three things thursday
1. The turkey slider recipe!
Put this in a bowl:
1lb of ground turkey, I use 99% lean
1/3-1/2 cup crumbled goat cheese
1 clove minced garlic
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
salt
ground black pepper
chili powder
red pepper flakes
Smush it all up with your hands. Make small patties - this recipe gave me 16 sliders. Heat up about 2 tbsp oil in a pan. Dust each slider with flour and drop in hot oil. Flip after a minute or two. When both sides are crispy, pour about 3 cups of white wine over them and turn heat down to low. Let simmer for a while until cooked through.
I sliced hot dog buns in half and put them in the toaster oven with gorgonzola cheese, then topped them with a slider, ketchup, and pickles. They were delicious.
2. I'm trying to make a decision about drinking during taper. Hang on, I'm not a boozehound. The last time I trained for a half, I didn't drink a single drop throughout the entire training cycle (until I got injured 3 weeks out, then that all went to hell). But I don't drink often/in a large enough quantity that I think it makes a difference AT ALL on my training. If I had to honestly guess, I would say that, on average, I have 2-3 drinks a week. Sometimes I got 3-4 weeks without drinking at all for no real reason, and sometimes I have a couple of days where I'll have a glass of wine or something at night before bed. It would not be difficult to not drink at all for a few weeks out from the race, but I have this feeling that I'm going to go so bonkers even during a short taper than the poet is going to want to medicate me every night. Thoughts? What do you do during a training cycle and leading up to a race?
3. I've had a lot of discussion lately with some friends about the merits of a "real" rest day vs. the "fake" rest day. Meaning, taking 24-36 hours completely off but not taking a full calendar day. For example. My usually Wednesday schedule is to do a recovery run in the pool for an hour, swim for 20-40 minutes, and lift legs. (I've also had some discussions lately about lifting, and the fact that what I call "legs" day most people would call "core & stability with a little bit of legs" day, but that discussion is for another time). Anyhow, Wednesday. I either go to the pool in the morning and lift at night or vice versa. Everything I do in the pool is gentle and recovery-style, not busting my ass, so it's a very easy day between two tough days of running (track Tuesday, tempo Thursday). However, yesterday I got to the pool a bit late and the water was cold and I had slept horribly and I didn't want to get in (I WANT A COOKIE!). So I decided to bag the swim entirely and just gently pool run and chat with my friends. (Sometimes I feel like the biggest benefit of a pool running session - due to my effort that day - is having my legs in cool water for an hour, but again, discussion for another time).
I went off to work and spent the day feeling stressed out by work, tired from not sleeping, and just cranky overall. When I got home, I decided to skip my legs day and hang out on the couch for a while, and then go out for happy hour & dinner. I slept 9 hours last night and am still, right now, at this moment, laying in bed with my puppies. I'll probably do some core stuff this afternoon before tempo tonight, but here's the question: 36-38 hours between exercise, is it a rest day? Please think about it for a hot second before grabbing me by the ear and yelling, "NO" at the top of your lungs. I know that the triathletes and the runners will have very different opinions on this, and to that end I say: I have 2 complete "leg" rest days every week - days where I do NO running/biking activity with my legs. I only run (on land) 4 days a week: track Tuesday, tempo Thursday, long run Saturday, and recovery run Sunday. I never do 2 tough running workouts 2 days in a row, and the only reason I run both Saturday & Sunday is that they are both easy-paced runs and there aren't 8 days in the week. I'm still working on adjusting my training schedule so I have time to recover from the tough workouts, and sometimes I will do what I did yesterday - turn a recovery day into a rest day (trust me, I wasn't working hard in the pool) instead of doing what my schedule said, which was wait until Friday for the rest day. I also think that sometimes the "fake" rest day allows me more recovery time in hours than the "real" rest day. What do you think? If you think the real rest day is mandatory, why? What are the benefits/merits?