CrossFit GO

Last Thursday, I took my first step into a CrossFit gym. It was, to say the least, intimidating. First of all, it looked like a giant garage in the middle of an industrial zone. "Really?" thought I. "Am I going to get murdered here?" There is nothing around except warehouses! (At least that's what it looked like at night). But then I walked in and it was quite lively and remarkably happy. A gaggle of people were waiting around for class to start, and they ranged from the super buff college jock to the flabby dude you'd see at the office.

The trainer had me do a very preliminary work out, comprised of warming up along with the rest of the people there, and then doing a separate workout while everyone else did the Workout Of the Day. So the warmup was repeating as many times as you could in the span of twelve minutes the following rotation: four hopsteps, nine situps, five pushups, 4 jumpsquats, and a minute of stretching after each round. Umm by twelve minutes I was already exhausted. And this was the warmup! Then the trainer had me do my own separate little workout while everyone else did strange things with very large weights that they kept lifting and throwing to the ground, while others did strange things on gymnastic-looking rings. I don't know. I figure in a while I will learn the lingo to better explain these things.

Anyhoo, my little workout was three rounds of the following exercises: 500 meters on the rowing machine, twenty situps (using this little back pad thing), and twenty steps on a big tall wooden step thing. Sounds simple, right? Umm, wrong. It took me 16:03 to complete this, the time went up on the white board, and I was a shaky, sweaty ball of endorphins. It's kind of annoying how the harder you work out, the happier you feel, because it makes you want to work out more, and the lazy side of me is morally opposed to wanting to work out more! Ha.

All this to say that this week I am going back for my "pre Cross Fit" classes, three days this week, in which I will learn about the moves that make up CrossFit workouts and get to know the trainers more, and in the process, get my butt into gear.

M is training for his third half marathon right now, which will happen in only EIGHT WEEKS, and I made him a promise that as long as he is training for his half, I will go to CrossFit three times a week. I am hoping this keeps both of us motivated on focused on our individual goals. After all, we only have six months to go until our wedding, and we can't be flubby and huffy!

So, today is really CrossFit Day one, since last week was so introductory. I am making a minimum three-times-a-week-for-two-months commitment, and now that it's in the blog universe, I hope it will keep me accountable.

I know that even harder than going to my CrossFit classes will be cutting back on the eating. I don't know what happened, I was doing real well, but for the last couple of weeks I've been approaching food like it's made of air, and all of a sudden I am past my "weight ceiling" -- the highest number that is acceptable. So, I need to cut back on the cookies at work, but mostly portion size. I definitely have eyes bigger than my tummy when it comes to food, so I pile on the food a bit more than necessary.

But considering I'll be paying an arm and half a leg for CrossFit, I feel like I will be motivated to cut back on the food as well -- after all, what's the point of paying so much $$ if I negate all my efforts by eating badly? Okay, so here we go blogworld, you are going to keep me accountable.

So, CrossFit operation is officially a go!

I am not kidding you, this is my trainer

Birthday cupcakes

For M's birthday a couple of weeks ago, we decided that we wanted to celebrate a deux, and I promised to make cupcakes, instead of buying a birthday cake. I looked around the internet for different recipes, and finally settled on white chocolate cupcakes with raspberry filling from Good Things Catered, one of my favorite cooking blogs. However, I did not want to use shortening in the filling (shortening still kind of creeps me out), and Sharone was kind enough to forward me a low-fat, non-shortening recipe, so I used that instead. Then, I searched around for easy and waist-line friendly frosting recipes and found a chocolate cream cheese frosting (forget where). I was so excited to get a-baking, until I realized that I had pretty much none of the necessary tools. For one, I did not own a mixer. So off I went to Sur la Table, and back I came with my tail between my legs. Obviously, they were under the impression that money is falling out of my ears, because the cheapest hand mixer they had was around $70. So off I went to Target, and came home with a handy-dandy hand mixer which I already fantasize about trading in for a stand mixer. Sadly, this will probably only come to my counter when money is falling out of my ears...

