In preparation for the amount of food I knew I was going to consume tonight, and in order to make up for missing my swim yesterday, I went for a nice long swim. Today I decided to bring back Old School Tuesday, which is something we did in high school. It usually consists of a long, hard main set, often including sprints. For a distance swimmer like myself, it usually meant long sprints. Like 200s, or 500s. Yay. At that point, I really don’t think it’s a sprint anymore but some people (read: coaches) seem to believe that sprinting for multiple 200s or 500s in a row, while challenging, is perfectly doable. Good thing I’m not in high school swimming anymore! I make up my own sets, so I get to pick the length of my sprints. Although to be honest I really do miss my high school coaching staff. They were a talented, caring group of coaches and I was really in the best shape of my life back then. Oh the good old days. Enough reminiscing, and onto the workout!
Old School Tuesday
“No fear of pain, no fear of failure.”
Warm up: 200 SKIP (swim, kick, pull swim)
Warm up sets:
4×200 @3:30 Increasing number of fast strokes off odd walls, IM order
4×75 @1:10 50 build free, 25 sprint kick
Main set: 12×100 @2:00
3 sprint free, 1 easy
3 sprint IM, 1 easy
3 sprint stroke, 1 easy
The interval is nice and long and there’s only three of each, so make sure to go all out.
Pull set: (300 pull @4:40 breathe 3-5-7-9-7-5- by 50, 200 pull @2:50 negative split, 100 pull fast @1:30) x2
Warm down: 200 easy choice
Total: 4500 yards
Time: 1 hr, 20 min
Side note: Why do I call it warm down? I don’t know, I guess that’s what we called it in high school swimming. Everyone thinks it’s weird when I say warm down rather than cool down, but it is what it is.
Now for the food! I had two of my friends over for dinner tonight, and they left the cooking decisions up to me, so cook I did! Like I said last night, I entice my friends to hang out with me by offering food. It works!
Sharing a wonderful meal with two of my best friends from freshman year
By this point, those of you who read my blog have probably picked up that I make mostly vegetarian food. I was raised mostly vegetarian by my mother, who went vegetarian for ethical reasons. I only eat seafood and free-range chicken, and if you want to know why, watch this. I don’t eat crab or lobster, and I don’t even like fish that much except for salmon, so basically the only meat I eat is salmon, humanely raised chicken, and the occasional shellfish. This is my first time cooking with meat in the apartments by myself, and I made sure to get free-range chicken. I found this recipe for Creamy Chicken and Mushroom Pasta on Eat, Live, Run and it looked so good I had to try it. I didn’t have heavy cream and I didn’t feel like buying a whole pint just to use half a cup, so I substituted Greek yogurt and milk, things I had in the fridge. An added bonus, it lightens the dish a little as well! I also like dark meat better, and since I don’t eat meat that often, when I do, I like to eat the good stuff. So it’s a little fattier, oh well, it tastes delicious. Here’s the recipe I ended up with. It made a lot of pasta, but that’s just as well, since now I can have it for leftovers!
Creamy Mushroom Chicken Pasta
adapted from Eat, Live, Run
Makes many, many servings
Ingredients
12 oz pasta, I used white fiber rigatoni
pinch of salt, dash of olive oil
6 free-range chicken thighs, cubed
1 tbsp canola oil
1/4 cup white wine
1 tsp minced garlic
1/3 yellow onion, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
8 oz mushrooms, sliced (I used baby bella)
1/2 cup free-range chicken broth
1/3 cup plain Greek yogurt
2 tbsp fat-free milk
Salt and pepper, to taste
Parmesan cheese, for serving
Directions
Cook pasta according to package directions, adding in a pinch of salt for flavor and a dash of oil to keep the noodle from sticking together.
In a large skillet, heat the oil over high heat. Add the chicken and stir to coat with oil, then brown the chicken, stirring occasionally. Add the wine and allow the chicken to cook through. Remove the chicken from the pan.
Lower the heat to medium and heat the olive oil. Add the garlic and onions and cook for a couple minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms begin to shrivel a little bit and release their juices, about five minutes. Add the chicken broth, Greek yogurt, and milk and stir to combine. Allow the whole mixture to come to a simmer for a couple minutes, then add the chicken back in and stir to combine. Pour the mushroom chicken sauce mixture over the pasta and toss to combine. Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top and serve warm. Enjoy!
Dine with Deja 