Strawberries

Once upon a time, I bought a total of 28 pounds of yam, here and here.  Not long after, the yams were all gone--I ate 27 pounds of yam, the Princess ate 1 pound, and my husband ate 0 pounds. 

This Saturday, I found a new food to buy in huge quantities--strawberries.  I actually upon the strawberries unintentionally.  After practice, I went to the local Farmer's Market, but did not see anything I really liked and was willing to pay for.  Near our house, there is a street corner where migrant workers often sell produce.  On an impulse, I stopped and bought strawberries.  Originally, I only wanted a few pints of strawberries, but somehow, I ended up with a whole flat of strawberries.  A flat is equivalent to 12 pints or TWELVE pounds of strawberries.

A flat of strawberries

I knew as soon as I bought it that a flat was way too many strawberries, but it was a good deal and my husband and the Princess both eat strawberries.  (The Princess pretty much eats anything.)

My husband's eyes got big when he saw the strawberries, but not from delight.  The first thing he said was, "What are you going to do with all those strawberries?"  Five minutes later, he asked, "Are you going to do anything with those strawberries?"  He had a look of concern when I did not immediately start devouring the strawberries as soon as I got home.  To be fair, this is not the first time I have come home with a whole flat of strawberries and there have been some strawberries that go bad because we could not eat them fast enough.

When I say that I eat a lot, I am not joking.  More than half of the flat is already gone--mostly consumed by yours truly.

Found!

The main swim set today was all freestyle and with fins:
1.  4x100yds, breathing on the right side for one lap and on the left side for the next lap
2.  3x150yds, first and third 150yds breathing on your "bad" side and second 150yds breathing on your "favorite" side
3.  2x200yds, first breathing on your "bad" side and second breathing on your "favorite" side
4.  2x150yds, first breathing on your "bad" side and second breathing on your "favorite" side
5.  4x100yds, breathing every third stroke

Usually, I am excited about swimming with fins, but today's workout might make me think twice.  The alternating side breathing is not too bad for me, although I generally breathe on my left side.  Fins are fun because you get to swim FAST, but it comes at a price--fins require more oxygen and leave you breathless.  I also tend to underestimate my speed as I come into the wall so by the time I do a flip turn, I am practically on the wall.  And Marcia was telling me, "Streamline, streamline!"  Like rowing where we have to practice and focus on holding our technique, swimming requires you to hold your core tight and your body in a streamline position, head down, as you push off the wall.  I am usually busy looking at the swimmer ahead and hold my head up in quite a non-aerodynamic fashion--it is no wonder I am not fast!

I have a confession to make.  Last night after practice, I went to Trader Joe's.  As my husband reminded me when I got home, that was four grocery trips in five days.  To be fair, I went to TJ's for race food--apples, crackers, Lavabars--for San Diego, but I did also look to see if they had any yams.  Nope, they had pitiful bags of sweet potatoes, but no yams.  Want to know the difference between sweet potatoes and yams?  Try here.  From reading the article, it actually looks like what I have been eating are sweet potatoes.  Either way, none of it was PURPLE!  None of it was this!

Call me crazy, but today I made one last ditch effort to find this elusive purple yam.  For those of you who are keeping count, yes, this is five grocery trips in six days.  (If you are counting my trips, does this mean you are also a stroke counter in the boat?  For non-rowers, stroke counters are rowers who count strokes to help pass the boredom during long rows or to help mentally cope with the pain during races.) 

I went to Ranch 99, a chain Chinese grocery store, and easily found what I was looking for.  It was almost surreal.  The purple yams were just sitting in the middle of the produce isle, waiting for me to pick them up.  Counter to what I thought before, they are actually a tan color on the outside and the skin only turns dark purple when cooked. 

One bag of two of purple yams

Uncooked: light brown on the outside, purple on the inside

I picked up those purple yams--two bags or a total of 14 pounds of them.  I am pretty sure that no normal person would buy 14 pounds of yams or sweet potatoes at one time, but at the store, I was suddenly overcome by this concern that maybe tomorrow, the price of orange yams would suddenly skyrocket and then, all the purple yam farmers would stop producing purple yams and start growing orange yams.  In that light, it made perfect sense to stock up on purple yams.  My distressed husband assured me that the price of yams would not change overnight and that you cannot even trade yams on the stock market, but you can trade corn, wheat, soy beans, oats, paddy rice, milk, and hogs on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Cooked: Brownish-purple on the outside, dark purple on the inside

I am sure that one day, maybe in a not-so-distant future, I will get tired of these yams.  For now, even if the purple yams do not taste as great as I remembered, I am not going to admit it because then, there is no possibility of luring my husband into helping me eat 14 pounds of yam.

Yams

I have mentioned before about this amazing ability that I have.  Well, this amazing ability becomes a problem during the week before a race when we taper.  Before a big race, most athletes go through a tapering phase where the volume and intensity of the workouts decrease in order to allow for sufficient rest and recovery.  If you time your tapering phase correctly, you should feel relatively "fresh" on race day.

I often find tapering challenging for two reasons.  First, with shorter and fewer workouts, I accumulate a lot of nervous energy, thinking about the upcoming race.  Second, tapering makes me want to EAT, but it is just as important not to overeat as it is to be properly fueled!  Since I cannot relieve the anxiety by working out, I want to use food to help me relax.  We are still working out and maybe still doing intervals, but we are not burning as many calories as during normal training.  This morning, we did 2x2,000m on the water, but have you ever wondered how many calories you burn?  Have you ever looked at the calories/hour reading on the erg after a 2,000m erg piece?  The last time I checked, I burned only 140 calories for my 2k erg test.  All that work for 140 calories.  That is nothing!  That is half of a normal ice cream sandwich or half a cup of cooked pasta or a slice of whole grain toast with peanut butter thinly spread across.  I could eat that in two bites.  Concept2 has a good calories burned calculator that takes weight into account, if you are ever interested.

