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Overall it’s been a great weekend and once again I’m sad to see it go!  I have a few tasty recipes and a few meet-ups with good friends to share, as well as some reflections on my cycling training so far and my goals for the coming month.

Friday morning I threw a pork loin roast in the crock-pot and we had BBQ pulled pork sandwiches for dinner.  I also topped it with marinated veggies and used a whole wheat roll from Great Harvest.  Easy!  

I took about a 3 lb pork loin roast (mine was 3.36lbs) and placed it in a large crock-pot with 2 medium chopped onions and 1/2-1 cup water or broth (I used the last of our spiced apple cider).  Cook on low for 6:30 – 7:00 hours and then shred with 2 forks.

Add about 2 cups of your favorite BBQ sauce and mix.  I had TJ’s version on hand.

And that’s it!  It’s great because it makes a butt-load!  This would be great for a party too.  It seemed like our whole weekend was full of pulled pork leftovers 🙂  We put it in sammies and multiple omelets.  I’m sure glad Chris doesn’t mind leftovers because it saves a lot of time and money for us.

I also roasted some sweet tater fries sprinkled with olive oil, kosher salt and cinnamon on the side at 450 F for 30 min, stirring 1/2 way through.  These are soooo good!

Saturday morning Kristen and I went out to breakfast to catch up and chat at a local place called The Griddle.  I got a dish with 3 eggs, along with chicken, mushrooms, spinach and feta over home fries and pita bread.  It was huge!  I had 2 eggs, 3/4 of the hash mix and 2 pita triangles.  Kristen kindly let me borrow her camera to snap some shots.

The food wasn’t too stellar, but I enjoyed the company much more 🙂

After that I decided to peruse BCBG for some sales since my friend at work had mentioned that their pants fit really well and are long.  It’s so hard to find long pants for me!  She decided to join me and we first stopped at the regular ‘full-price’ store; they didn’t have even one of my sizes in pants, and I couldn’t really pay full price anyway.  So we decided to make our way to the Las Vegas Outlets where I found BCBG pants galore!  I was in heaven!  I found 2 pants and a suit jacket that fit really well and I’m super happy to have work pants that are loooong enough.  We also stopped at Whole Foods and picked up some goodies to try and had a nice salad bar lunch 🙂  Before I knew it the day had flown by and it was time for you guessed it . . . pulled pork leftovers!!!  yaya  I will spare you a double photo 🙂

Sunday I knew I had to go on some kind of ride.  I’m feeling a little bit stronger each ride and I want to keep it going 🙂 I had a bit of a dilemma though because I had to choose between a ‘C’ ride that would probably be a bit too easy for me or a 53 mile ‘B’ ride.  I would say that I am a ‘B’ rider and avg 15-16mph, but usually most listed ‘B’ rides are really ‘A’ rides because of the riders that join.  Then I end up killing myself and burning out after a big hill (i.e. last week).  I had contemplated going on the harder ride, but finally decided that I would go on the ‘C’ ride and just extend it by 12 miles by also riding my bike to the starting point.

Breakfast started with a new find from Bob’s Red Mill.

I liked the little bits of apple in there, along with a bunch of other whole grains including wheat, rye, oats, triticale, barley, brown rice, and oat bran.  Whole grain powerhouse!

I really liked it and also added some more pumpkin pie spice and cinnamon, topped it with Kashi Cinnamon cereal & a few shredded wheats, 2 new date varieties (see below), 1/2 naner and a scoop of cottage cheese.  I’m a big texture person, and it was more like porridge, so I think next time I will add some different things to it like barley or whole oats.

I’m still in love with dates and found two new varieties to try at the farmer’s market.  On the left is a zahidi and right is a Halawy.  Zahidi dates are not quite as sweet or soft, with a subtle nutty flavor.  Halawy aren’t overly sweet, but have a nice caramel flavor.  I’m amazed at how many date varieties there are.

On the ride I had 1 L of water, 16 oz Gatorade, 2 dates and 1 energy ball.  I’m not usually a fan of Gatorade because it’s overly sweet for me, but I know that I need to start upping the extra energy and fluids, and I had some on hand.  It makes a huge difference to fuel at least 1 hour after the start of a ride and drink adequate fluids throughout.

To be honest the ride was a bit easy for me, but the winds were absolutely terrible again!!  I’m glad that I went on this ride though because those winds would have killed me on a faster ride.  Overall it wasn’t a bad ride, although slow with the gale force winds . . .

• Distance:  40.2 miles
• Time:  2:49:00
• Avg Speed:  14.5 mph Max:  24.2 mph

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Looking at my goals and reflections so far . . .

Last month my goal was to focus on strength training and work up to feeling confident (both mentally and physically) about hitting the road.  I’ve been doing strength training 2x per week for 3 weeks straight now and I’ve noticed a huge difference in my strength and definition.  Yes, I’d still say I have chicken arms though 😉  In body pump I’ve been able to work up to squatting 50lbs!  I’m not even sure if I’ve squatted that much, or if that’s really that much, but I’d say that’s pretty good for all the reps we do?

I would say that I’m not absolutely 100% confident about biking, but I have actually gone on several rides so far all by myself, without a group.  It’s kind of stupid to say that doing something by yourself should be something to jump for joy about, but I’ve always been a group exercise person (Dance team, dance and group fitness classes, etc).  Plus with biking it kind of worries me sometimes if something happened I’d be out in the middle of nowhere.  It sure is an empowering feeling though, and I’m becoming more and more confident!

My goals for March are to continue with the strength training 2x per week because I feel like I could be stronger. I think I need to supplement body pump, which is usually lower weights and high reps, with a session of heavy weights/low reps.  I am going to gradually start increasing my mileage, even if the pace isn’t ideal.  Like running I want to get the mileage down before I start trying to increase speed too much.  I want to get more than 40 miles on the weekends at least and also bike to work 1-2 times per week which is about 16 miles each way (depending on if I have to be out in the community for work).  But we’ll see how it goes!

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After the ride, I was ready to eeeeeeeeeeat!

I whipped up a simple smoothie with the Smoothie Elite for Chris and I.

• 1.5 cup NF organic milk
• 1/2 cup vanilla Wallaby yogurt
• x-large bunch of spinach
• 2 cups frozen fruit (TJ’s mango mix – still trying to finish off this one)
• 3 kiwis
• 1 pkt Sun Warrior Vanilla brown rice protein
• 2 Tbsp hemp seed
• 1/2 tsp Maca powder

I topped mine with a handful of Kashi Crisp.  I am happy to note that even towards the bottom of the box there are big chunks of cereal left!  I hate when you get down to the last of a cereal and all that’s left is nothing but tiny pieces.

I don’t know about the brown rice protein, it has a chalky taste to me on its own?  But it worked really well in the protein cookies I made a little while ago, which I still need to post!  I’m also giving Maca powder a try.  Stay tuned for a post on Maca soon, detailing its limited research and safety information.

I also had a 1/2 piece of WW Naan with a scoop of BBQ pulled pork.  We still have a ton of this stuff leftover!!!  I think I’m going to have to put some in the freezer.

Whew!  Tonight I need to focus on some studying because we have midterms next week already!  Dinner most likely will be simple baked pasta chock full of veggies and some chicken sausage 🙂  I can’t believe it’s already March!

How was your weekend?  What are you looking forward to in the coming month?