Day in the Life 2; Endurance Athlete Brian Davidson, Part Two: Death Valley Double Century

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How fun was our first Day in the Life episode with Brian Davidson? Even as a vegan and an athlete myself, I learned a lot. Which is why we are doing this series- veganism works in different ways for different people and seeing this makes it more accessible. We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback; there’s a desire out there to know more about vegans and how they do what they do!

Last week we caught a glimpse of how Brian eats and trains as he prepared for the Death Valley Double Century- a 200-mile time cycling event. Today’s show goes into Death Valley and follows the race. And have we got a treat for you!  When we approached Brian about this project he was worried that his training and competing was too unstructured. We assured him that his style is just one of many and we want people to see that. He expressed that he wanted to do well in the 200-mile event because veganism is so important to him. He didn’t want to let us down. I’ll let the video speak for him and just say that he definitely didn’t let us down!

[vimeo 24122622]

There you have it! Brian with his dates and liquid food was the first across the line after 200 miles, with the next racer more than 30 minutes behind! Check out the unbelievable results. So how does Brian do it? Here are his recommendations for riding or racing your first ultra-cycling, 100+ mile event.

Brian Davidson’s Tips for Your First 100+ Mile Bike Event

-Have a plan, but know it is okay to deviate from it. If we learned one thing from Brian it is this: Don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s not going to make or break your success.

-Start slow and build a base! Not only with slower speeds, but less frequency. Brian thinks cyclists start too fast and get burned out before they build a good base.

-Build up to longer, unsupported rides. Brian suggests you be comfortable with 100 miles on your own before doing a supported 200-mile event.

-Make mistakes.  Brian has very little ego and was not scared to admit he had failed numerous times. More than once he was out on an all-day ride and hadn’t planned appropriately for the heat and needed to not only quit for the day, but find a ride home!

-Learn from your mistakes. Understanding yourself and what you need to do is a huge part of success in ultra-distance events.

-Aim for about 250 calories an hour. Many cyclists can go with very little food for the first few hours and may be unfamiliar with having to eat while riding. Aim for 250 calories an hour and adjust for heat and experience.

-Cross train. As we saw in part one with Brian, he does sit ups and push-ups and runs to cross train for cycling. With over 10 hours on the bike, non-cycling muscles get fatigued, so doing more than cycling in preparation makes you stronger and better suited for endurance.

-Do speed work only after spending many hours at a time on the bike. Brian said he only worked on getting faster after he was comfortable going for a long time. Then he does intervals and hill repeats to build strength and speed.

-Mentally prepare. In my own experience with ultra events, the brain wants to quit before the body needs to! Train your brain, while you train your body. Know that lows will come and be ready to work through them.

-Lastly, Brian uses some liquid foods in order to more easily process the thousands of calories he needs on a really long cycling day. There are commercially-available vegan options, but what Brian was using is a homemade version. More on that in an upcoming post.

And that concludes our time with Brian. Thank you Brian for being such a bad ass and letting us peek into your life. And for showing that you can be vegan and a damn fast cyclist! Thanks for reading and if you enjoyed this please share it with others!

Day in the Life 1; Endurance Athlete Brian Davidson

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I am so incredibly stoked about today’s post. This project is over a year in the making and today it finally goes live!  I’ve been working closely with friend and videographer Sasha Perry on a ‘Day in the Life’ video series: I spend the day with a vegan athlete training, cooking and learning the ins and outs of their veganism.  Athletes have the most demanding nutrition needs and if veganism can work for them, it can work for you. I’m in a unique position as a Registered Dietitian and an athlete to both professionally evaluate their meals and to attempt their workouts. And it’s fun!

The first athlete in our series is a good friend of mine, Brian Davidson. This guy is incredible.  He’s an airplane mechanic, who spends the day on his feet wrenching on airplanes, yet still finds time to bike commute and train.  He does everything from water polo to iron-distance triathlons and has finished the 500-mile Furnace Creek 508 bike race twice. His Stokedtivity Levels are not only off the charts, but contagious!  He was nice enough to share his training and eating with us while we figured out how to make this show work. Thanks Brian, you rule!

