Day in the Life of a Chef-Triathlete and Basic Quinoa Recipe

Note: This post was written last Friday–in the middle of a San Diego Rain Storm 
I’m sitting here in my recovery boots, listening to the gasp rain coming down. My San Diego friends’ social media feeds are peppered with comments such as #OMGITSRAINING!!!!!!! A Phenomenon???? as IF!!

From purely a mental standpoint, it sure feels good to sit here in these boots. I have been training consistently (despite 2 falls off the bike I’m a dumba$$ in 3 weeks which resulted in some very sore ribs; houseguests and first cold in 3 years). I haven’t used my Recovery Boots in over a year—that’s about as long as it’s been since I’ve strung together any consistent training. It is with confidence cautious optimism that I can finally say “I’m back…….” Note: next post will probably be about me crashing on my bike and all……#lightningstrikes

Today’s workouts included
Encinitas Masters with Coach Hux for those of you who have never been to a HUX workout; it’s the gold standard for San Diego, so drag your a$$ out of bed and go. Or don’t—the lanes are already crowded enough as it is.
Core40 I’ve been a fairly loyal Core40 goer for just over 3 years. The workouts are tough—as in Pilates on Steroids tough. 1-2x a week has paid off (thank you Mabel and Alona)
Easy 25 Minute Run through Solana Beach I finally strapped it on. Yep, the Garmin—yay me! A Garmin can be a dangerous tool for any type A- to type Triple A personality. I sometimes find myself “racing” the watch. Y’know—I’m supposed to run intervals at “x” pace, so I try to best them by more than several a few seconds. Conversely, I have some sort of crazy expectation as to what pace my slow runs should be (as in waaaaayyyyy too fast). Today, the Garmin was confirming that “slow” was, in fact, “stoopid slow” and “stoopid slow” has a way with messing with my psyche. I reminded myself that I’ve only been able to wrap my head around this Train Slow to Go Fast concept for a couple of years; and that I WILL get stronger and faster by running slower during some of my runs.  Old habits die hard and yada yada ya.
With confidence in hand and brain, I strode into Nytro the other day and purchased a new pair of Hoka Clifton 2s. After clomping running around in my Bondi 4s + insoles combination (a whopping 11.4 ounces), these feel amazingly light (but not as light as the Hoka website states—I weighed them in at a cool 7.7 ounces and Hoka is claiming that they are 6.6 ounces—hmmmmmm). I’ve done a couple of runs in them and am going to take them out for my version of a long run tomorrow. I’m preparing a little “fuel” for tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s recovery so I thought that I would share a basic How To recipe with you.

Here’s the deal with Quinoa: If you can cook rice, you can cook quinoa. Quinoa cooks exactly like white rice.  My go-to way to cook most grains is to start the cooking process on the stovetop and then finish with indirect heat in the oven. That way, you don’t run the risk of burning the quinoa. Just set a timer and move on to other things.
[mpprecipe-recipe:80]