Spaghetti Squash “Spaghetti”

So this recipe was inspired by my MFP friend Meaghan, who made a much more complicated spaghetti squash recipe, but suggested for my first time trying it to make it like traditional spaghetti and just serve it with my favorite pasta sauce.  So that’s what I did, I made spaghetti with a spaghetti squash.

First preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  Then (carefully) cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds.

The place the squash on a baking sheet, spray the cut side with non-stick spray (or if not staying low cal, brush with butter, oil etc so it doesn’t stick) and place the squash cut side on the pan.  Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes until softened and a little browned.

Now that the squash is roasting away, time to get the sauce going.  I whipped up a very simple sauce, I used Bertolli Marinara with Burgandy Wine (was on sale, turned out to be really good) and I added some browned ground turkey to it.  Of course you can keep it veggie and add something like mushrooms.  I hemmed and hawed about the mushrooms and decided not to get any, but then later wished I would have. Ah well.. live and learn.

Once the squash is good and roasted, pull it out and let it cool a little bit until you can handle it.  Using a fork, scrape the insides of the squash and the flesh will automatically break apart into ribbons or “noodles”.  (It’s hard to see, but here is in progress).

Toss your squash “noodles” in a bowl, top with your sauce and some Parmesan cheese and you are ready to eat!

(The squash is hiding under there somewhere).

Price:  Well, at first I balked a little at the squash being two dollars a pound, and my very small (but hefty) 2 pound squash would be 4$.  I thought this was a bit much, but as I went to the pasta aisle to get the sauce, I noticed most of the pasta was between $1.50 and $3.00 for a 1 pound box.  (I’m used to super sales and getting pasta for 50 cents a box, but you can’t always get that).  So, it was pretty much a push on the price.  Not more, not less.

Nutrition: This is where the squash shines, depending on what you are looking for.  If you need low calorie, low carb, no gluten (like my friend Meaghan) then this is perfect for you.  1 cup of roasted spaghetti squash has 84 calories, 20 grams of carbs and 2 grams of protein.  A similar serving of pasta has 210 calories, 42 grams of carb and 7 grams protein (some, if not all of that is gluten).

Verdict: Well.. Like most of the sites I read about spaghetti squash, it’s basically flavorless.  So it was pretty much like eating a bowl of spaghetti sauce.  Which is not necessarily a bad thing.  I think next time I make it I will surely gussy it up a bit more fancy with some mushrooms and veggies and feta cheese the way Meaghan did.  But it was worth trying.  Always cool to try something new.

Weekly Recap 4-23-12 to 4-29-12

Well, another successful week culminating in a fantastic 5K race Saturday morning and then some much needed yoga stretching this afternoon.  I also tried an interesting new thing for dinner tonight, which I will blog about tomorrow.  My mileage was a little lower this week since the race was only a 3 miler.  I’ll be bumping up my mileage the next two weeks in preparation for my 10K on May 12.  Here’s a look at the numbers.

Starting weight: 263
Monday – Spinning – 50 minutes
Tuesday – Run – 3 miles
Wednesday – Yoga – 60 minutes
Thursday – Run – 3 miles
Friday – Rest
Saturday – Race – 5K
Sunday – Yoga – 70 minutes
Ending Weight –  261.2 (1.8 pounds loss)

Kinda surprised to see another solid weight loss this week, as I’ve mentioned before my 4 pound loss weeks always seem to be followed by a gain, but that big loss was also coming off a month long plateau, so maybe that helped keep the downward trend going.  I should hit 255 (100 pounds lost) right around my birthday at the end of May.  That will be a nice birthday present to myself.

2012 Forsyth County Law Enforcement Memorial 5K

This morning I ran the Forsyth County Law Enforcement Memorial 5K.  The race benefited the Law Enforcement Memorial Foundation which is a group that helps families of slain officers and helps pay for funerals and memorials for officers killed in the line of duty.  This was my first race in over a month, so it was nice to be running again in a race.  There’s something special about pinning that number on your chest.  This race is also my blog entry for the Automattic World Wide Word Press 5K.  

One is the loneliest number……

The course for this race wound around the campus of Wake Forest University here in Winston Salem.  It was a nice course, but not a very well marked one.  Thankfully there were police at the intersections but several times I had to ask which way to go.  I talked to the overall female winner and her and some of the other top 4 actually missed a turn on the course, she ended up with an impossibly fast time of 16 minutes and change, but they still gave her the award (which I feel she deserved, it wasn’t her fault).

