Dinner time @pulsin Chorizo Pancakes

Dinner time @pulsin Chorizo Pancakes


Prep time: 10 minutes       Cook time: 10 minutes       Serves: 1 (about 3-4 depending on size)

Ingredients

- 100g chorizo 
- 40g pea protein 
- 50ml of soya milk
-2 egg

- 50g spinach
-50g seed mix

Directions

-Heat up a pan on the hob on a medium heat (make sure it isn't too hot because it will burn the pancake). fry the chorizo once its been chopped into little pieces.  

-Add the egg to the bowl, whisk and then add the milk and whisk again to combine. 

-Then add the dry ingredients, spinach, mix seeds and protein. Must then mix it all together to for the batter. 

-Cook the pancakes slowly in the pan, the wetter the mixture the longer it will take. after around 3-4mins flip the pancake. After another 3-4mins the pancake should be ready.

SUPRISE, thrills, spills, strength and pain! Oh and my BDAY!

I need to start this blog by saying I had one of the most incredible weekends of my life, I past my Masters officially (finally), confirmed I will be moving into my first house (still renting), has my highest every finish in the Birmingham XC league and man alive they are fast, rode very well at a local cycling race/reliability (race not a race, those cyclist crack me up), but most of all I had the best pre-birthday present ever. My amazing girlfriend got together all of my friends and surprised me with a bday party! I was clueless! amazing night......still overwhelmed. Just all in all a very happy and successful 3 days! But not now have the fatigue to battle with, with any true hard, grit your teeth effort there is always DOMs, this is the hard part to deal with. I really don't like being fatigues, find it hard to deal with the rest of the world when I feel like this, work and socializing are tough. I just want to train and sleep and get through it and out the other side.

Now the Winter is defiantly here and the temperature is here there and everywhere. At the moment things look like they are improving and this is a good sign as race season is almost here. I'm excited to now think about racing multi-sport again. I have had some ups and downs during the winter like most I imagine and now want to come out of it and see if training has pain off, all the sweat dripped on the spin class floor, the cold hands and feet when outside on the bike and running the icy paths combines to make me stronger and faster.

Birmingham League XC - Malvern Cycle sport reliability 

Racing in the Birmingham top division this year has been some experience. The quality has been unreal, the winner of 2 of the races has been Phil Wylie who is possible the best pro duathlete in the UK at the moment finishing 7th at the duathlon world champs last year. This weekend Tom Lowe http://www.tomlowe.org http://triathlete-europe.competitor.com/2012/02/16/interview-tom-lowe who is a fantastic athlete finished 28th at the weekend just to put into perspective the quality of the field.

I was able to produce my best performance in a XC race to date, the race the last XC of the season so alot of people wanted to end on a high. The pace set off fast as usual, and continued to be for the first lap. I was somehow able to keep with a high pace and felt fine, just felt like I was able to sustain a good pace (dont get me wrong  blowing). I was able to continue this throughout the race and after 20mins find my rhythm as usual, after this I was then able to push on and keep pushing through to the finish! I was up with runners that I havent even seen before so this showed that I was going faster than previous races and finished strong with a 56th place, which was a fantastic finish to the XC season. Worcester the team I race for dont have a deep quality racing team but they are great bunch of guys and I love to race for and with them and have enjoyed the season although it has been tough and we have unfortunately been relegated to the second tear (kinda nice to think I will be able to push for a high finish next year). All in all a very successful race.

http://www.birminghamccleague.co.uk/

Finally it came to a weekend when I was able to make a reliability (cycle race, not a race, most certain a race), due to weather, commitments, illness, fatigue or whatever has got in the way so I was very keen to finally be able to ride and see if all the cycling/spin and measured effort etc had actually been working. My legs were tired due to the XC race and there was an opportunity to ride with a very fast group who were aiming to do the 52 miles in sub 2.20 (they did 2.18), But never the less I went with the 2.45 group. We actually finished the ride in 2.22, not shabby and very fast. With two major climbs that I knew very well I always felt that I was going to be able push up them and keep the pace, which is exactly what happened. Although I have been working hard indoors recently, you still have major doubt in you mind that you might not be able to transfer this to the road and or be able to sustain it for the duration of 50 miles plus. But the race went well and I held on to be in the final group throughout the race, which I was very pleased about.

https://www.strava.com/activities/252698695

Pre Bday suprise

Well this had to be one of the most amazing things if not the most amazing thing that has happened to me, I was expecting to go out for dinner and enjoy a nice quite night with my girlfriend. Dinner for two to celebrate my birthday this coming weekend 14th Feb!

