Race week again?

How is it that I'm racing every two weeks? Apparently I didn't think I would need any rest after the half. Or more likely I was afraid that if I didn't have anything to train for I would I would lose all of that momentum.

Regardless, I'm racing my very first ever duathlon this weekend. I'm kind of petrified. Having never done a multi-sport event before I just have no idea what to expect so I'm just winging it, Winging it is far from my comfort zone, so lets hope it works out for me. In all honesty I'm just hoping to not crash on my bike and not look like a fool trying to clip in at the start of the bike. I'm sure it will all be a great learning experience, right?

Now on to my favorite subject... FOOD. Several of my friends had been raving about the The Feed Zone cookbook. I love to cook and try new recipes and must admit I've been slacking off in that category lately with all of my training. I've also been feeling sluggish which could be a result of seasonal allergies, but I decided to make some changes. The book arrived just in time for race week. I quickly found several recipes I really wanted to try and made the goal to eat really clean all week prior to the half. I started out with the Apple Salad on Grilled Bread:

I ate this for lunch for about 3 days, it was delicious! The next step was to involve the family in the process and see if I could make it work for all of us. I chose a simple pizza.

I used pizza dough from Trader Joe's and this turned out really good. I think next time I may try adding prosciutto. It was a hit with my husband and even Sydney ate it.

What I love about it is the recipes are so easy and not a daunting list of ingredients. The other great part is that you can cook ahead of time things like rice, pasta or chicken and keep them in the fridge all week to assemble a lot of these meals. Tonight I'm making a lamb and chickpea stew in the crock-pot! I love my crock-pot but the vast majority of recipes for the crock-pot are not all that healthy. You know, the ones that require a can of cream of mushroom soup! I was pleased to see that there several recipes that can be done in the crock-pot which makes my life even easier since we have swim team practice from 4:45-5:30pm.

I highly recommend the book to anyone who is an athlete or even if you are just looking for some easy, healthy recipes.