Without further ado, here’s the 10-minute glimpse into Brian’s vegan lifestyle.  The recipes we make are below, along with nutrition information.

Are you stoked to eat and train? Here’s how you can eat like Brian:

Brian’s Super Breakfast Smoothie
5 bananas
½ cup peanut butter
1 ½ cups frozen blueberries

Add all ingredients to blender. Blend! Add water as needed. Drink.
Make sure your teeth aren’t purple before you go out.

Servings-2
Calories-740
Calorie breakdown- Carbohydrate 50%, Protein 10%, Fat 40%
Carbohydrate- 94g
Protein-20g
Fat- 34g
Fiber- 15g
Iron- 1.6g

Nutrition Analysis- The simplicity of this smoothie is gold. Easy, low-cost, nutrient and calorically dense ingredients. It is very high in fat at 40%, but for someone like Brian who requires 4,000-5,000 calories a day eating a higher fat diet makes sense. I also like the flexibility of the recipe- you can sub another nut butter- almond, sunflower seed, cashew, etc or any frozen or fresh berries or fruits. And it’s a great use of over-ripe bananas!

Vegan Cashew Chicken Salad
16 ounces romaine hearts and/or salad greens
¼ cup cashews
2 roma tomatoes, cut into chunks
1 avocado, sliced
1 cup sliced carrots (optional: saute)
4 ounces vegan chicken strips, sauteed in a small amount of oil
2 tablespoons ginger miso dressing (optional: homemade dressing, recipes below!)

I love a slightly warm salad. Toss all of the room temperature ingredients and then add the vegan chicken and carrots, if sauteed.

Servings-1 big ass salad
Calories-825
Calorie breakdown- Carbohydrate 33%, Protein 15%, Fat 52%
Carbohydrate- 63g
Protein-29g
Fat- 45g
Fiber- 25g
Iron- 10.2g, 57%, Calcium- 343g, 34%, Vitamin C- 80mg, 148%, Vitamin A- 500+%

Nutrition Analysis: This is a giant salad that’s packed with good nutrition. Twenty grams of protein! Take that, stupid naturopaths that say you can’t get enough protein from plant foods. Like his smoothie, this is very high in fat, a whopping 45 grams, mostly from the avocado and cashews. These are great polyunsaturated fats- heart healthy! Brian’s theme is adjustability- even though we asked him to have recipes and ingredients ready for the show, he actually did just make it up when we got there. And so can you, if you keep healthy ingredients on hand.

Brian ate mostly raw vegan for many years and he was cool enough pass on a few of his favorite raw dressings. Like Brian, these recipes are creative and flexible.

Raw Tahini Dressing
1/3 cup seseme seeds
1 clove garlic
1-2 fresh squeeze oranges (add or reduce for consistency)
(Sometimes I just use water and add until I get the right consistency)
Blend & enjoy!

Servings-1
Calories-395
Calorie breakdown- Carbohydrate 38%, Protein 10%, Fat 52%
Carbohydrate-  41g
Protein- 11g
Fat- 24g
Fiber-  10g
Iron 7.2g, 40% Calcium 566g, 57%, Zinc 3.9g, 26%

This dressing is not playing around- look at those numbers for iron, calcium and zinc! Sesame seeds are also a great source of B-vitamins. One note about the calcium is that this is for unhulled sesame seeds- most of the calcium is in the hull of the seed (see this note from a colleague).  They are sometimes labeled as ‘natural’ and raw ones are more likely to be unhulled. A benefit to making your own tahini dressing? Most tahini is made with hulled sesame seeds.

Raw Herb Dressing
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
1 bunch cilantro (or parsley, mint, thyme, oregano)
1-2 fresh squeezed oranges (add or reduce for consistency)
Blend & enjoy!

Servings-1
Calories- 210
Calorie breakdown- Carbohydrate 56%, Protein 10%, Fat 34%
Carbohydrate- 32g
Protein- 6g
Fat-  9g
Fiber-  8g
Iron 1.3g, Calcium- 119g, 12%

While this recipe is not the banger that the tahini one is, it’s still solid. Also a good source of B-vitamins, like Folate and B6 and vitamin K. Also has significantly fewer calories.

