Egg Muffins

I am beyond thrilled that our chickens started laying again this week. I could tell earlier this week that something was going on as they have been getting up earlier and they've started pacing in their run waiting for me to bring them goodies!

I only have 4 eggs so far from the past two days of them laying so I decided to make half a recipe of egg muffins for the remainder of the week.

4 eggs
2 green onions
half a bell pepper
Handful of Italian Parsley
2 tablespoons of shredded cheese

I happen to have a 6 cup muffin pan, but if you don't you can use a full size one and just put a small amount of water in each empty slot.

Spray your pan with non-stick spray and pre-heat your oven to 350.

I started out by sauteing green onions and some bell pepper. I prefer red, orange or yellow bells to the green ones.

I mixed up my 4 eggs and added the veggies. My garden is also over flowing with beautiful Italian Parsley so I rough chopped a handful of that and added to the eggs. Lastly I added a small amount of shredded jack cheese.

Pour the mixture into the cups and bake for 15 minutes.

Let the muffins cool for a couple of minutes in the pan before removing. If you are prepping these in advance, remove them from the pan and them cool on a wire rack prior to storing them in the fridge.

These can be reheated in the microwave for a quick breakfast.

Enjoy!

TriSports Ambassador

I am thrilled to be back for my sixth year as a TriSports Ambassador. Six years ago TriSports selected me to be an Ambassador when I was "just" a runner. I was so thrilled by their support that I slowly made my way into multi-sport. Over the years they have invited me back and have been of amazing support to me while I was racing, injured and even during my life changing out of state move!

Over the years, what keeps me coming back is their customer service. I remember being pleasantly surprised when I received my first order and the invoice had a hand written note that said "Thank you for your order Meredith!" The one time that I had to return a product, they made the process seamless for me. These days I not only shop for myself but now for my girls as well. My girls are year round swimmers and seasonal tri-athletes. Lately, those cherished boxes that arrive saying "TriSports" are filled with swim gear for the kiddos!

Essentially, anything you need for swimming, biking or running can be found at TriSports. I even order nutrition products from them. My girls and I both love Honey Stinger products and TriSports carries their kids line of products as well.

With all that being said I'm happy to extend to you a 15% discount for shopping at TriSports through my Ambassador link. Just click here and enter "SHARE15" to receive your discount.

Happy Shopping!

Southern Oregon Runners Turkey Trot

Turkey Trotting has been a long standing tradition for our family. Sometimes the kids participate and some years it would be just the hubby and I. Since Southern Oregon Runners puts on a 2 mile run, we knew the kids would appreciate the shorter distance and we could make it a family fun run.

Things we appreciate about the races that Southern Oregon Runners put on: getting to show up 30 minutes prior to race start, the friendly peeps and the level of fun. This run was a record turn out with about 600 runners for the 2 mile and 250+ for the 8 mile run. This was far better than the 10,000 participant run we were used to in the Bay Area.

My husband was running with my oldest daughter who was in search of a 2 mile, sub 20 minute PR. My goal was to run with our youngest and get her to a 2 mile PR as well. One of her swim team buddies also showed up to run, so I had the task of trying to keep up with two 8 year olds who were out of the gate faster than I would have liked! Almost right away a young boy zig zagged right in front of me causing me trip on the back of his foot. I saved myself from a face plant but landed on my bad knee in a way that wasn't so great. Shortly after that as I was trying to keep up with the 8 year olds I saw my daughter and husband on the side of the course and my daughter was sobbing. A young boy (hmmm...) had tripped her from the rear, causing her shoe to come off and her to fall. Her hand was bleeding and she was trying to get her shoe back on. I stopped to make sure she was okay and told her she was strong and was going to be okay. I then left her with my husband and tried to catch up to those 8 year olds again. I hadn't planned on so much sprinting!

Shortly after Sydney passed me and looked pretty strong, I was hopeful that she could earn that PR she was looking for despite the mishap. The 8 year olds found a sort of aid station where there was no water in cups so the volunteer just gave them full bottles of water. Ugh, of course who do you think ended up carrying those bottles of water?? The Moms of course. I did make Kylie carry hers for a good 5 minutes as a lesson that you don't carry a water bottle during a race!