But oh no......We walked into restaurant and then towards the back rooms, which was all fine and I didnt suspect anything, until.....the curtains we drawn and then pulled back and all my friends were there.....SURPRISE!!! what an amazing thing, I literally was overwhelmed and replying to people saying happy birthday with the same back to them. I was literally lost for words and still am completely. My girlfriend has helped me through some kinda hard times the past month or so, and we are not every closer. I love her to the end of the world, she gets annoyed at how tired I am, how many hours I train, but completely understands........well most of the time anyways.

So a Fantastic training and racing weekend, and I am sitting here writing this extremely fatigued, very hungry (even after just eating), sugar and coffee free.....for the moment, thinking I am never going to feel normal again hahahaha dam fatigue!!!



 Too true!!
 

THE BIG FREEZE, Indoor suffering and protein!

So the freezing temperatures are here, training and getting up in the mornings, getting out in the evenings and pushing yourself is hard enough as it is but in the freezing tmpertures it becomes even more of a challenge

Choosing the indoors has actually been paying off so much, it is providing me with a new outlook on wattage, allowing me to suffer in the warm to new limits and providing me with more and more information and focused work (lets hope it is all going to pay off). But this weekend, it payed off a huge amount. A reliability ride I was due to attend and really wanted to was cut short due to the peleton coming to ground twice, due to black ice, a close shave I think. Although this did come at a price, because the whole evening before I was umming and arring whether or not to do the ride, to suffer outside in the cold, blow my socks off in the pack and enjoy the social side cycling that we all love. The decision was swayed when my amazing girlfriend (who I love to pieces for always trying to help and support me with advice, although I dont always listen) convinced me that due to my slight cold and chest problems (and previous history , pneumonia this time last year) it would be ridiculous to go out for 4 hours in the freezing cold. I love to train early and to wait around for a ride to just be cancelled due to the temperature was also on my mind. I made the eventual decision (although I had chewed my girlfriends ear off, and pissed her off with all my umming and arring all evening) to train indoors with a training partner who was a little time constricted. The session was a killer and my HR actually hit some new indoor highs, I was to structure the session and make it very TT specific, focusing on the important time trialling muscle groups, HR and power zones. The session blow my socks off, I was warm and my chest did not suffer. Having company helped and allowed me to push myself through the session.

This was not the first time that I have chosen to cycle indoors due to poor weather. In the past it has been too old to actually cycle with any quality, too wet or dangerous and I have had to abandon session in the past in the winter and then the time is completely lost. I would never ever choose indoor training over outdoor training, but I am trying to be clever and think about the big picture. My safety, wellness and the quality. Why freeze for the same effect of an indoor session.......makes no sense right. I get a feeling that maybe I am being weak training indoors, being a wimp as overs are out and in the cold. But actually I struggle in the cold, I really find it tough, I do my best, keep warm, keep tempo up, wear the right stuff and try not to feel the cold. But I do and I have to struggle though from time to time! I don't enjoy this type of training and this is where the indoor training has been a huge benefit!






Now after training hard recovery is so important, and during the winter I have a habit of not concentrating on my nutritional protein recovery intake. I feel like I get enough food in me but the truth is for the amount I train I think I have now realized that I am not getting enough, especially protein and general calories (not that calories as such matter, its the macro nutrients of the food that matters). I have now re-assessed my intake after morning session especially and increased the protein intake, I now hope that this will make sure I can recover correctly and increase my strength and speed. I am focusing on recovery and calorie intake within reason, not becoming too focused on the amounts exactly more taking a good ball part figure of what I am eating and what I need. I am lucky enough to have a wonderful sponsor in Pulsin, who provide me with gluten free protein bars (taste amazing http://www.pulsin.co.uk/pulsin-snack-bars/vanilla-choc-chip. They also provide me with protein powder (they now do an amazing value protein tub) http://www.pulsin.co.uk/pulsin-protein-powders. @pulsinandbeond.



