Palm Spring, an Eating Guide

We recently spent two nights in Palm Springs and found a few great places to eat.  As you know I eat vegan and try to stay away from too much processed stuff and avoid preservatives and chemicals.

The first place we went was Native Foods. It seemed like this would be hard to beat. It was entirely Vegan and left us wanting to try all kinds of new ideas out in our own kitchen.  I had the Surf Tacos (Rubio's fish taco style) made with fried Tempeh instead of fish.  They were just like a fish taco, something I haven't had in a long time. Amanda got a Mediterranean Bowl of some kind and didn't care for it at all.  It was tough to choose off the menu because there are so many different kinds of food served.
All the "Vegan Friendly" places in San Diego County are very specific in what they serve. There are Mexican, Asian, Fast Food, Deli, but there isn't anywhere to just go get a variety like you could at multiple "normal" restaurants.

Our next stop was Lulu: California Bistro. 

We had seen it packed the night before and figured we would give it a shot for breakfast the next morning.  We read the menu outside and I was sold on the Roasted Acorn Squash stuffed with quinoa, bell pepper, basil, and figs. Served on a bed of greens and an apricot vinaigrette. It was good alright, nothing over the top, but good.  Amanda had minestrone soup and a Chinese salad and thought both were well done.  The amount of staff was staggering! They had a waiter for every 4 tables and he only took your order and checked on you. Somebody else brought you water, somebody else brought bread, somebody else brought the food, and yet another person cleared the dishes. There were something like six or seven people involved in our dinning experience. Overall, it's a worthwhile stop while in Palm Springs.

Statue in the hallway at the hotel.

During the day we were lounging by the pool at our hotel, The Colony Palms Hotel,

Our actual room, I think.

The Restaurant is right at the pools edge.

and decided we would use our $25 voucher at the hotel restaurant (All Day Menu). The prices are steep but we had $25 off, right?  So we had the Fried Avocado (really good), the Roasted Garlic Hummus (well executed), and the House Made Veggie Burger (took a few tries to get right, but ended up fine). 

For dinner on second night we headed over to Thai Smile because Thai sounded good and it was only one block from our hotel. It looks great on the website and it got some good reviews online, but it was mediocre Thai food at best.  I got a curry like I always do (it would be hard to really mess up a curry) and Amanda got a cashew veggie dish of some kind.  My curry was just normal curry, but I tried Amanda's dish and it was not spicy at all and just tasted like salt.  That was all I could taste. Not good.

We got back to the hotel and I searched for "Vegan" on the iPhone map app and found Palm Greens Cafe. We woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and headed out to Palm Greens.  Boy oh boy and I glad I found this place.  It's the kind of place that every vegan wishes they lived next door to. Amanda and I split a Breakfast Burrito with "tofu eggs". I wasn't sure if they had given us real eggs by mistake! (scrambled eggs and tofu, when done right, taste almost the same) We also split the Vegan French Toast and it was french toast. I mean you would have to really do something special to french toast to make it noteworthy, but it was vegan and tasted just like any other good french toast you would order.  I'm a sucker for shakes and had to get a chocolate date shake. And I love shakes alright, it was nice (I haven't weighed myself since we got back yet).  When you go here, get the Salad Sampler. There were a lot of interesting items on one dish.  It would be great to find a place like this in San Diego somewhere.

Then it was back in the car for the drive home.

We are off to the home of the mouse this weekend for the Disneyland 1/2 Marathon...more to come 

Race Info

The Pace Machine

After some good feedback about my last "Tempo Run" and how I could improve, I managed to do a true 5 mile Tempo Run.  I kept the pace at 8:30 min/mile for 5 miles  (give or take 5 seconds/mile).
Here's the Data:  5 mile Tempo run at 8:30 pace by koritruesdale at Garmin Connect - Details

2	00:08:31	1.00	08:32
3	00:08:28	1.00	08:28
4	00:08:35	1.00	08:35
5	00:08:32	1.00	08:32
6	00:08:34	1.00	08:34

I omitted the warm up and cool down laps from the chart above.


I felt alright on the run, but I don't know why I can't keep myself from eating something right before I go out and run. It's usually something small. This time, Ella had a rice cake with peanut butter smeared on top and she didn't want it...so I just ate it and then though, "ah man." Well let's say that my stomach could have felt better.

I did feel better keeping the 8:30 pace for the whole 5 miles. Whereas when I went out hard for the first 2 miles, I then couldn't keep a pace under 9 minutes very easily.