As San Diego Crew Classic approaches, Chris has reminded us several times to take care of ourselves--making sure we rest and recover before and after hard workouts, getting enough sleep, and staying healthy.  For me, another aspect to that is eating well, healthy.  I try to cut back on my processed foods and eat more wholesome, natural foods.  Recently, I have had this insane craving for yams, but not any particular yam.  PURPLE YAMS.  Two weeks ago, my parents baked purple yams that were so delicious.  These yams are dark purple on the outside and bright purple on the inside.  The texture is smoother and less stringy than the normal orange yams, and the taste is sweeter.

This past weekend, I was determined to eat purple yams.  I actually thought about these purple yams all day Friday on my way home from Ohio.  Then, on Saturday, I made a special trip to Safeway to buy the yams.  Well, Safeway only had the normal orange yams.  With the Princess refusing to stay seated in her nice little seat in the front of the grocery cart, I made a hurried decision and grabbed a big bag of orange yams.  When my husband saw my seven pounds of yam, he was not amused.  He has seen me go through phases where I am obsessed with a certain food and buy tons of it only to lose interest a week later.  I have gone through a Lean Cuisine frozen dinner phase, a butternut squash phase, a cottage cheese phase, a vegetarian chili phase, a smoked salmon phase.  There is only one thing that my husband hates more than wasting food, and that is having to help me eat all the food that I buy in huge quantities before it goes bad.  And he is not a fan of yams (nor of Chinese food as I found out after we got married).

Normal, orange yams

I baked all seven pounds of yam and probably ate about half of that on my own before realizing that I was sick of eating these yams and that I still wanted purple yams!

Sunday, after practice, I went to Whole Foods to get these special purple yams.  Whole Foods had two types of yams--the normal type and a type called "Japanese yams."  I was again in somewhat of a hurry and quickly grabbed a big bag, i.e. another seven pounds, of the Japanese yams, which were purple on the outside.  I could almost taste these yams on the way home.  Another unamused look from my husband who did not fail to remind me that this was the third time I went to the grocery store this week.  To my utter horror when I went to bake these Japanese yams, they were NOT purple yams.  Inside, they were a soft whitish-yellow. 

My seven pounds of Japanese yams, minus the four yams that I already put into the oven

Definitely NOT purple on the inside

I am still fixed on getting those purple yams at some point in time, after I finish all the yams I have at home.  Luckily, I have two things in my favor.  First, the Japanese yams taste pretty good and I have not gotten tired of eating them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Second, although my husband has so far refused to help me eat the yams, I have found a willing helper in the Princess!  She has no problem helping herself to some yam, purple or not purple.

Married to a Vampire

I did NOT want to get up this morning, coffee or no coffee.  The idea of jumping into a cold pool was not enticing, but I managed to slug through this morning's swim workout.  The main set was 4x300yds free, descending, followed by 3x100yds back flutter kick with fins and with arms in a flagpole position.  I am a pretty fast kicker with fins, but I am so amazingly slow in the flagpole position.  If you want to see what I look like, look below.  In the third lane from the bottom of the picture, you will see a swimmer in a yellow cap with her hands barely clear of the water.  That's me.  I look like I am drowning.

Courtesy of Marcia

Last night after work, I was feeling rather ragged, worn-out, stressed-out, and exhausted.  At about 7PM, I passed out on the bed with the Princess banging her high-tech toy, which can sing, dance, and say her name, against my ribs.  Thankfully, my husband was home early and helped watch the Princess when she cried for attention as I laid there unconscious. 

You have probably heard of the phenomenon called Twilight, the dramatic, emo love story of a girl named Bella and a vegetarian vampire named Edward by Stephanie Meyer. Twilight has been quite the craze among teenage girls and actually among women in general. For men, on the other hand, it has been slow to catch on.  I confess that the books are not particularly well-written or of high quality literature, but the character of Edward who is the total embodiment of the perfect guy, rescusing the lucky girl at a moment's notice with his supernatural powers, has girls pining for their own vampire prince and has guys rolling their eyes.  Well, I have been lucky (or unlucky) to be married to my very own vampire.

The positive side of being married to a vampire is that while I am struggling to keep my eyes open at night, he is quite alert and awake.  This comes in handy when the Princess is throwing a fit at night.  Instead of having two tired, cranky parents trying to calm her down, we have one tired, cranky, angry, half-conscious parent (me) and one awake, patient, caring, loving parent (husband). 

The negative side of this vampire husband is that he is not a morning person and is super sensitive to light and sound.  Him not being a morning person should actually be a benefit because it allows me to sneak out in the morning to row or swim.  Unfortunately, he is super sensitive to light and sound, thus, having me turn on lights and get ready in the morning often wakes him up. 

If I were a vampire too, I would be able to see in the dark, but alas, I am only a mortal human with really, really, really poor eyesight.  I cannot see a thing without my glasses or contacts, and without turning on lights, I end up tripping over toys, blankets, and other random things on the floor not cleared away. Every morning I try to get dressed, pack my work clothes, pack my lunch, and make my coffee commando style, silent and in the dark.  Every so often, more frequently that I would like to admit, my commando-styled mornings end up more like CounterStrike gun battles with me flushing the toilet, opening the squeaky pantry door, running into walls, and frantically ripping through the whole house to find my keys.  This, of course, wakes the vampire husband who is not happy when his vampire beauty sleep is interrupted.

While other girls may still be longing for their own vampire Edward, mine did not turn out as glamorous or romantic as Edward in the storybook, but he is a vampire, neverthless!