I try to also include good carbs/fats when I am on the move and in a rush for work etc and post training chia charge flapjacks are very important in my diet, they are fantastic for post training recovery and I never have a time when I don't have a box in the cupboard!



http://chiacharge.co.uk/buy-chia-charge-flapjacks.html

@ChiaCharge


This is a great article http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2013/07/how-much-carbohydrate-protein-and-fat-you-need/ . It explains alot about what to eat and how much to eat and just how important it is to get the right amount of protein into your diet to improve and build muscle.

But the balance of protein to body weight is important to consider and the below advice is very important.

This brings me to my next point. What are the actual risks of eating excess protein, or having your nitrogen balance too great?

First, consider that ammonia is a toxic compound to the body. Once you get close to about 1000 calories a day of protein (that’s about 250 grams), you can no longer convert ammonia to urea, and you begin to build up this toxin within your body. This is extremely stressful on your internal organs, especially your kidneys.

Next, excess protein can cause dehydration if you do not drink enough water. This is because your kidneys need more water to convert ammonia into urea.

Finally, mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a gene in your body that is directly correlated to accelerated aging. Decreased activity in this gene can be caused by moderate caloric restrictions and slightly lower amino acid intake (14). So excessive protein intake and a constantly positive nitrogen balance could actually shorten your life!

So the take-away message is this: eat as much protein as your body needs for repair and recovery (about 0.55g/lb) eat a little more if you want to put on muscle (up to 0.7g/lb), and then take in the rest of your calories from healthy fats and vegetables, with limited amounts of fruits and safe starches for fueling intense bouts of physical activity.

I not expect as im sure you all do for the weather to get worse, colder and a little more dangerous and indoor training will hopefully allow me to get the quality right and achieve a really good training build into the new season. It is a long season and from time to time till be a very hard one. But I just remember how much I love my sport and how important it is to me and I think......I cant wait for the next session indoor or out!

Festive period, training hard and recovery! 2015 - HORST (European Championships)

Ho ho ho and a Happy New Year!

Firstly I want to say I love Christmas a lot, always have and always will. I love seeing friends and talking to people and getting all excited about what is to come. I love the magic, buying presents and getting all festive. But thankfully we are through the festive period, I found the festivities this year great....until I actually realised just how bored they make me feel. I get restless and find sitting and doing nothing so boring and tiring, the lack of stimulation and the realisation that I dont really enjoy just sitting and filling my race for hours was a strange feeling. I couldnt quite understand why I wasn't enjoying the festive period and it as literally down to a lack of stimulation on quite a few occasions, it felt like days and days of just visiting and sitting.....zzzzzzzz.






I was able to train a lot over the festive period and I had a big focus on the bike, I was able to cycle alot and managed to dodge the weather a and keep mostly trouble free. But no one can stay trouble free during winter and I was caught out on Sunday the 4th! It was freezing and even my gloves froze it was literally the coldest I have ever been in my entire life!

Giving the extra time off over xmas I was able to bank around 700 miles worth of cycling, and 150 miles of running. All of this was structured and gain strength and endurance. I have also really started to train using wattage and started to follow a fantastic book written by Joe Friel called Power Meter (worth a read even if you don't train to wattage). I have been working hard to structure my cycling because at the moment I am really struggling to sustain and real flat line speed. I always have this probelm during the winter, and I feel that it is due to the lack TT races, switch in training to more endurance and strength in the hills. I am climbing very well, but as soon as I hit the flats I cant sustain or build speed.....with the plan I have in place I hope it will come.

One of my huge problems and always will be due to the fact I love to train, live to train and cant get enough of that amazing feeling of training and working hard. Everything is simple when you are working hard, just you and pain, the battle between you and the mentality to suffer and this is something I love and crave every day, and I hate it when I am fatigued or things get in the way of this! Suffering and improving is something I crave all the time! BUT my problem is represented by the graphs below.

I am someone who is most certainly taking on the lower graph sometimes, more than I would like, I do too much and some weeks end up feeling weaker without any sign of improvement. But when I get the balance right I improve a huge amount and find that I fly, but to get this balance right is such a fine are. 

