Training Update – Week #3

Challenges Begin and a New Tasty Quick Bread Recipe

Week three has come and gone with some success, and some new challenges posed to us. Fundraising has gone well and we are settling well into our schedule (as has our new pup, Sasha). However, I’ve had a reoccurring overuse injury that I hope won’t slow me down in the weeks to come…

I really love the opening picture of this post. It was taken during our third weekly training run of Mark. Really awesome perspective from a point and shoot!

This week started with our third weekly group training run. This time, I was able to “keep up” with one of our coaches, well…she did slow down for me…but I can say I kept up, right?

Our weekly long run was still at the 3 mile level, a loop around Memorial Park. The major change in training this week was the addition of our Wednesday “Track Nights”, marking my first official track practice in well over 10 years!

Here’s how our training schedule broke down this week…

Saturday – 3 mile Memorial Park Loop

Sunday – rest

Monday – 20 minute morning run with Sasha (Mark); 20 minute lunch run + 1 hr yoga (Stef)

Tuesday – ~ 1 hr climbing

Wednesday – Track night: 800 x 2 + 400 x 2 (800m “fast” twice times with short breaks then 400m “fast” twice with short break between)

Thursday – 20 minute morning run with Sasha (Mark); 20 minute lunch run + 1 hr yoga + evening “Ladies Night”…sports bra fitting clinic (Stef)

Friday – rest

I also started feeling the all familiar twinge in my right shin…shin splints! Ugh! I was feeling good until Tuesday, then it decided to come back with a vengeance and has been bugging me ever since. On Wednesday I talked to one of my coaches at Track Practice about it, as I’ve had issues in the past which I (thought) was corrected by going to a podiatrist to get custom made orthodics (very expensive ones I’d add…). I was told to bring it up at the Ladies Night the following night to an associate at the running specialty store.

Well, it appears that my podiatrist was wrong and doesn’t know much (well anything) about athletic footwear! She told me that all I had to do is take the insoles out of my old running shoes and place the new orthotics into the old shoes and I’d be good to go. Not so, not so…as my shoes had anti-pronation built into the shoe itself, not the insole, so I was over correcting my arch issues. So, I was fitted for new shoes (with my insoles in place) and placed them on hold to purchase over the tax-free weekend. Hopefully with a day or two break, the pain will subside and I’ll be back to normal and be done with my “overuse” injury…

We are also making progress with our fundraising (well at least I am…). I’ve initiated my “Monday Bake Sale” Day at work, where I’ll be making at least one goodie for each Monday, with all sales going towards Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. This week’s goodies were my peanut butter and honey granola bars and my newest (and tastiest) creation, Multigrain Almond Joy Banana Bread! Between the two, I made a bit over $35 for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, all matchable by my company!

My Paycor account now stands at $550, most of which is able to be matched by my company, and I’ve requested $250 from a company fund to go towards my goal and another $250 to go towards Mark’s goal! So far, so good. My personal goal is $3000 for my fundraising before company match, with company match, I should hopefully break the $5000 mark! Pretty challenging goal for my first passionate attempt to raise money, but I’m confident I can do it!

Mark doesn’t have the opportunity for company match, so his goal right now is the minimum fundraising for this event, $1900. Anything above and beyond that is more useful towards my account, as it will be matched dollar for dollar by my company (up to $5000).

Now for the good stuff…

Multigrain Almond Joy Banana Bread

Ingredients (for 2 loaves):

• 2 cups King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour
• 2 cups Oat Flour (I buy bulk at Central Market)
• 5 egg whites
• 1 whole egg
• 1 cup Light Brown Sugar
• 0.25 cups Granulated Sugar
• 5 very ripe bananas (or alternatively roast not as ripe ones in the oven)
• 1 stick of butter
• 0.5 cups Greek Yogurt (I use 0% Fage)
• 0.5 cups Dutch Process Cocoa Powder (I used Ghiradelli)
• 1 cup Shredded Coconut (I used sweetened, but will use unsweetened next time)
• 0.5 cups Slivered Almonds
• 0.5 tbsp Vanilla Extract (I used double strength, up to a full tbsp for regular strength)
• 0.5 tbsp Baking Powder
• 0.5 tbsp Cinnamon (optional, but I think it gives it pizzazz)
• scant 0.5 tbsp Baking Soda

Okay, this is a pretty time intensive recipe, but oh so worth it…so bear with me…

Preheat your oven to 350F.

In one bowl, cream butter, yogurt, and sugars together. Add egg whites and whole egg and beat until egg whites stiffen up a bit (I whipped on high speed for ~5 min). Set aside.

Mash bananas up with vanilla in a separate bowl. Add carefully to egg/butter/sugar/yogurt mixture, be sure to not overstir as to deflate the egg whites.

In yet another bowl, either sift together or whisk together flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon. Carefully add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, little by little, being certain not to overstir (but still being certain to not having large flour lumps, small ones are expected and ok).

Transfer half of the batter to a separate bowl. In one bowl, add the coconut to the batter. To the other bowl, carefully stir in the Cocoa Powder (this will create a thick batter, it is ok) and Almonds.

Take your greased loaf pans (I grease using Pam for Baking) and add one cup of batter to each pan, alternating between the light and the dark batter. You can experiment a bit here to try different swirling patterns, this was my first attempt at a swirl pattern in, well, anything, so let your imagination go wild! There should be enough batter to have ~2 cups of each batter in each loaf pan (~8 cups total, 4 per pan). I smoothed out the top of each loaf and sprinkled with Coarse Sugar and some more shredded coconut. Next time, I plan on creating an Almond Meal crumble to sprinkle on top!

I cut each loaf into 12 slices and wrapped with Saran Wrap. My suggested donation for this time intensive creation was $1.50…

Verdict???

Super yummy for either breakfast or dessert! Mark and I had a split a couple of pieces for dessert this week and it was just right to hit the sweet spot without feeling heavy on the stomach or feeling guilty later…

Go Team!

Nutrition (1 slice, yields 24 slices):

• 213 cal
• 8 g fat
• 33 g carb
• 4 g fiber
• 16 g sugar
• 4 g protein

Testimony

Week One Update

Week Two Update

Fundraising

Mark’s Fundraising

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