Few pics from my first time at wildflower!
Stage 1 was down in Encinitas, start and finish right on the main street! WOW! I had never been to a bike race before! I cannot describe the feeling you get when crowds are banging on the boards and cheering so loudly for the pro racers. AMAZING.
Stage 2 brought us out to Palm Springs, where we set up expo on the side of the mountain in the desert! It truly felt like the surface of the sun, the cyclists said it was like racing into a hairdryer. Poor guys, it was at least 115 out there. Ugh.
Stage 3 took us out to Santa Clarita, or where Magic Mountain is!!!! Cute town, and finally back to normal temperatures! Phew! Another day of packing and unpacking the expo booth...which was quickly turning into our crossfit workout 2x per day! Tati and I got super strong! As the weather got more bearable, the large packs of riders started staying closer together with less break-a-ways! incredible having 50 guys sprinting to the finish line all together, holding at least 30+ mph. Jeezus. It was impressive.
We then raced all the way up to Santa Barbara for Stage 4! Swam in a 50 meter outdoor pool for our am workout, before the days crossfit began. Definitely my favorite finish by far!!! We set up right on the ocean, looked at the beach all day, had tons more spectators, ate the best food of the trip (Vegan food is actually amazing!)
Ever in a crazy hurry to beat the race to the next destination, we sped up to Pismo Beach for the Stage 6 end in Avila Beach. Again, I am logging all these little cities as places I need to come back to and stay a while. Yet another great day, we hated to see end, with incredible experiences to pro cyclists left us with from a tight race.
Coming home is tough. I totally miss my normal routine, I'm completely beat from all the insanity, but I hated to see the super fun experience end!!!!
Finally the hubbs gets some creativity back in his food when I'm feeling up to it!
Feeling sassy, I threw some ground chicken, quinoa, and a bunch of other yummy veggies in the rice cooker while I finished spinning out my legs on the trainer.
Stuffed yellow peppers sound soooo good right now. Yum.
Since the filling is all pre-cooked, the peppers steam up pretty quick in the oven when stuffed with the yummy hot filling.
Recipe is easy peasy.
Set up rice cooker, turn on steam cook option.
Throw in 1lb of ground chicken
3/4 c dry quinoa
1 1/4c chicken broth
Proceed to chop and toss in veggies you like! I used:
1/2 med yellow onion
1/2 zucchini
1 med jalapeno
3/4c chopped fresh mushrooms
1/2c frozen kale
When fully cooked (30 minutes) stuff into cleaned and halved yellow peppers, I topped them with a teeny bit of feta cheese. yum. Bake in oven on 375, for 20 minutes or till soft.
Terrible photography! I was soo starving I couldn't wait to take pretty pics!
On a soooper bomb note, got this enormous box from ORCA this week.....
Their new tri bag is loaded with kick a$$ features! I think I'm in heaven....
New Alpha 1.5 wetsuit is just begging me to go out and swim Naples Island before I head to Seattle next week....omg...I'm going to geek out for a sec....its 44 cell yamamoto rubber...holy hell it's flexible!!!! I'm like a kid in a candy store!!!!
Super coolness. My ankle is all healed! I already have like 4 runs on it, number five is today!!! yay!!!
Hit up El Moro canyon with the Freeman family the other day, I missed it soo much! They showed me some fun new single tracks to run on! what a blast!