The rest of the race was uneventful, Kylie started to lose her motivation (too fast at the start) but I was watching the time on my watch and I knew she was going to have a big PR if she could just maintain her pace. Once we got close to the finish line I told her no more walk breaks, she had this in the bag. As soon as we rounded the last corner that girl kicked it into high gear and sprinted all the way in (leaving me in the dust).

As much as she said she couldn't do it, Kylie earned a 3 minute PR! When we got back and Sydney checked her results she had also earned a 3 minute PR coming in at 17:33 - way better than her goal! I can only imagine what time she would have run if she hadn't fell and had to stop to put her shoe back on!

It was a great day running with friends and this great community! We happily went home to start cooking and consuming way more calories than we burned!

A big thank you to SunRype for having me on their Ambassador Team this year! The bars were a huge hit with the crowd!

Where and how to get back on the wagon

I am fast approaching my one year anniversary of living in Oregon. I feel like I have only scratched the surface of all Southern Oregon has to offer.

The past 10 months have been filled with making the adjustment for the kids as seamless as possible. They have made some wonderful new friends and have adjusted to their new community beautifully. They are doing amazing on their new swim team and have participated in basketball, parkour and running events. This month they completed their first triathlon here in Oregon. It gives me great pleasure to watch them set goals and meet them.

Now that everyone feels mostly settled it's time to start focusing on my goals. It's been a rough 18 months for me trying to diagnose an injury. Selling a home, buying a home and moving is not recommended while you trying to figure out why you are dizzy and experience headaches every day. Eventually I discovered that I was suffering from compression issues. They had gotten so bad that it caused dizziness in my normal day activities, when it had started with just swimming. I've been in physical therapy for months now trying all sorts of different things to hopefully improve the issues. While I feel better in my day to day activities, I'm really not going to know the full extent of my progress until I return to swimming, biking and running.

I've had injuries before and getting back on the wagon is always a struggle. But I've never quite had this level of starting over. I'm essentially starting from scratch, the place I started from 10 years ago. I'm not going to lie, it's brutally hard. My physical therapist asked me if I was afraid to get back in the pool, because he is wondering why I haven't. Yes, I'm scared to get back in the pool, I'm also scared to ride my bike again and scared to run again. I'm afraid I'm going to suck! I think I've reached that point where knowing I suck is scarier than actually getting out there and sucking while at least trying. It's time to put myself first and stop worrying about everyone else.

So far, I've gone for one sucky run and one sucky bike ride. But I did it. Soon I will go for one sucky swim and get it over with. The goal is to keep moving my way through the suckiness until it no longer sucks. I know it won't suck forever.

Forward is a pace.

My first Oregon Race Report

So technically my first race in Oregon was the Love Stinks 5k, which was really fun! However, I ran with my seven year old daughter who had a huge PR, alas it was pretty far off from my best time. Which was totally fine because I've only recently started running again after the move.

The annual Pear Blossom Festival was coming up and along with that the Rogue Valley YMCA hosts the Pear Blossom Run. They were celebrating the 40th anniversary of the run and since I'm in my 40th year, it seemed appropriate for me to do this race for the first time.

With a 7 am start I arrived around 6:30 am since I already had my bib and everything I needed. I did a warm up jog from the parking lot to the start line and then did some stretching. As I walked over to the start line I was amazed that people for the most part actually followed the pace signs. As soon as they came out people started moving back to the area designated for their pace. I felt like this was amazing because that so rarely happens in California. Once the gun went off I really only had to navigate past one group of women walking, everyone else was running at a similar pace to myself.

This was really a shake out run for me. I've only been running around 2 miles at the house and lately I've been running on the treadmill at the gym while the kids are at swim practice. The dreadmill is so much harder than real life running and the gym is stuffy, so basically most of my treadmill runs have been very sucky. I had no idea if I could even cover the entire distance without walking.

