Run Fast. Eat Slow.

Reading about the seafood business in EATING ANIMALS. Its really sad stuff. Check out Seafood Watch to find more sustainable choices and what we can do to help.

Quick fact: 26 pounds of other sea animals are killed and tossed back into the ocean for ever 1 pound of shrimp caught in Indonesia.  

Tuesday Chicken Parmesan

I made the following recipe in about 45 minutes. Its straightforward and really easy and produces quite a large meal, so its great for weekday night on which you find yourself enormously hungry. You can buy butterflied chicken breasts, but if you can’t find them simply buy chicken breasts and carefully split them through the middle leaving just a bit attached on one side so you can open them like a book (you can also see this video). This helps them cook faster and more evenly when you fry them.

Canola Oil

2 Chicken Breasts, butterflied

1 Egg, beaten, on an edged salad plate

1 Cup Bread Crumbs, on an edged salad plate

1/2 Small Ball Mozzerella, cut into four slices about 1/2 inch thick

2 Cups Marinara Sauce

1/2 Pound Spaghetti, or other pasta

Preheat the oven to 350F and put water on to boil for pasta.

In a stainless steel or cast iron skillet add oil about 1/4 inch deep and heat over medium flame. Once oil is hot (to test add a bit of the bread crumbs, if they sizzle the oil is hot enough), drench the first chicken breast in egg and let a bit of the excess drip off then douse in bread crumbs and place in skillet. Repeat with second chicken breast. Fry until browned and turn over. Fry second side until brown. Then place on a rimmed baking sheet, spoon 1 cup sauce over and place 2 mozzerella slices on each. Bake 10 to 15 minutes or until chicken is finished.

Cook pasta. Toss with remaining marinara sauce. Split between two plates. Place chicken on top of pasta. Serve immediately.

Testing MSR with the Nike Free 5.0 v4

So, after my love affair with Born to Run I did a lot of thinking about and a lot of googling barefoot running and minimalist shoe running, or MSR. After not too much thought a(nd despite watching a video of Christopher McDougall running barefoot in Central Park), I decided that I would not be running barefoot anywhere and concentrated my efforts on MSR running and subsequent shoe purchase.

After reading through the Runner’s World Forums, I settled on the Nike Free (pictured above). I didn’t really trust the Pegasus to be a minimal as people were saying and wasn’t familiar with any of the other shoes mentioned. I have ITB problems so my goal here is to negate that with barefoot/MSR technique, which meant I truly needed a MS and not some pretender if this was going to work. I found a pair of Frees on sale on the website and ordered them (and then stalked the tracking website and the UPS store to where they were being shipped…but who wouldn’t?)

They finally arrived on Saturday night. It was too late for a run, so I just tried them on and jogged around my apartment. I also compared their weight to my previous running shoes (Brooks Ariels with inserts…if you haven’t seen this shoe, they look like old lady/nurses shoes); the difference was astronomical. My old shoes are down right heavy; no wonder my legs hurt so much during the marathon dragging those bad boys 26.2 miles.

So Sunday morning I head out for a test run. Now, I had read about when you start MSR you have to adjust your technique, really concentrate on it (the minimal shoes will naturally correct certain parts of your form, but, as they say, old habits die hard so you do have to work at it) and gradually add more miles with the new shoes while still doing the bulk of your running in your old shoes. I had also done some research on the technique, but due to the fact that most experts on the subject are coaches, they’d prefer that you pay them and have them coach you than read about the technique on the internet. I had managed to find some information and retain some of it. So, let’s just say that I prefer instant gratification and assumed that my form couldn’t be so horrible that simply changing shoes wouldn’t correct it. I have run a marathon after all.

My Sunday morning run is my long run, and given the attitude listed above, I strongly believed I could run 10 miles in these new shoes. To my credit, it wasn’t a complete failure. The failure, I think, lay mostly in my ignorance of proper form. As I ran along, a hot spot crept into my IT band, and I’ll admit I was surprised, these shoes were supposed to be a cure! Then I remembered someone saying in some article that while running, he’d feel a “hot spot” forming where he’d had a chornic injury, so he’d asses his form and correct the error (which there always was one when the hot spot arose) and it would just disappear. As previously mentioned, my knowledge of proper form was shotty. All I could really remember was that you were supposed to kick her feet up toward you bum higher than your were accustomed and not land on your heels. I had already noted on post Born to Run and pre-Nike Free runs that I don’t land on my heel, so I just started kicking my feet higher. The surprising thing? It actually worked. I plodded down another 2 miles and decided to turn around (kicking your heels up like that is tiring) and found myself returning to my old, non-bum-kicking form and my ITB firing up, and after awhile the ITB was firing up even with the bum-kicking.

I made it home a bit dissapointed because either these shoes had failed me or I was actually going to have to work at this. I eventually found the article describing the technique and the man whose hot spots would disappear with a form check was actually Christopher McDougall. I read and re-read the description of form here. (scroll to the bottom of the page)

So my next Nike Free run will be part hill workout, part form practice. I’m hoping to get a treadmill next to a mirror at the gym sometime this week so I can check out my form and see what needs the most work.