I also did not have: cupcake paper cups, cornstarch, chocolate (white or milk), sprinkles, cream cheese, filling bags/tips ... basically anything involved in making my cupcakes! The only ingredients I had were flour and sugar... enough to make a sugary paste, but not enough for super duper birthday cupcakes!

After much fun was had exploring the baking isle at Safeway, I was revved and ready to bake!

Everything but the kitchen sink

Fresh out of the oven. Smelled delicious!

Now comes the filling! A bit messy but sooo yummy!

Ooey, gooey

Finished product

Recipe, as adapted by moi:

White Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Filling

Cake Ingredients:
8 oz. Ghirardelli white chocolate chips
1 3/4 c. all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 c. oil
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 c. canned unsweetened coconut milk
3 large egg whites

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 325 degrees and prepare muffin tins with paper liners.
-Place white chocolate in metal bowl set over pan of barely simmering water.
-Stir until melted and smooth (this was really fun!).
-In medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt.
-In bowl of stand mixer, beat sugar, butter, and vanilla until blended and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
-Slowly add in oil while running and mix until combined.
-Add hot white chocolate to sugar mixture; stir to combine.
-Add flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with coconut milk in 2 additions, beating batter just to combine between additions. (I think I could have gotten better quality coconut milk, or maybe I'm just not used to its texture, but it was kind of clumpy).
-Using clean dry beaters, beat egg whites in medium bowl until soft peaks form. (umm white peaks didn't really form... this is where I need more practice)
-Gently fold egg white mixture into batter.
-Divide batter among muffin cups (about 1/4 cup each).
-Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
-Cool completely. (try really really hard not to eat the cupcakes)
-Using melon baller, ball out small portion of the top of each cupcake and discard. (or, as I did, EAT).
-Fill disposable bag with raspberry filling and pipe into scooped out portion of each cupcake until just reaching height of top of the cupcake. (this was a big mess!! definitely need practice with the filling bag!)
-Ice as desired. (I made a chocolate cream cheese icing that turned out a bit runny but I did not use as much sugar as the recipe had called for. I think that would have made it stiffer). I also sprinkled colored sugar on each cupcake for a more festive, birthday-ish feel :)

Raspberry filling:

1 1/2 cups raspberries
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup sugar
a small handful of Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips

In a small sauce pan, combined all of the ingredients and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Let cool. Take little scoops out of each cupcake with the fruit scooper thing, and using the frosting bag, inject a bit of the filling into each cupcake. Mine turned out a bit messy but no biggie. The filling turned out tangy and very raspberry-ish, which was perfect!

Gourmand ambitions

Something very exciting has been happening lately -- amidst a subtle and ongoing midlife crisis, I have discovered that I really enjoy cooking and baking; this is probably a felicitous discovery considering how much I like eating!

Since domesticity has never been among my strong suits, at first I was surprised by my own epicuriosity. I blame three people for this new interest: my mother, M, and Sharone. While my parents visited, my mother cooked almost daily, reminding me of how much I love her food. At first, I didn't understand why she wanted to spend so much time slaving away cooking, especially with some of the more time-consuming dishes she made. But then, I started realizing that cooking wasn't just meant to be a means of feeding us, but rather an expression of her creativity, ability, usefulness... in short, identity. When you cook something, you put yourself into that food, and it becomes a signal to those eating the meal that you took the time and effort and pleasure to create this food for them. You are nourishing them in a very particular way - your way, and at the same time telling them that they are important enough for you to cook for them, and that you are important enough to be trusted with this responsibility. I guess I am realizing that when not done out of sheer necessity, cooking can become an outlet for one's personality much like creative writing, painting, playing an instrument can. But unlike all these other outlets, it yields tasty, delicious food!