Although this is equates to the way I train....

Now here’s where things get really interesting.   Below are the results of the run-to-exhaustion performance tests that each group performed at the end of 4 weeks which is that I do, 3 weeks hard and one week recovery......

As you can see, there are two sets of results one from a training group that didnt work into a fatigued state and another group worked hard and after three weeks were fatigued or over reaching as part of a training block. Both groups then took it back for a week. The results of the normal training group did not change too significantly, with only a slight boost after the taper. As expected, the performance of the overreaching group got steadily worse as the three weeks progressed – but then, after the taper, their fitness super compensated and they had by far the best results of the study. This section of the article is great.....really promotes the way we look to train, hard hard hard.....rest and improve! 

Finding the balance is hard and we all want to keep improving, the above graph suits the way I like to train, I am currently on a easy week post some very hard training! I am excited about the year and cant wait for challenges ahead.

I have now officially qualified for the long distance European Championship which is a true honor. I cannot wait for the chance to go a little longer with races, I love the romantic element involved in stepping up in distance and racing time, more effort and exhaustion, training load and time. everything about taking on more distance fills me with excitement and I cannot wait to  start the training build for the event. 10k first run - 60k bike and a final 10k run! http://www.powerman.nl/en/en




Soon enough things will start to get hard again, races have started again, cross country, crit races and local cycling reliability rides have all started for the new season. Duathlons soon begin, castle combe http://www.dbmax.co.uk/event-list/duathlon/item/the-9bar-chilly-duathlon-2.html  being one iconic race to start the new season off. I just hope that I can stay injury and illness free to build to the best of my ability to do my best at HORST! 

Chia Charge Breakfast Pancakes

Chia Charge Breakfast Pancakes


Prep time: 5 minutes       Cook time: 10 minutes       Serves: 1 (about 2-3 depending on size, I just made one big one this time)

Ingredients

- 1-1 1/2 scoops pulsin pea protein (depends how wet the mixture runs)
- 1 Chia charge bar
-2 eggs

- 40ml almond/soya milk
-tea spoon of chia seeds
+anything extra you choose for added taste, but truthfully the Chia charge bars are more than tasty enough for flavor.. 

Directions

-Heat up a pan on the hob on a medium heat (make sure it isn't too hot because it will burn the pancake). Whisk the eggs in a bowl. 
-Add the milk and whisk again. 
-Then add the dry ingredients, if the mixture seems a little wet, add a little bit more protein. But with it being a little more egg based it bakes well. 
-Cook the pancakes slowly in the pan, the wetter the mixture the longer it will take. after around 3-4 mins flip the pancake. After another 3-4mins the pancake should be ready.

Serve with what every you like, I love to throw some chia nut butter on top. You could add soya yogurt, fruit (blueberries, raspberries go well). Today I added a slice of butter. 

Race report Croome - Winter training - Wattage

A very foggy 5th Croome Capability Canter race

,

Hundreds descended upon a very foggy morning at the National Trust location ready for the 5th Croome Capability Canter; the Black Pear Joggers’ annual 6.5M off-road race around the scenic Croome Park. This year’s 300 entries sold out in a record 4 days, highlighting how popular the race has become.

There was a great crowd of runners from the usual suspects, the Black Pear Joggers (with many more marshaling), Malvern Joggers (marking Steve Roode’s 1000th kilometre of racing this year for charity) and the ever-growing friendly Pershore Plum Plodders. There was also a record turnout from Tewkesbury AC (34 runners) and Kings Heath RC (24 runners).

Finishers were rewarded with a medal, goodie bag and a commemorative sports water bottle to mark the 5th year of the race.

Winner of last year’s race Daniel Geisler (Worcester AC) returned to keep the title, beating last year’s time by 10 seconds. First BPJ home was Ian Wild, who narrowly missed out of 3rd place, while in the female category, Black Pear Joggers Victoria Watkins and Anna Borecka landed 1st and 3rd place respectively, a great result for them and the club.

Proceeds from the race will be donated to Croome Park with total amounts yet to be finalised.

Thank you to everyone who helped make the race another success, bring on next year and hopefully less fog!