Until next time, keep tri'ing

Green Silence...shhhhhhhh

Most of my runs have been in the 3 to 4 mile range and with the Disneyland Half coming up in a month, I want to start getting some more miles in. I made up a training schedule to push myself to get longer runs in. Today was a 5 mile day which will be my shortest run outside of some recovery runs.

Even with some of the tempo runs I have been doing over 3 or 4 miles, I have struggled to hold a 8:30 pace or lower (8:30 is the pace I want to do the half marathon in).

Today I was able to end up with an average over 5 miles of 8:26 (moving pace).

Here's the link to my run info: 5 mile Tempo run by koritruesdale at Garmin Connect - Details

My new shoes were nice on the asphalt, fast on the down hills. Not so great on the dirt trails though, the grip isn't very good on loose dirt.
They are very light and only have a 8mm heel to toe drop.  I was able to land on the mid foot to fore foot with ease.  I got these primarily to run races and especially triathlons in, as I don't want to try to put on Five Fingers in the transition area, hehe.

I finished my 5 miles pretty strong and had a 25 yard walk across a little mowed field right out front of our house. That is where I saw the first rattlesnake I have seen in the 3 years at this house.

A little blurry because it was dark out. About a 2 footer and pretty skinny. Just a baby...damn snakes :(

Swimingly

I have been focused lately on swimming and improving my form. It's amazing how technical every movement is and how much faster/more efficient a little thing can make you!
What I've forgotten about is that I have a half marathon to run the first weekend of September. I need to RUN! Luckily I'm a pretty good swimmer already and I've been biking for a long time, so the running is where I can improve the most for the triathlon (Oct. 15th) anyway.

I did a 4 mile run on Friday evening with the first 2 mile at a pace of 8:27 and 7:28 respectively. Then did a slow two cool down miles at 10:30.
The 7:28 min/mile pace is huge for me and hopefully I can build on that kind of speed. I'm trying to increase my foot speed on my runs in order to facilitate a quicker time. If any of my running friends have any drills/tips, I would love a comment :)

Until next time...stick your sole out.

Tri...ing

It's been a while since I have posted anything here, but I now have a new reason to start.  Amanda and I have joined the Average Tri Girls / Courage to Tri team and are doing the Big Rock Triathlon on October 15th.

The Tri team seems really neat and the people are all really fun. Most of the members are from Ramona a lot of those are from the Estates. So meeting up to train should be easy, and it makes it so much easier to stay active if you are held accountable. If you've ever thought of doing a Triathlon, this group is full of people of all abilities and ages. You will fit in somewhere within this group.

Today was Amanda's first ride on her "new" bike.
She did GREAT! We went out to the end of Ramona Oaks and back. Then we went up over Daza, it was 6 miles total in a half hour. There was a lot of learning how to shift, "which one is easier!"

I can't wait to do some runs and swims with Amanda and the Tri team.

I'm so excited! This is going to be fun!!!

Check out these Minimalist shoes!

Here is a really good blog review of what seems like a great shoe. Check it out:

http://www.runningandrambling.com/2011/04/merrell-barefoot-womens-pace-glove.html

Nature Exploration Bugs, Colors, and Water.

Today we went for a walk in our neighborhood.
I wore my FiveFingers, naturally.

We started out in front of our house and the kids immediately stumbled upon a RolyPoly. We left the house intending to explore plants, but the kids were very interested in the "bug" so we veered into the realm of the little crawlers. We used our Bug Identification Chart and ID'd the Roly Poly as a Sowbug on our chart. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillidium)

We put the Sowbugs (we found 2) into the bug enclosure with some dirt and damp decaying plant matter. Then we headed out to find some interesting plants.

Ella describes how Dandelion Flowers grow and where their white puffy seed balls come from.

Ella decided we should see what colors we can find in our natural native environment.

We collected what we found in our Spring Time Basket.
We found:
White: Dandelion Puffs
Red: Flower Petals
Orange: Flowers
Yellow: Dandelion Flowers
Green: well...just about everything. We did see cacti.
Blue: There were tiny little blue flowers in the grass.
Purple: Along with the blue flowers there were little purple ones.

Then we walked a quarter mile or so to a path that lead to a little stream. The kids wanted to walk in the water, so...what the heck, in we all went.
We went up the "river" (in Southern California, this is a river) for a while and found a few things along the way.