The second person I blame for my newly discovered passion is M. If he wasn't so supportive of all my whacky ideas, and didn't encourage me to do whatever it is that makes me happy, and didn't like to eat as much as I do, I may have been prevented from obsessively creating Amazon wish lists of all my new "must-have" cooking and baking needs! Our apartment would not suddenly feel too small because it cannot house all the hundreds of spice jars, dozens of baking molds, etc etc etc that I suddenly want to spend half my paychecks on.

Thirdly, reading Sharone's blog encourages me to take chances on things I never previously wanted to make. Her amazing ability to squeeze in time to create Margarita Cupcakes and gorgeous fluffy clouds of deliciousness while juggling wedding showers, work, grad school, and life has convinced me that there is always time for a tasty treat!

I think this cooking thing is part of a bigger picture. Lately, I've been overwhelmed by new hobbies that I want to pursue, from camping and backpacking, to spin classes and running, to cooking and becoming the next finance guru (okay, that's a bit far-fetched. But I do have this fantasy of creating a super-duper portfolio that is chock full of diverse investments, and participating in conversations in which I confidently command the usage of words like "maturity," "municipal bonds," and "hedge fund.")

Wherefore these interests? Wherefore now? I blame the clock. The clock that in a voice akin to Chinese water torture tells me each day, "You are getting older." And, without magical ear plugs to shut out this evil clock, I somehow along the way decided that "older" will not mean "boring," will not mean "settled," will not mean "slow" or "fat" or "dowdy." I have decided that if fate must be left to her devices and pull me into adulthood and all the things that come with it, I will do it on my own terms.

So, for now, I spin, I run, I ache. I eat, I cook, I bake. (I couldn't help myself!)

Things to come

1. Photo proof* of my culinary adventures, including my soon-to-become famous white chocolate, raspberry-filled, and chocolate cream cheese-frosted cupcakes.

2. Impressions of 4th of July camping trip.

3. Additions to my foot woes/whoahs series, including adventures in barefoot running and my high hopes for five-toed running shoes.

4. Discussions on upcoming events, including Kenny Chesney concert, Wharf-to-Wharf run, and possibly Harry Potter film.

5. Most likely a review of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

* Cupcake shown in banner was not made by yours truly.

Muddy High

I have a little secret. The Mud Run on Saturday was... great fun!

The three muddy buddies after coming out of the final mud pit, but before crossing the finish line

The day started early; actually, it started on Friday, with a flight into Burbank. We tried to go to bed at a reasonable hour, because come Saturday morning, we were up at 4 (or was it 4:30)? M's sister and her daughter came over, and together with M's mom, we piled into the minivan all sleepy-like. Los Angeles freeways are probably best experienced at 5 a.m. on Saturdays, but who really wants to do that? Anyways, the drive toward San Diego was great, smooth riding all the way. I had a couple cereal bars - Nature Valley yogurt bars beat out the Odwalla bar in the taste test - and slathered my feet in anti-blister gel. We were making fantastic time, and were two exists from Camp Pendelton with plenty of time to spare, when we decided to take a pee break at the rest stop off the freeway rather than wait until we got to the race, figuring the port-a-potties would be both crowded and gross. Well, the quick pit stop turned into a 45-minute detour, and by the time we got back on the freeway to go one more exit, the line to get off was about a mile long. We crawled on the freeway, crawled through the base entrance, crawled through the base, and crawled into a parking spot. Finally, we had arrived! We were late as all hell now, but we had arrived! We parked too close to bus it, so we walked to the entrance, which was good, as it gave us a bit of a warm-up. We got our t-shirts (yay!), checked in our bags, peed one more time in a totally disgusting port-a-potty, and finally made it to the staging area. Wow! Talk about a crowd! I knew that there were 4000 people running this race, but all of a sudden I realized, There are 4000 people running this race! We literally got in line a minute before the starting time at 9:00, just in time to sing the "Star Spangled Banner," and then we were off!!!