Top 3 male finishers

1. 40:14 Daniel GEISLER (Worcester AC, MS)
2. 41:16 Jay DOWDING (Cheltenham and County Harriers, MS)
3. 41:32 Jon MANSFIELD (Tewkesbury AC, MV40)

Top 3 female finishers

1. 48:38 Victoria WATKINS (Black Pear Joggers, FV35)
2. 48:58 Megan JUDGE (Malvern Joggers Female, FS)
3. 50:25 Anna BORECKA (Black Pear Joggers, FV35)

Winter training is always a strange period for me, do I race xc to not race, do I training longer with more miles, do I keep speed in or take it out completely, to add weights s and c or not?

Lots of questions and also no answers because its hard to measure progress without any races through the winter, and even xc are strange races because every course is different and you cannot really measure the speed and distance due to the MUD!

I have been putting together what I want from my winter training and theory is improvement, more bike speed and more running speed. Kinda simple really.....just get fitter, faster and stronger. I make improvements in the summer without weighted s and c work so this winter I am sticking with TRX training for core and functional movement work, I am keeping speed work, not a lot but still 2/3 at the most for both running and cycling. Swimming is still on the back burning till early next year.

I have decided to do without weights/ s and c, but I am also keeping some speed sessions because I always get spat out of the winter SLOW, strong in my legs due to the miles, but very slow. I dont want this, I want to keep improving and stay strong, so this winter I am trying a new approach. I am keeping a couple of speed sessions in and making them count...max effort, high HR and push the body to the limits. Then when I do my slow sessions this are longer and slower (this is the classic polarized training method). Although I am taking the body to new limits, I am doing longer harder session, there is no limit to how far you can go whilst pushing your body until essentially you blow up. But if you dont try then you dont know what you can do.

I am trying this new approach to training through the winter because the past two winters I haven't seen the improvements that I wanted. I want to be able to cycle faster after the winter and you can only do this by improving speed and fitness. I can already see that through spin classes I am pushing a higher avg wattage output, but on the road I am struggling to sustain this for a long time. At this time of the year it is ok, I need to keep working hard and then build to my next big race...this will be the British championships March 29th.

So lets see what the winter brings....its is already getting very cold and harder to push to the limits due to the temperature, so hopefully I can get used to the cold soon and maintain the quality. Happy winters training!

Delicious Alchemy - Brownie review

On the weekend I had the chance to meet and great the Delicious Alchemy team, and well it was fantastic to meet the faces behind this company. It was clear to see just how passionate they are to providing a product that can be used by anyone and also has the added benefits of being completely 100% gluten free.

I couldn't resist and had to have a go and bake the brownies. The mixture is so simple to follow (instructions below) and almost floor-less to achieve a fantastic bake. It was simple, add the packed of brownie mix, melt the butter, add this and then add the eggs and water. Then add to a baking tray and make the wonderful brownies. I had a feeling they were going to be tasty because the mixture smelt delicious.





The mixture also allows you to add what ever you like to them, at the point when the eggs have been combined you could pop almost anything into your brownie batter.

The bake was great and turned out perfect, it was literally the easiest simplest bake I have done. The mixture if perfect and the taste......well they were delicious. I would recommend this product to anyone of any baking ability.

Picture was taken by @beckyhorler8

You’ll need

1 x 400g Delicious Achemy chocolate brownie mix
100g unsalted butter or dairy free alternative
2 large eggs

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 180C /160C fan. Line the base and sides of a 20cm (8 inch) square tin with greaseproof paper. Make sure the paper sticks out 2.5cm (about an inch) above the rim of the tin.

Step 2

Add the brownie mix to a bowl. Melt the butter (or dairy free alternative) and pour this over the brownie mix and stir until the mix is starting to form a batter. Lightly beat the eggs, add to the mix and stir together well. Spread the batter into the tin and smooth the top. Bake for 18-22 minutes.

Step 3

When they’re done, leave them to cool in the tin for 20 minutes before lifting out and transferring to a cooling rack. Use the paper to help you. Leave to cool completely before slicing.
Here’s a yummy idea. Why not add chopped pecans or walnuts for a delicious nutty crunch?