I took this from my car as I was leaving, but we passed this library very early in the course, probably about a half mile.   Shortly after this point we hit a wicked fast downhill, I could actually feel myself holding myself back.  I looked down at the Garmin shortly before one mile and was shocked to see my pace at 10:20.  I ended up finishing the first mile in 10:34, which is my fastest one mile time by nearly a minute.  I did throttle back a little at this point so as not to burn myself out, but the course helped as well with some uphills on the back half.  I don’t know if it’s good mentally, but I was running the math in my head, and I’m like I have 27 minutes to finish 2 miles and PR, so that’s 13:30 per mile.  So now I’m psyching myself up for a PR, and then I would be disappointed if I didn’t.  My second and third miles were slower, but not excessively slow.  11:34 and 11:40.

Finish line! I made it! And I RAN the entire distance.  No walking breaks! Another first, so not only set a time PR, but my first “running” 5K.  Double PR! What does it mean!

I must have done a great job cutting the corners since the course measured short on my Garmin, but the time at the end matched my Garmin, so I am gonna call it Official and I trust the Twin City Track Club to get the distance right.  Beat my previous best time (37:10) by 3 full minutes, so a minute a mile faster.  Unreal!

Other than the course being poorly marked, it was a great race and for a great cause.  Thank you to the Winston Salem Police Department, Wake Forest University Police and Forsyth County Sheriffs for maintaining the course and also for their service to the community!

Pre-race and New Gear

I had a pretty good race related adventure this afternoon.  First I went to Fleet Feet Sports to pick up my packet and shirt for tomorrow’s race, the Forsyth County Law Enforcement Memorial 5K.  Some of the numbers went up into the 700s so looks like it might be a good crowd tomorrow morning.  The shirt is a standard tshirt, not a tech shirt, so I won’t wear it for the race, but it’s a nice shirt.  The back of the shirt memorializes a list of officers killed in the line of duty in Forsyth County dating back to 1895.  Thankfully it is a short list, only 24 officers over the span of 117 years.

Since I was at Fleet Feet already, I wanted to look around since I had earned a 25$ reward credit and I was looking for a hat.  I found exactly what I was looking for in a Nike Dri Fit hat for 20$ and bought a couple packs of Gu (that I dont really need right now, but they are good for like 4 years) to bring it up to 24 and some change.  I’m not too worried about the 70 cents I didn’t use.

As you can see from the picture, after hitting up Fleet Feet I went to Omega Sports to get my Member Tech shirt for joining the Twin City Track Club, and this shirt was free! It’s a very nice shirt and I look forward to wearing it for some of the group events (you don’t have to, but I probably will).

So the best part of all of my new gear is it didn’t cost me anything!

Stay tuned tomorrow for my race recap, which will be fairly picture heavy since I will be carrying my camera on the course with me to blog this race for the WorldWide WordPress 5K.

Thank You!

I happened to notice last night my blog was sitting at 4,499 views all time.  I know this is probably not a lot for most blogs, certainly not blogs that are 2 and a half years old, but I’ve started posting a lot more frequently since I started training for my half marathon, so a majority of these views are likely from the last 6 months or so.  It amazes me as many people read my blog as they do, so thank you to my readers and followers.  I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing.  I waited until I got one more view and then took a screen shot.

So thanks again for reading!  Next up, a very race-blog appropriate, 5K views.

Weekly Recap 4-16-12 to 4-22-12

This was a fairly uneventful week, but not in a bad way.  Getting everything done, doing my homework, didn’t have to skip anything.  Great Saturday morning run with Jen to cap off the running for the week and then a nice yoga practice this afternoon to relax on a rainy, dreary Sunday.  Very nice weight loss this week, tempered somewhat by the fact that some of it is the same couple pounds I’ve been gaining and losing for the last month, but not all of it.. lost some extra on top of that.

Starting weight – 267.2
Monday – Spinning – 50 minutes
Tuesday – Run – 3 miles
Wednesday – Yoga – 60 minutes
Thursday – Run – 3 miles
Friday – Rest
Saturday – Run – 5 miles
Sunday – Yoga – 60 minutes
Total mileage – 11 miles
Finishing Weight – 263 (4.2 pounds lost)

So the weight loss is huge, and hopefully finally broke out of the 265-267-265-267 cycle I was on there for a couple weeks.  But this is also a significant weight because 265 marks 90 pounds lost.  WOW.  I’ve lost a small child.  Or a big child I guess.  Depending on the age of said child.