 Some of the single celled colonies that we found. (If you can identify either of these or correct me on my terminology, please do).

And lastly, here is a picture of Owen's Pupil in a magnifying glass:

Blood Lubricates the Wound

Today I ran my first half marathon as a runner. I did the Carlsbad half marathon 10 years ago or so and barely ran at all, I was so out of shape and heavy.
Today was a completely different story. Same course as ten years ago but it just flew by.

Leading up to the race I had hopes of coming in at a sub 2 hour time, but I got injured playing soccer one and a half weeks ago. Since my injury I haven't been able to train at all. So I hadn't ran for two full weeks and only got back to walking normal this last Wednesday. I was quite nervous starting the race because I had no idea how my leg was going to respond.
I started out at a 10 minute pace to test out my leg and it felt good so I bumped it up to 9:30-9:45. I kept this pace for most of the first half of the 13.1 mile course. Then around mile 8 I was feeling good and a woman marathoner started to pass me at a 8:40 pace so I matched her for the remainder of the race and came in with a time of 2:02, according to my watch. My mind was so knackered that I didn't even look at the big time clock.
Around mile 5 my Vibram FiveFingers started to wear the skin off of my right instep. I messed with it for a second but didn't want to get out of the groove. So I let the shoe wear it down so the blood could just build up a lubrication layer and I didn't feel it anymore after mile 7 or so.

I'm pleased that I could go out and run very close to my goal time while "injured" and without training.

Special thanks to Ryan & Kristina for driving and cheering me on at the finish line...awesome experience!

R & R

It's been almost five days since my shin muscle was injured playing soccer and I've done fairly well at rest and recovery. I iced it a few times a day for the first 72 hours and I've worn a compression sleeve over that leg almost the whole time. I think the compression has really helped.

I've regained my full range of motion and I can walk almost normally now. I'm just hoping there isn't any ligament damage because that may take a while to recover from.
Hopefully on Thursday I will feel like I can jog a little bit. Only time will tell though.

Until next time, keep your sole grounded.

-Peace

1/2 Marathon Hopes, Bruised

While playing soccer Wednesday night a jackass forward (forwards are all dumb as rocks) came in at me with both cleats up as I was clearing a long ball. He got me right in the top of my Tibialis anterior muscle (shin muscle). I can walk a little now but it's more like a hobble.
My first half marathon is scheduled for next weekend, so I have a full week to see if I can run at all let alone 13 miles. My goal was to do it under 2 hours. My new goal is to do it at all and finish it.

I.C.E.
Ice

Compression

Elevation

This is what I need to live by for the next week...sigh.

Half Marathon Training?...YES!

Looks like I need a new goal for the Half Marathon in TWO WEEKS! I just finished a 12.9 mile run in exactly 2 hours!
I am totally stoked. My goal was a 10 min/mile pace, so I went out today to just see what 10 miles felt like at a 10 minute pace. I ended up doing a 9:18 pace for almost 13 miles.

So my goal for the Carlsbad 1/2 marathon in two weeks is a 9 minute pace. There, I said it...LOOK OUT!

Here is a link to my Garmin Connect page with my run on it, for all you runner types that geek out looking at running data :) Have fun!

Kori's 12.9 Mile training run

Running a lot, barefoot...well almost.

Wow, it's been a long time since I last posted. Since then we've had Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I've been so busy that the time just flew away.

I found out that I am signed up to run on a team in the Ragnar in April. Ragnar is a 12 person relay foot race of about 200 miles (about 16.5 miles/person). It goes from Huntington Beach to San Diego and I am super excited about participating. Just looking at all the information on the website (http://www.ragnarrelay.com/race/southerncalifornia) has jumpstarted my running schedule and my drive to get out there in the sub-freezing temperatures of Ramona at 5am.

For the first time in my life I am starting a long term, 15 week, training program to culminate with the race on April 15th. I am already finding the joys of running and being free in the wilderness of Ramona. There are some really cool places if you just take all those trails that you never gave a second thought about which jut off the main trail. All of a sudden you are ALONE and won't see anyone else for an hour or two.

Since August I have only ran in my Vibram Five Finger KSO's. I plan on never running in "regular" shoes again and have nothing but praise for the 5fingers.
I plan on posting regularly as my training progresses and I experience new "running" type things that I've never experienced before.

In this new year get out there and try something new or push yourself in a way you've never done before.

Keeping my sole's on the ground, and running forward,
-Kori