Next week comes part two, where we join Brian in Death Valley to see how he fares in his 200-mile race. Without giving too much away, let’s just say he made veganism look good. Like really, really good!  We’ll also include more details of his training, including a plan for you to ride your first 100+ mile event.

Thanks for watching and please pass this on to anyone who says, ‘You can’t be vegan and an athlete!’ We’re here to prove them wrong. Also, do you know a vegan athlete we should profile? Or other suggestions for our series? Please leave your comments below and thanks for watching!

Spring!

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Though you wouldn’t know it here in chilly, rainy Los Angeles, Spring has arrived. This is very exciting but also makes me a little anxious! I’ve a pretty even split in my lifestyle between working hard in the winter- working as in someone giving me money in exchange for my time and energy- and working on fun in the summer. Fall and Spring make me anxious because I’m still doing one while fretting about the other! Can you say #firstworldproblems? When I was 16 and had the brilliant idea to quit my Subway job and pay an even younger kid in the neighborhood to do my paper route for the summer while I traveled the country to ride BMX.  Unbeknownst that 16 years later I’d have the same philosophy.

So. I’ve been working a lot. Still traveling a lot when I can. And most importantly getting ready for some big adventures. One is sooner than I’d like it to be, but such is life. What is it? A long post on that very soon. Let’s just say that I’ve had to purchase a GPS device, new lighting systems and lightweight camp gear.  For now, here’s some links that I’ve come across while working. Enjoy. Have an awesome first full weekend of Spring!

–Praise the Lard? Recent research shows that going to church events increases one’s risk of obesity.

–A New Model Streets Manual to Rewrite Los Angeles’ “DNA” A public health oriented approach to streets and urban design. Streets are for people!

–Why Angelenos Should Take the Bus More Often

–UN Says Eat Less Meat to Curb Global Warming An oldie but goody. You see this, environmentalists?

–Climate Chief Lord Stern: Give Up Meat to Save the Planet Same.

–The Los Angeles Bicycle Kitchen has a new website

-Everyone should be following the Middle Eastern uprising on Al Jazeera

–My friend Aidan made it 1100 miles to Nome in 17 days, 9 hours and 15 minutes in the Alaska Iditarod Invitational which was good enough for 2nd place and 1st (ever!) single speed.

 

Bike Night at the Hammer. RAD. So rad.

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My love for bikes started really young. I was riding without training wheels at 3 and racing BMX by 4. I was in the 5 and Under category at my local track where an adult helped you push your bike up the starting hill and then held your rear wheel so you could balance against the gate. You got to ride the same track and jumps as the older kids! I thought it was best thing ever and it didn’t take long before I was finding or building jumps in the woods and trying to ride skateboard ramps. I had two concussions before I was 7, but that didn’t stop me from riding all over my neighborhood and beyond. Once my neighbor found me 3 miles from home riding off some curbs. She was so exasperated that she put me and my bike in her car and drove me home!

I wasn’t that interested in traditional sports or being told when and how to do something. BMX was an outcast thing to do, like being punk or vegan, and even at 7 years old you have an idea of this.  Then in 1986 the movie RAD came out.  BMX on the big screen! Sure, there was BMX Bandits (with Nicole Kidman!) before that, but BMX was an aside, it wasn’t about BMX. RAD is. And it’s as cheesy as it is amazing to a 7 year old BMXer.  My friends and I studied that movie. We looked up the stunt doubles in BMX magazines. We learned the names of any of the tricks we didn’t know. We built bigger jumps. We felt like bad-asses tearing around on our bikes doing tricks.  Hell yeah I’d skip the SAT’s to ride Hell Track!

So my good friend Lisa Auerbach, who crewed 508 last year and took all of those great photos, organizes Bike Night at the Hammer museum every year. She picks a bike film to show in the theater and has drinks and vegan food beforehand. In 2009 it was Breaking Away and last year it was PeeWee’s Big Adventure with Paul Reuben there to introduce it! So fun. This year she chose the movie RAD. It also happens to be the 25th anniversary! The Hammer searched high and low to find possibly the last remaining 35mm print, the Director will likely be introducing it and the original BMX bikes will be there on display. Seriously, does it get any more rad than that?