My number

We ran for what seemed like a quarter mile, maybe, and got hosed down by (hot) marines (this "hot marines" theme will be a recurring one, so pay attention). Now, previous to the race, I had not been excited at the thought of being soaking wet and cold and running in slushy shoes. But, wouldn't you know? It is great fun! The water wasn't as icy cold as I had expected, and with the San Diego mugginess, and the hotness of 4000 people around, it felt actually refreshing. Did we scream bloody murder? Of course! We were being hosed down by (hot) marines, for goodness' sake!

The order of the obstacles is rather fuzzy to me now, but I remember there was sad (not so fun, but not so bad), a little river crossing, another hosing down by (hot) marines, and hills. There were definitely hills on this run. "Suicide Hill" is a two-mile long incline, and I had been really nervous about it, but I've had a good coach the last few months, who encouraged me to run the hills behind Stanford with urgency, and it paid off. I was tired, and it was hard, but nothing unmanageable.

Now, the mud. Oh, the mud... it is exactly what I imagined. Sticky, thick, stenchy, wet... Kind of like cow manure in smell, and swampy mulch in texture. But the mud pits are not long enough to become truly nauseating, and the only really difficult thing about them is trying not to twist your ankles when going in and out of the pits, as you can't see where you're placing your feet, and the mud is all bumpy and slippery.

The obstacle I had been most concerned about was the reservoir crossing, but it actually turned out to be my favorite! Basically, you have to cross a football field-length water reservoir, with water about nose-height for me (blessed are the tall!). I thought it would be awful, and as I'm not a strong swimmer, I'd had visions of me drowning and having all the (hot) marines laughing at my pansiness. But I held one hand on M's shoulder, and by kinda of moon-walking and holding on, I managed to get all the way across. The only hard part was getting out. We all wanted to stay in that cool, clean, calming water. But, no, we got out and immediately started running.

Now, a word about running wet. It's not so bad, definitely not as bad as I had anticipated. Yes, your shoes squeak, but that's really all. I had on really tight clothing, so I didn't feel any wet-clothes discomfort. The only really hard part is the pebbles in the shoes, especially as they dry. While all the sand and pebbles that get in are still wet, it just feels a little rough. But once they are dry, it's like... well it's like what you'd imagine running with a shoe full of rubble would feel like. However, I discovered that it is much easier to run with many rocks in your shoe, than with just one little one. If I'm running and there's one pebble in there, I have to stop and get it out. But magically, multiply that pebble by a hundred, make my shoes wet and give me some mud in my eyes, and I can run no problem.

On our race, there were no tires or hay bales obstacles, which I have heard occasionally show up. Maybe because it was the first Mud Run of the season, or maybe there were too many people, but they weren't there. There was a pipe-like tunnel thing, which I did not crawl through but rather walked through, all scrunched in. This is where I was very thankful for the squats I have been doing!!

The very worst part of the race for me were the walls - they are very tall, slippery, and once you jump over them, you land in bumpy, slippery, mud. This is where M's sister got hurt - the first wall. She messed up her ankle, and I felt so bad for her because it was relatively early on in the race. But she was a super-trooper, and completed the rest of the race beautifully. Still, those damn walls -- if I do this next year, I'm definitely beefing up my arms and growing about 7 inches, because these f*****s are tall! The second one I jumped was a "double" wall, meaning twice as thick, so I couldn't even hook my hands around it. M's sis propped me up, and M helped me come down on the other side. Without them, I know I would have had to get a (hot) marine to help me, or just flounder around in the mud until someone took mercy on me and let me walk around the damn things. They are awful!

Lastly, there is the final mud pit, which is super wet and stinky. There are plastic flags strewn across every few feet, and you can't get higher than those flags -- basically you have to cross on the mud pit on your hands and knees. The worst part of it by far is just that your knees get all scratched up and the mud makes it kinda of sting, but even that is not so bad.

