Mama Mia!

Load up the IPod folks, it's endurance time!

Listening to the sage advice of triathletes everywhere, I decided I needed a coach for this moumental season. However, they charge anywhere from $100-$300 a month. ouch! So I did the next best thing and went in for a virtual coach from Beginner Triathlete. At this site they have plans you can download for free, which is intitially great, but once you've equipped The Tribe with free plans you feel a little like the seniors who turn the doughnut samples at the grocery store into breakfast. So, I bought into the Silve Medal package, which I have officially dubbed the "Silver--kick your butt-go buy new skinnier jeans-medal workout". They say it is intended to get you across a half iron finish line feeling great. I was ready to settle for crawling-crawling is good.

After yesterday's rest day the week ends as follows:

Fri:
3100 yd muscle endurance swim (you know the drill w/u then sets with lots of sprints and recovery)
1.5 hour on bike with the bulk at 75 rpm in big chain ring

Sat 3.5 hour bike (hopefully at least 2 will be outdoors! whoohoo!)

Sun 90 min run

The Tribe has the day off from school so we are going to the zoo this afternoon. I will be bringing both cameras.

BNB remains in mortal fear of hell, so we had a nice discussion about God while making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies yesterday. God must have been pleased because he allowed for the miracle that the cookies actually worked. In fact they were downright divine-and that has nothing to do with the 19 cups of butter and sugar the recipe called for. I am not a baker. Baking requires precision. Measurement. Sifting! Does anyone really sift their flour anymore? Anyone other than Martha's apprentice? You have to follow a recipe. Having aced food science in school I understand why my cookies flatten into black hockey pucks, I just never seem able to ammend the problem.

I am however, a chef. I cook well. Cooking is knowing flavors and textures, physical and chemical interaction and reaction. It's not measurement and precision, it's art and flair. It's flavor. You can actually taste what you are creating in process. Let's face it, cookie dough doesn't tell you much about the final state of the cookie. I cook by trial and error and generally things work out ok, at times downright wonderful.

The jury is still out on last nights meal. I embarked on a baked ziti adventure sans ziti noodles because we were out, so I substituted cheese filled tortellini. Added the spaghetti sauce and mozzerella and went to work on the salad. The cheeze had been in the freezer so it was taking time to melt. I built a fire, instructed The Tribe in setting the table and returned to the ziti. It was heating up, but still no melting. Increase heat, slice bread, call Tribe to table. Notice that heat has begun to reduce the starch of the tortellini to a gelatenous mess, yet still no melting. Decide not to tell Tribe that cheese must be so dried from freezer it is refusing to melt. Grab a handful of almonds and purposefully omit serving ziti to myself. Consider calling Papa John's, but it is getting late. Add bowl of applesauce to table to distract from cheese dilemma. Yes that makes four kingly choices for dinner. Decide to sample ziti, wouldn't want the Tribe to suffer food poisoning from freezer dried cheese. There is something familiar about this cheese. It's a little starchy. Eating, eating.

Hashbrowns! That wasn't mozzrella, that was hashbrowns! So, we had cheese torellini hash brown ziti for dinner last night.

Martha would be appalled.

Emeril would be proud.

The Tribe walked away full and that's what counts.

Turn up the IPod and have a great weekend!