I am an Athlete.

Wait, what? When did this happen?  Somewhere along the way I became an athlete without realizing it, and without really trying.  Yesterday I saw this great quote from running legend Jeff Galloway.

“Being an athlete is a state of mind, which is not bound by age, performance or place in the running pack.”

I never did sports as a kid.  I played soccer in elementary school and tried out for the baseball team in high school.  My only regret is I wanted to play catcher so bad (foolishly thinking it was an easy position rather than the hardest) and when I got cut from the battery and offered a position in the outfield, instead of taking it I decided to quit.  The next year that team won the State Championship.  I don’t have shelves full of trophies, my parents don’t keep my old room set up with posters and pennants and medals etc.  But something happened.  As I started running, and finishing races, I began to feel like an athlete.  But then I didn’t feel like one, I became one.  I have trophies now.  Not many, but I have them.  I have a medal from a 5K that is a 2nd place finish in my age group.  I have a finishers medal from my first half marathon.  And to top it off,  I am hungry to add more.

If you participate in any sport, at any level, high school, college, rec league, beer league, adult amateur, semi-pro.. you are an athlete.  And running is a sport.  It’s about finishing, and racing, even if against only yourself and a clock. Each time you do better, you “win”.  My trophy shelf is growing, and I’m ready for more.  Bring it on!

Yoga Progress

I was thinking a little bit after last nights practice how far I’ve come in my yoga practice in a little over 4 months.  When I went to my first class (Dec 1,2011), I felt kinda silly, didn’t know what I was doing and was the only guy in the class.  But I stuck with it, went back a second week and then when we did the hamstring stretches it dawned on me, this is why my running friends swear by it.  I’ve been going back ever since, and recently started going two nights a week for extra stretching.  Here’s what I’ve noticed that has changed, some physical, some mental.

Increased Confidence: I don’t feel goofy in yoga any more.  I am happy to go, and I look forward to it, and I know even if I mess up a pose and look silly, someone else in the class is doing the same thing and the point is we are TRYING.  I lift my arms and my shirt rides up and my belly hangs out, but that doesn’t embarrass me (although it does annoy me, and the shirt problem has yet to be figured out).

Increased Flexibility: At the beginning of the class in forward fold, I can almost touch the floor with a slight bend in my knees.  Towards the end of class when we are warmed up I can touch the floor with my finger tips, with a slight bend in my knee.  When I was stretching before a run last week I could reach out and grab the toe of my shoe.  This has not happened before.  (In a quirk of standing vs sitting, I can’t even get remotely close to my toe while sitting).

Challenging Myself: About halfway through my half marathon training (I believe in January).  The Wednesday night yoga class at the Y switched from being Yoga 1 to Yoga 2.  With my training schedule fixed, Wednesday nights were the only nights I could do yoga.  I debated between dropping it or continuing on, but I stuck with it.  Now I continue in Yoga 2 and don’t have any problems with it.  It was a rough transition, but that’s ok.

My Breathing is Better:  Yes, the cardio has a lot to do with it.  You get used to it after a while.  But I don’t huff and puff like a dying whale when I run anymore.  And maybe yoga doesn’t have anything to do with my lung’s endurance (10 mile runs usually help with that) but yoga has taught me to THINK about my breathing.  And use breath to push through hard parts and so when I get to a tough part of a run and start huffing real bad I will slow down (my breathing, not my running) and take a couple big deep breathes and refocus and keep going.

My Balance is Better:  This is one of those things I don’t notice so much in real life, but notice it a lot in yoga practice.  It’s a lot easier to get into the balance poses and a lot easier to hold them.  On our hiking trip, I held Tree Pose for a very long time while Gray took multiple pictures with both his iPhone and my camera.  Granted, I was wearing boots on very soft ground, which gave me a very nice base to sink into, rather than barefoot on a hardwood floor with just a quarter inch thick mat, but I held it for a fairly long time in the last class as well.

I can do things now I couldn’t when I started:  This is just basic overall progress.  When I first started I had to drop my knees to Kneeling Plank during the sun salutations, now I can hold myself in Plank, and I can slowly lower myself to Chattaranga, rather than just plopping down.  It seems like every class I go to we try something new, so I’m constantly learning new poses, but also re-learning old ones, learning to do them the right way without the variations.  There’s nothing wrong with using a variant, but it’s nice to do a pose the way it’s intended.

And with that, I wish you Peace and Blessings, Namaste.