When we got out of the mud pit, we saw M's mom on the sidelines, and stopped to take a couple of pictures, which makes for good photos, but for slower time! We then sprinted to the official finish line, with a finishing time of 1 hour, 52 minutes, and 58 seconds. MUCH slower than M's time last year of 1 hour, 30 minutes. However, this is where I put in my time disclaimer -- since we got to the starting line so late, there weer literally thousands of people ahead of us, which led to extreme bottlenecking at several parts along the course. I think we could have easily shaved 10 minutes off of our time just by taking out all the time we spent waiting around to get through narrow parts of the trails. Overall, though, I can't be upset about the time - we weren't really doing it with a time goal in mind, though if I do it again next year, my goal is to beat 1 hour 30.

(If you look carefully in the picture, you see us three running towards the finish line)

I couldn't believe when we were finished that it had all gone by. I mean, it was seriously fun! It is true that you feel a great sense of pride in yourself - you just did this hard thing, and survived, and enjoyed it! A few months ago I couldn't run half a block, and now I ran six miles and jumped walls and crossed reservoirs, and got high-fives from (hot) marines along the way!!

I forgot to mention that occasionally, marines would be on the side of the trails with water guns spraying us down, or handing out water and Gatorade, and cheering us on. That was great fun, and it was nice to feel like they were proud of us, and in turn we are all proud of them for what they do. It was all very squishy-lovey-dovey, in a muddy-runny-mess kind of way.


After the race, we met up with M's mom and niece, and took photos, and bought souvenir shirts, and got a celebratory beer. I had wanted to shower, but there were only about 3500 people in line waiting to shower, so I decided to just change while M held a towel around me. Mmm, nothing like putting fresh clothes on over caked mud! Actually - it was kind of fun. M and I kind of wandered around and took it all in, and again felt all squishy-lovey-dovey.

Then, we headed back to L.A. and while we made a fruitless detour trying to go to In-N-Out, we still got to L.A. in an hour and a half! Awesome time! We dropped off M's mom, sis, and niece, and M and I went and got a celebratory Bacon Western burger and fries (and a taco) from the best burger place in all of Los Angeles, Pete's. We did split the burger, as we were having bbq later that night, but man! That was the best burger I've ever had! I was S-T-A-R-V-I-N-G at that point - about 2:30 p.m., and we wolfed that bad boy down!

Thus, our Mud Run adventure drew to a close. It was a successful adventure in every sense: I got in better shape, learned to semi-like running, bonded with M's sister who inspired me all this time to keep training, and achieved something that even a year ago when I spectated at the Mud Run I thought I would never be able to do.

I guess the marines have reminded me of a lesson we all should remember, which is that if we do set our minds to something and work hard toward that goal, there are very few things in life that we can't achieve. All the little things that I tried to use as excuses turned out to be just that, excuses. "I don't have enough time," but I made time. "My feet hurt," but I got new shoes and insoles, and my feet were just fine. "I can't breathe!" (This was a big one at the beginning), but I learned that if I kept training, my heart and lungs started getting stronger, and soon I could run and talk at the same time.

Now, the goal on the horizon running-wise is the Wharf to Wharf in Santa Cruz/Capitola at the end of July. Thank goodness I signed up for it, otherwise I might be very tempted to stop running for a while. As for next year's Mud Run, I'm almost positive that I will do it again, even if to prove to myself that I can beat M's time from last year ;-)

I am not nice enough to work at Trader Joe's

It might be because I am getting older; or because I am getting bored of eating the same thing all the time; maybe it's because dining out is just too damn expensive, and again, becomes boring after a while. Whatever the case, I've recently decided that I want to be an amateur foodie, that fustian (GRE word!) label adopted by high-falutin' yuppies who occasionally cook and tell everyone they do so.

For this purpose, Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are definitely my friends - a couple of weeks ago, I managed to make a surprisingly successful Indian-inspired lamb dish, complete with naan and curry rice (don't get too excited, it was just rice-maker rice with curry powder in it; but it was good!). Whole Foods has really good, cheap, Indian sauces, and you just cook up the lamb with the sauce for a super easy but delicious dish. I'd bought some fresh pesto from Whole Foods, and spread that on olive oil-sprinkled naan, topped with a bit of grated cheese, and stuck in the oven for ten minutes - easy, quick, and so so good!

