have three weeks to train, so I'm sure with determination and hopefully a few more pounds shed, I'll be able to better my time yet again!

A pretty unflattering photo...I look old around the eyes!
Definitely sunglasses next time!

I made a slow cooker chicken recipe today.  The unaltered recipe with a picture is here.  My chicken pretty much looked identical in my crock pot, except I didn't return it to the crock pot after shredding it.  Unfortunately, I'm still without a camera...and have not gotten around to upgrading my ghetto phone just yet.

For this recipe I used:

I whole chicken, washed and patted dry
3 bulbs of garlic, peeled
2 small cooking onions, peeled and cut into large chunks
lots of Italian seasoning
1 1/2 lemons
Half salt
pepper

Other than the garlic, onions and lemon, I didn't measure anything.  I washed and dried the chicken, layered the peeled garlic (minus about 6 cloves) and the chunked onion (minus about 1/2 an onion) in the bottom of my slow cooker.  I rubbed the chicken generously with Italian seasoning and sprinkled it with Half salt and pepper to taste.  I placed the remaining garlic and onions in the cavity of the bird, along with a generous amount of Italian seasoning.  I put the chicken in the slow cooker on top of the garlic and onions.  Then I cut the lemons in half and squeezed them over the chicken.  I placed the lemon halves inside the slow cooker and managed to stuff one half a lemon in  the cavity of the bird.  I set it on low for 6 hours and took my son out for the remainder of the afternoon.  When we got home, my house smelled AMAZING.  I love garlic and lemon.  My two absolute favourite things!  When the cooking time was up, I took the chicken out and let rest on a plate.  I removed all the skin and bones and shredded it, but DID NOT return it to the crock pot (as done in the original recipe).  Instead I made this Spicy Baby Bok Choy recipe, exactly as described, and served the shredded chicken on top of it.  It was mighty tasty and I'm happy to have left overs for tomorrow.

So there you have it!  The meat was so flavorful because of all the garlic, onion and lemon.  Even though I didn't eat any of the crock pot ingredients, all the flavors together worked really well.  And the liquid from the bok choy kept the meat moist.  Looking forward to doing it again, I have an abundance of whole chickens in my freezer.  There was a good sale about a month ago.  Enjoy!

Official race photos

I swore I wouldn't purchase any, but I couldn't resist.  It was my first race for Pete's sake!  So here are some official pictures from the Chocolate Race.  Trust me, these are the cream of the crop.  The other dozen or so, not so flattering.  But seeing those unflattering photos, definitely makes me wanna keep running!  Talk about an instant motivator.  I may look decent in street clothes, but compression wear, not so much!

Me on the left, Beverly, Enz, Pauline and Tanya.
It was the first race for Bev, Tanya and I, the first Canadian race for Pauline.
Pauline's a Mathematics student from Paris, France working towards her PhD.
She's freakishly smart and scares the Bejeezus our of me!

This is the beginning of the race.  My running girls are behind me.
Tanya on the left (checking out my shoes, or my butt), I'm blocking Enz, and Bev (#214) to the right.
I look like a strong runner with good form here but looks are deceiving.
Bev and Tanya finished almost three minutes ahead of me!

Me and Enz coming to the finish line.
It's a shame they didn't get my arms pumping into the air as I passed the finish line shot!

So there you have it!  My first race is now recorded in the Chocolate Race picture archives.  If you want a fun race to do, I highly recommend this one.  It's probably the most fun I've had in a long time!  And all the chocolate!  There is lots of chocolate to eat during and after.  Well worth the registration fee.

I'm hoping to post some new recipes soon.  I've put them on the back burner for a couple of reasons.  I don't have a working camera, and I've been obsessed about running.  How boring for those of you who don't care about running!  I have a very yummy pickled onion and arugula salad I want to post about.  I adapted it from a recipe in the latest Running Room magazine.  Hopefully, I'll get it posted within the week.

Note to self...never let your 4 year old take pictures with your digital camera lest he drop it and damage the lens.  $190 to fix it?  Ummm, no thanks.  I'll just get one of those funky new android phones.  I haven't upgraded my phone in three years!  When it comes to technology, I'm sooooooo old school.  I thought it was cool enough to have a qwerty keyboard phone, but apparently not.  My adolescent clients tell me I have a "ghetto" phone.  I need to remedy this tout de suite!  The last thing I want to be is ghetto! I really can't pull that off, nor my qwerty phone apparently.