I didn't look at my watch much. I wasn't going for a specific pace, I just wanted to run based on feel and hope I could find a pace I could carry out for the entire run and not have to walk. The first mile felt pretty good and when I did glance at my watch I had run a 10:07, I was pleased with that, and hoped I could maintain that for the next 2.10 miles. I didn't look at my watch again until 2.31 miles because I didn't remember feeling the vibration my watch sends after each mile. I was getting fatigued and was wondering how far away I was from the 2 mile point. I was pleased to look at my watch and see that I had already passed it! That little nugget of information kept me going. There was a definite happy dance moment going on when I saw the 3 mile sign and rounded the corner to the finish line. I managed to kick it into high gear and pass the woman in front of me for a 32.10 finish and 17/88 in my age group.

So that's a far cry from my best 5k time, but I was so pleased with that time I can't even tell you. I have not run on a regular basis in probably 9 months. Due to health issues and the sale of our home and move, running had just not been on the radar. It was depressing to not having the abilities I used to have and it was causing all sorts of self doubt about my worth as a runner. Now that life has mellowed out being able to take back this part of my life has brought me great happiness. This little 5k reminded me that I can do it, I can still do it and I will do it. It even gave me the thought that just maybe I can do that half marathon next year.

Post race reward 

This was a great fun race. I can't wait to do it next year, the course is super flat so it's a great race to work on a PR.

I'm thinking I may try a trail run in a couple of weeks. The Southern Oregon running community is such a great one that is so supportive, and the races are so inexpensive it's hard to pass up the opportunity to sign up!

Farm life

It's been a busy weekend on our "farm" and it only has highlighted how much more work we have to do!

When we were looking at homes we toured one that had a barn with horse stalls. Thankfully it wasn't a final contender because how do you explain to children that just because a home has room for horses doesn't mean you are going to get them! We did promise the kids that we would get chickens because I have always wanted them and I knew we would have enough space for them. Earlier in the week we purchased everything we would need to set up a brooder, since our local farm supply store was receiving their first order of chicks. We are very fortunate to have a large garage with a second floor full of storage. So we set the brooder up there to ensure it would stay draft free.

On Friday we picked out our chicks and brought them home! We tried to pick out some that had distinguishing marks but I'm not sure we will be able to tell them apart.

On the same day we brought home our chicks, the owl nesting box arrived. Which is super exciting, but it meant double projects this weekend. We are hoping to encourage the nesting of Barn Owl's to increase their population and to help decrease the rodent population on our land.

We are concerned that it sways too much if an owl lands on it, so we may need to change out the pole on it for a wider one.

Meanwhile Tacoma was excited to explore more areas. This was a big hike for her and she's now happily snoozing in bed.

We managed to get one post sunk this weekend for the chicken run. However, with intermittent rain and all of the other projects that is as far as we got. We are building the run next to our garden area. We will add additional smaller chicken wire along the existing fence line of the garden and will build the sides along our irrigation canal. Since we have lots of aerial predators as well as ground predators we will also cover the run with the smaller chicken wire as well.

Lots of work to do outside and we will just keep plugging away at it. It's exciting and overwhelming to have so much land to work with!

Love Stinks 5k

Now that we are feeling mostly settled in our new home it was time to start researching races for 2016. From my research it seemed like a local running club Southern Oregon Runners hosts many of the runs in the area. I stumbled upon the Love Stinks 5k and I was surprised when the entire family said they wanted in.

With a 9:15 am start and a 10 minute drive this was an ideal family race. Kylie had actually gotten a few runs in the week prior but Sydney had opted not to join us, so I don't think anyone really had any expectations other to go out and have fun. Scott and Sydney took off and Kylie and I ran together  on the out and back course. It was fun to see so many people dressed up for the run and it kept us entertained along the course. Kylie was doing a good job of managing run/walk intervals and so many people were cheering her along; which really helped because after while everything I was saying was not appreciated.

As we rounded the last corner we could hear Scott and Sydney cheering and two other women also started cheering for Kylie, it was awesome. She picked up her pace and I had to sprint just to keep up with her. It was a great finish.

As it turns out both girls placed second in their age groups! They also both recorded personal record's beating their previous times from a race in 2014. It was a great race and such a supportive community, we are looking forward to our next race together.