Thursday, April 14th at 7pm. Details on the Hammer website.  Also check out RAD: The Movie.  Please pass this on and help promote this super rad (okay, last time) event. Trailer below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=607eTT2y1ZU

Not doing an event = awesome

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This past weekend I bailed on riding the Orange County 300k because I was still sick from last week. Riding 210 miles on Wednesday while sick definitely did not help me get better (a post about that ride coming soon!). So I flaked and instead hung out hard. Fifty-five chill miles Saturday with a posse riding some of my favorite climbs near the Rose Bowl.  Then dinner at one of my favorite spots in the LA area, Happy Family.  It’s all vegan, which is good. It’s an all-you-can-eat menu where each dish is made to order and that’s great. AND  it’s some of the best Chinese food I’ve had in California, which is unbelievable. Win-win-win.

Sizzling Plate. Look at those bubbles in the sauce!

Sunday some friends had a vegan brunch unrelated to the sporting event, but I ate cinnamon rolls as if it was a sporting event of its own. Then we rode around the neighborhood and visited friends who have recently moved here. East Hollywood represent!

Lastly I’d like to share what I’ve been listening to over and over. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe_3t8Qqgpk

Alien Races- Vegans

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This came across a certain social networking site (thanks Collette!) I waste time on. According to here it’s from the 1983 Marvel Comic Universe Handbook.  I think I’m far from cowardly, but I will take those anti-gravitons!

 

 

 

Secondly, anyone who knows me is aware of my internet addiction. As soon as I have some down time I’m on my space phone flipping through Google Reader. I’m up on all sorts of stuff that I have no reason to be.  My idea is to share some of the most interesting links I come across on the bottom of my posts, ala bikinginla.com. We’ll see how it goes! Thanks for reading and please let me know if you like this new feature.

—–

A new, favorite site, Sweat Science says Turn down the thermostat to battle obesity epidemic. Duh. I grew up on the East Coast with a mom who kept ours at a chill 59 degrees F, which is to the dismay of anyone I have to share bills with. Via LA.Streetsblog is The long and triumphant history of women in cycling, a history I learned, interestingly enough, from my West Coast Cycling Lonely Planet book. When I was in Vancouver preparing for my own west coast trip I scribbled one of those quotes on the wall of the punk/collective house I was staying at. DC.Streetsblog meanwhile caught up with a Southern California Republican member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee who thinks roads pay for themselves and bikes are only for recreation. Is it true ignorance or just his political position? Speaking of politics, things are wild with UK students and folks in Egypt. Are you watching US students and citizens? Change is possible.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with a post from a vegan athlete who is concerned she’s not getting enough protein. I know it’s possible to, but I’m empathetic to her concern that she is not. It is reinforced in our society over and over that protein from animals is superior. It’s tough to always go against the grain. Stop by her site and let her know how you get enough protein.

 

Jack Lalanne

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The dude was epic. There’s no doubt about that. But I like my epic with a little heart and soul and he delivers here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hh_ZGd_j8A

Also, he was an advocate of a plant-based diet.  Found this interview in the Denver Post with some choice quotes:

Should people consume fewer dairy products?

JL: I’m not a suckling calf. Name me one creature on this earth who uses milk after they wean – except man. Why do you think so many people are fat and have heart attacks? Butter, cream, cheese, all that fat, fat, fat. You can have a little skim milk once in a while. But they’ve got these athletes prostituting their souls by posing with milk mustaches. Those athletes should be selling something that is going to be beneficial, not detrimental, to kids.

Controversial.  Oh, and the dude swam from alcatraz to San Francisco handcuffed.  HE SWAM FROM ALCATRAZ TO SF HANDCUFFED!

