I am spartan

Over the summer, we decided we needed something to inspire us to stay active during the colder months and so we ended up signing up for a Spartan race in early November.  We even managed to convince my sisters to do it with us.  Thanks to a promo code, we didn’t break the bank (it’s normally $100 per entry) and it got us pumped to “train” for the months leading up to it.

Kyle and I created mini workouts at a local park (which P has hereafter dubbed “the exercise park”) and while I felt like I could have done more to truly prepare myself, I felt good about the improvement in my upper body strength going in.  We aren’t members of a gym, and our exercise times are limited to the early early am (quick sessions before Kyle goes to work when we can alternate who is working out and who is watching the kids)…so all that considered, I think we did a decent job getting ourselves ready.

The race day arrived quickly though and I had some self doubt as we entered the ranch and saw every crossfitter in the nor cal area looking eager to attack the course.

For those who don’t know, the spartan (sprint) race is supposed to be 2-3 miles of running interspersed with 20 obstacles.  Ours ended up being 4.8 miles of running, so there’s that.  Oh and it was unseasonably hot out (better than rain!) yet still muddy at parts.  We chose the spartan race because it is similar to the tough mudder but you don’t get electrocuted at the end.  There were a few other lesser known obstacle course type races, but the spartan seemed the best fit for us in terms of difficulty and location.  It was in Sacramento, so we all met at our house in Davis beforehand for a team lunch.

Nuggets sandos for all.

My parents stayed behind with the napping littles while the rest of us piled in their old van and shuttled ourselves to these hills in the middle of nowhere.

HILLS.  Davis is flat so there’s no real way to train for hills.  And it wasn’t just a few hills.  it was up and down and up and down, with sandbags, with a bucket of rocks, in a boat, with a goat (jk that’s Dr. Seuss).   For any obstacles that you can’t complete, you have to 30 burpees.  I did pretty well to be honest and Kyle and I were kinda awesome as a team.  I definitely felt pumped throughout 75% of the course.  The length was probably my only real complaint.  We didn’t start until 2:45 and the course had some bottlenecking at various times (also it was 2 miles longer than advertised), so we didn’t finished until 5 pm!!!  My poor parents had dinner plans and we didn’t get home until 7 (the parking lot after was just that – we spent 45 minutes just getting out!).  Anyway, it was fun and we all enjoyed different parts and rallied each other through it (the ones that involved helping each other and using teamwork were my favorites), but I don’t think I’ll do another one.  That said, I did have a hop in my step the following few days due to a sense of pride and accomplishment.  I will credit mom strength big time – I for sure felt that various activities were easier for me because I was used to lugging around two toddlers.

This is the delicata squash salad with kale and millet from the Oh She Glows cookbook.  I don’t know why I waited so long to buy this, especially since Angela’s second cookbook is just now coming out, but I’m loving it so far.  I also made the orange miso dressing from it last week and was glad to have doubled the recipe for use on my salads throughout the week.

P doesn’t like butternut squash (I don’t know!!!) but he liked the delicata rings.  And the rest of the salad was also a hit, minus the red onion.

Squash season is here!!

P also recently discovered seitan and has since requested it a few times.

He and V both helped with the stir fry above by putting already chopped veggies into the wok.

Served over brown rice with a almond butter sauce….mmmmm…

Above is pacman’s gateway seitan – a plate of leftovers that he asked to have a bite of.  And who am I to deny him some of my yummy eats?!  That’s a real sign of love right there.  Giving him some food off my own plate (Joey doesn’t share food!!!).  😉

I have tried several packaged seitan brands and so far I think I like Sweet Earth’s slices and strips the best.  West Soy cubed seitan is another one I have bought in a pinch, but I would rather make my own.

Our garden doesn’t know it’s November and that’s alright with me.

P doesn’t like tomatoes, but V inhales them.  The above will last a week, maybe.  And just after I took this, I went out an picked another 4 pints. Davis is made for ag, that’s for sure.

Why are the refried beans from Guadalajara so goooood.  I don’t want to know.

Kyle’s work gets team lunches catered by them so much that he has a bunch of free burritos and so I felt lazy earlier this week and hit the South Davis spot up for a dinner plate.  I have heard their breakfast nachos are legit too.  It’s so close to us, it’s a slippery slope.  When I was preggo with V, I threw caution (read:fodmaps) to the wind and would get their burritos with sour cream on Wednesdays to bring to market.  Before this visit I hadn’t been in several months though.  It just rarely makes sense to order food because P can’t eat anything from outside my kitchen so if I have to cook for him, I may as well cook for everyone.  Which I do.  And yes, I get worn out (which is a bummer because deep down I want to make everything from fancy cookbooks and Bon Appetit and pretend I’m Gwyneth) but everyone seems to like my easy-peasy-burned-out-on-cooking-meals (grain + protein + green) so oh well.

I over cooked this pasta (distracted by children, no doubt) but otherwise it was great.  I used my all time fave pasta (Ancient Harvest pagodas) and added cashew squash “cheese” sauce, spinach, and slivered almonds.

Cozy fall food, fasho.

This was the spread at my little sis’ casa.  After a long day of driving to Fremont, I was happy to put the kiddos down at my parents’ house and go over for some girl chat.  Champagne ‘aint too bad either.  Thanks for encouraging me to come Bee!

That same weekend was Poppy’s 2nd birthday!

I can’t believe she is two.

Elmo made an appearance at the party and both Pops and V were not okay with it.  V kept saying “bye bye Elmo, bye bye Elmo”.  Side note: her vocab is insane.  It’s blowing up.  Every day our jaws are dropping.  It’s especially cute because she is speaking in sentences now and can interact with P in a way that allows them to play with each other.  Just another way that she is more advanced than her cohorts (stereotypical second sibling sitch) because she is doing more group play than parallel play at such a young age.  It’s def cute to watch.

TCHO went on sale.  99 cents per bar.  So obviously I went to work.

Friendsgiving!!  I brought hummus, roasted squash, and a spinach salad.

We ran out of kid forks, which lead us to discover that V is very ready willing and able to handle her own adult silverware.  Sooooo…there’s that.  Pretty soon we are going to make the transition of putting her to bed later.  That way we can eat all together and do bath time with both kids together.  It would be soooooo much easier to not do back to back bed time routines every single night.  Let’s streamline this ish amiright?

Big girl action.

My breakfasts these days are some kind of quick bread with heaps of nut butter.

I didn’t mean to drag this post on forever and ever like it is, so I’ll wrap it up with this time I treated myself to a gluten free goody from farmer’s market.

Kyle’s sis was visiting and so we braved the rain to get out of the house and get some produce one Saturday morning.  I needed kale and sweet potatoes, and then some rainbow chard and apples lured us in (because it’s apple pie season, duh).

I didn’t take pics of the apple pie I made, but I did get some glamour shots of dis beaut.

TBH, it’s way overpriced but if you only splurge once a month (or 3) then it’s ok.  Also it’s delish.

You guys!  It’s the season for divided popcorn tins!  And orange chocolate slices 🙂

We all know my hoarding tendencies intensify with chocolate things, so let’s hope we don’t end up with 600 oranges in the pantry by mid December.  I mean, there could be worse things…like crawling under barbed wire for half a mile.