Celery Root and Apple Mash

I adapted this from a recipe from one for pureed celery root and apples. I did this mostly because I was too lazy to get out my food processor, but I also decided that the celeriac and apples had quite a robust and unique flavor themselves and didn’t need the additional spices and heavy cream the puree recipe called for. This mash goes really well with pork chops, but would also make an excellent side dish to chicken or turkey. Or really even just spread on some crusty bread.

3 small celery roots (or 2 medium or one large) peeled and cubed

3 small apples, peeled and cubed

2 tbsp butter

Salt

Melt the butter in a two quart saucepan. Add apples and celery root. Toss until coated with butter. Cover pan with a tight fitting lid and let simmer 20 minutes or until tender. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking and burning. Once the celery root is tender (a paring knife should easily pierce it) mash with a whisk until desired level of mashedness is achieved. Taste and season with salt. Serve immediately.

Born to Run:Best.Book.Ever.

I think its already quite clear that I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but I finished it a few days ago and thought a full review was in order.

Originally, I shied away from this book because reading about an isolated running tribe in the canyons of Mexico didn’t really appeal to me. But then I had one of those days. You know the ones where you’re at work and you don’t want to be there and all you really want to do is read about running or food? Good. So we’re on the same page. So on a day such as that, I started reading this book and while it immediately hooked me, it continued to draw me further and further in.

The basis of the book is the Tarahumara tribe in Mexico whose culture revolves around running great distances. In sandals. As the author looks into this tribe and how they can run with minimal footwear into old age while we, in our fancy shoes designed by science, are constantly injuring ourselves just putting in 20 miles a week to whittle down our bellies. The author compares the two cultures directly, but also weaves in stories about natural born ultrarunners who exist in a universe somewhere between the Tarahumara and jogging Americans. He looks at why they run and who they are. He writes about coaches seeking the secrets of these seemingly tireless runners putting in 20 miles a day for fun. He talks to barefoot runners and people experimenting with less structured shoes. And finally, he digs into the anthropology of running and looking at human anatomy to decide if and why we were, in fact, built to run great distances.

Without spoiling anything, I will say that, yes, we are built to run great distances, but what the author discovers is that modern life has interfered with our ability to do so.

And in a final note, the thread tying the Tarahumara to the modern worlds ultrarunners who we all revere as complete crazy, is simply a love for running. Think how hard it is to get yourself into running shoes for a quick three miler if all you’re thinking is “300 calories”. These runners are out their for the sheer joy of it, so they don’t get burned out by training or bummed about missing PRs (granted many of them do tend to just kind of win extreme races…) because the point of it all is the run.

If you love running, read this book. If you’re looking for new motivation or trying to remember or explain why it is you run, you’ll probably find it in this book. You’ll also probably start daydreaming about getting out there for you next run and start to believe that you could do back to back twenty milers and run an ultramarathon, and then you’ll realize you’re crazy.

But then you’ll finish the book and think, “why not?”

Kale with Pignoli

Now that we’ve hit November, not only have we solidly landed in the middle of cold and flu season, but also winter green season. This works out not only because winter greens taste delicious, but also because they’re packed with vitamin C. So while you may not live in orange country, you probably live in kale country. Feel a cold coming on? Saute up a big batch of kale (recipe below). Throw some  in a soup. Unlike swiss chard, you can actually eat kale raw so toss it with some olive oil and lemon juice or your favorite salad dressing for a hearty cold weather salad.

1 bunch of kale, leaves pulled from stems, ripped into smaller pieces

Olive oil

Salt

1/2 cup pignoli (pine nuts)

Throw the kale in a medium skillet and drizzle over a generous amount of olive oil. Stir so the olive oil coats the kale fairly evenly (you can add more oil later too.) Sprinkle on some salt. Stir occasionally so that all the leaves will wilt equally. When the leaves are pretty much all wilted, add the pignoli. Stir around so they are just warm. Taste and season accordingly. Serve immediately.

Cornbread Muffins

I made these on a whim yesterday afternoon. I’ve been trying to plow through my stash of cornmeal for some time now, so a lazy Sunday afternoon seemed like as good a time as any to continue on that endeavor. These muffins took almost no time to make and came out delicious and perfect with minimal effort. They make a great snack or breakfast paired with chese, honey, butter or just plain. They’re also a good accompaniment to a protein heavy dinner like skirt steak. I used a mini-muffin tin and got 24 muffins from this recipe, a regular muffin tin should produce 12.

Cornbread Muffins

3/4 cup cornmeal

1 cup flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 egg

1 1/4 cups buttermilk

4 tbsp butter, melted

Preheat oven to 425F. Grease muffin tin. Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl. In a liquid measure, measure buttermilk and whisk in the egg. Stir into the dry ingredients until fully combined. Stir in butter. Spoon batter into muffin tin so that cups are 2/3 to 3/4 full (if superfluous batter remains, you can add to the already filled muffin cups, a bit of extra batter won’t hurt.) Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out almost clean.