Weekly recap 4-9-12 to 4-15-12

This  has been a fun week, capped off by a trip to the mountains this weekend to do some hiking.  I took it easy in cycling class, so it didn’t kill me and I was able to do all my workouts this week (except for missing Sunday yoga).  Also, after talking about running stuff all weekend long, I finally got off my lazy butt and sent in my registration to join the local running club which I have been meaning to do since January.  You can check them out here (Twin City Track Club) Great group, they host a lot of events like group runs, holiday parties and also administer a lot of the local races doing timing and scoring.  Here’s how this week shaped out.

Starting weight: 270
Monday – Spinning – 50 minutes
Tuesday – Run – 3 miles
Wednesday – Yoga – 60 minutes
Thursday – Run – 3 miles
Friday – Rest
Saturday – Hiking – 3.3 miles
Sunday – Rest
Ending weight – 270.2 (0.2 gain)

Not very happy to see a gain this week, but given what I ate (and drank) over the weekend, and throwing pizza today on top of that, I shouldn’t be too surprised.  I am very likely retaining water from a lot of salty food.  Don’t think this is an honest plateau.. and like all things, this too shall pass.

Hiking in Willis Virginia

The original plan for this weekend was to do some trail running, but after some consideration of both of our virgin status as trail running we decided a nice slow hike would be much better suited (and it suited the terrain better as well). I brought my Garmin and HRM strap to track our distance, my calorie burn and also to track our path.  I wasn’t logging my food or anything this weekend, but was just curious.

The view out of the front of the cabin.  Sadly pictures can never do it justice.

We headed out the back of the cabin and immediately began climbing up.  We followed an old logging road until we got to gate into the pastures.  We had been up here before to go shooting once before.  At one point I realized there were cows in the pasture, and we were inside the fence, but they left us alone and we just went along out merry way.

Gray and I at the top of the first hill.

Our new friends the cows.. thankfully they left us alone.  And we gladly left them alone.

We headed up a little further up the hill and found an old barn which we were looking at and managed to see two wild turkeys before Gray’s dog Matty took chase and they buggered out as quick as they could.  I managed to catch a picture of one before they flew off.

Wild turkeys about to fly off.

At this point we decided to take a break and eat lunch.  We had grabbed some deli sandwiches at the grocery store and carried them up with us.  Mine was an Italian sub with salami, ham and pepperoni and provolone cheese, it was very good.

After lunch, we got back onto the logging road and followed it across the ridge to another pasture and then we came out upon a old family cemetery that Gray said he hadn’t been to in a long time.  The oldest stones dated back to the 1890’s, the most recent one was from 1961.  After that we cut across a different pasture and then came to a ridge top at the edge of some woods.

View of Buffalo Mountain from the ridge.  Absolutely stunning up there.

At this point we started heading down the hill through the woods and winding out way down to the bottom of the valley to follow the creek back to the cabin.

If a tree pose falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it does it still Om?

The story with the gratuitous yoga shot, is my friends in Alabama always post pictures of themselves doing random yoga poses either mid- or after morning training runs.  So I had to have one of myself.  Tree pose seemed quite appropriate.

After this we followed the creek back up to the cabin for some post hike refreshment.

When I got home I was very excited to plug my Garmin in and see what the stats from the hike were.  We went very slowly and we were not trying to break any land speed records, but we hiked 3.31 miles in 2 hours and 52 minutes.  According to my heart rate strap, my max heart rate was 157 BPM, and it was in the last lap (which was a steep hill climb back up to the cabin) and my average heart rate was 107.  I burned 695 calories over the course of our hike, which actually compares to a spinning class or a weekend long run.  So even though it was long and slow it had the same effect.  Garmin also gave me an option to place my path onto Google Earth and this is where things get interesting.  Garmin tracks changes in elevation, and Google Earth gives me the true elevation, so I can compare the two.  The elevation at the cabin is about 2700 feet.  Our highest elevation was up on the ridge top where we at lunch at about 2900 feet.  Our lowest elevation was down at the creek in the bottom of the valley, at 2599 feet.  So a total elevation change of about 300 feet.  200 above the cabin and about 100 below.  Get this though, from the Garmin our total ascent was 4,449 feet and our total descent was 2,430 feet.  That’s a lot of up and down to cover 300 feet, and most of it was up! Totally crazy.

Here is the path of our hike from Google Earth.  The cabin is about in the “7 oclock” position in the mid-lower left.  The very bottom is the ridge we at lunch at and the rest of the path we followed up and around counter-clockwise back to the cabin.