Then, there was the ham tacos adventure, again surprisingly successful! Basically, just sautee the ham a bit with some fresh salsa, chopped onions, and spices, and fill tacos with said ham, top with fresh guacamole (I cheated and bought Whole Foods guac, instead of making my own, and it was delicious), and you have a quick, easy, and nutritious meal.

It helps that I have a good partner in eating. A few weeks ago, M made the best chicken-tortilla soup I've ever had! It sounds like it took a while to make, but the results were definitely delicious.

Last week, I took on the baking challenge. I don't think I've ever actually baked anything from scratch before, so when we decided to make cookies for Valentine's Day, I was a bit skeptical. But, our chocolate chip, dark chocolate M&Ms, and sprinkles cookies came out mmmm mmmm good! Perfect for the rainy long weekend.

Today, I'm attempting to make a polenta pizza dish I found in the New York Times. Seriously, it doesn't get yuppier than getting recipes from the NYT, but I have a feeling it will be delicious. I made the polenta this morning, and it's chilling in the fridge while I avoid doing homework at the library (more on that later). When I get home, I'll cook up some spinach with pancetta, cover the polenta with feta cheese (substituted for Gorgonzola, which the recipe called for), tomato sauce, and some fresh basil, and bake it all up.

Okay, now to the point of this whole post - with my renewed interest in cooking has come a renewed relationship with Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. I was at TJ's last night, buying up the spinach, pancetta, feta, etc. for tonight's dinner, and realized how friendly the Trader Joe's staff is. And not fake friendly, but genuinely nice, enthusiastic, and really chatty. I remember thinking this when I first moved to Palo Alto and started going to the local TJs a lot during the summer. But it's been a few months, and I was completely zoned out last night, so when the cashier started up a conversation while bagging my groceries, I was slightly surprised. "Why is this person talking to me?" I asked myself. That's when I realized, I am really not nice enough to work at Trader Joe's. I don't care what people have planned for their weekend. I couldn't care less about what people are planning to make with the things they buy from the grocery store. I truly don't want to make small talk with people I will probably never see again. I want to stay in my bubble, and have that bubble bump up against other people's bubbles without those bubbles actually merging into a conversation arena. For the majority of the time, I want to be left alone until I choose to make small talk with a very select number of people (apparently, aside from being anti-social, I'm also rather arrogant. Note to self - Food for thought?)

Here is evidence to back up my discovery about my lack of niceness. I got to the Mountain View Public Library, set up my computer, was syncing my iPhone with I-Tunes, and realized that there were - gasp - children running rampant among the shelves. (This seems to be a recurring problem). I could not see them - there were two! - but I could hear them. I could hear them giggle and whimper and make strange, alien, sounds that only small children can make. Did I think, how cute? No, I thought "Shut up, you little rug-rats!" Now, if I were as nice as the young man in Trader Joe's last night, I would have probably thought nicer thoughts, and even if I was annoyed to the point of doing something about it, I'd have done it in a nice, pleasant manner. Not I. Two more minutes and I would have walked over, looked at the mother with squinted eyes, and said something like, "Ma'am, this is a library. Please keep your snotty children quiet! I can't concentrate with all this noise!!" (Okay I wouldn't have said "snotty" but I like to dream).

The snot-nosed ones have since gone downstairs, I think. Little matter, because now I have my headphones on and Joni Mitchell is singing to me, so I couldn't hear them anyway. But the point is - I am not a nice person. I daydream about yelling at strangers' children, and wish cashiers would just leave me alone. I could never cut it in the country song mythical small town where everyone knows each other. That's a nightmare scenario for me, living somewhere where one can't ever be anonymous.

Now that I have that out of the way, I should really get down to studying. I had signed up for this writing class through Stanford's Continuing Studies program, and I haven't done my homework in five weeks! This is why, on a Saturday, I am holed up in the library. So, back to work!