Cooking For A Vegan Lover’s cookbook club: Veganomican Recipe #1 – Autumn Root Salad with Warm Maple Fig Dressing

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Admittedly, I tend to take on too much. As I sit here, at the end of my first week of the second term of graduate school,  contemplating whether or not it is appropriate to use a dirty kitchen towel as a snot rag and starting to prepare my first recipe review for Cooking For A Vegan Lover’s Cookbook Club I know: I have a very precarious balance of things going on, and it is possible that this one tiny little added thing (the commitment to carefully follow a set of directions written by someone else and review the outcome) might just be the thing that forces me to fall into the abyss of productivity and never come back.

Alas! I could not resist. I love vegan cookbooks, I can spend hours perusing the culinary isles of a book store thinking of the possibilities. I have the propensity to make substitutions in my ingredients based on what I have on hand, or to add spices based on my tastes (namely, more salt, bragg’s liquid aminos, nutritional yeast, cumin, and sriracha) but to me there is something both scientific and fancy about letting someone else do the dictation. It inspires a leap of trust in the process of creation-something I am not entirely used to but have grown to relish.

The first book on the queue is Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s Veganomicon. This is perhaps an obvious choice  as the sheer size of this behemoth of a cookbook gives it a seminal  Joy Of Cooking feel but it is not the size of the book alone that gives it it’s reputation. Isa’s recipes (in my experience) are almost without fail. It is clear that she actually tests each one, and that there is care and attention to detail in the creation. Each recipe is approached with consideration and flair. Despite the fact that I hate to flock with the masses, I must say: Moskowitz is one of the best vegan cookbook authors I have invited into my kitchen. Of course, there are less obvious choices, but this certainly makes sense as a start.

I wanted to approach a recipe that I could produce using primarily local and seasonal ingredients. I tend to love salad at all times of year but sometimes the bite of a cold vegetable chills me to my core and leaves me feeling cold for the duration of the day. For this reason Isa’s Autumn Root Salad with Warm Maple Fig Dressing really caught my eye.  It was still a salad packed with greens but also had the added benefits of a starch (sweet potatoes in this case) and a warm dressing. I knew I had to try it.

I had red onions on hand but no shallots, which presented a bit of a challenge. Usually I will say “Feh! What’s the difference?!” and use what I have, but in an attempt to glean some sort of accuracy I acquiesced. I bit the bullet and went to the grocery store. With a new shallot purchase in hand I forged on: this recipe must be made in it’s entirety!

 

 

 

First, the instructions asked to prepare the beets by roasting them whole for an hour or so and then letting them cool to slice. The sweet potatoes were prepared by slicing and boiling. Both the beets and potatoes came out lacking a little something that I think could only be textural. The lack of oil used made the textures all blend together. My advice is to slice the potatoes and beets together, (1/2 inch slices should work), to spray with olive oil, and roast them in the oven. This would take a ton of time off of the recipe (sliced beets roast incredibly quickly, whole beets not so much), reduce dishes, and add some crisp to parts of the potato for more textural variety.

The dressing was a warm amalgamation of dried fig, white wine, maple syrup, Dijon mustard, and spices. The result was incredibly rich, and offset the bitterness of the greens well. One caveat: the amounts called for in the recipe produced a relatively insane amount of dressing. I found that putting the leftovers on sandwiches,or boiling the mix in a big pot of lentils made for creative culinary exploration with what was left but one could easily half the recipe and do without the experimentation. The flavors are so strong that a little really does go a long way.

 

 

 

All in all, the premise of the recipe is simple: roast veggies, chill, simmer dressing, blend, mix together and I found myself a bit surprised that I had critiques when it came to the outcome of the taste. A few things I will say: The layout and instructions were very clear and concise, the ingredients were simple to find, the final product was satisfying to snack on. A bit of streamlining in the process of roasting could help exponentially as it would take this recipe from being a delightful seasonal accompaniment to any meal to  FAST delightful seasonal accompaniment to any meal. I would certainly make this recipe again but next time I will add my own techniques into the mix. A little Sriracha on top wouldn’t hurt either.

 


Recipe here.

Calico 50k Race Report

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[Update Fri Jan 21 10:11am: Wanted to link a few other race reports with great stories and photos! Don’t Try This At Home at Runner’s World | Bourbon Feet (fast dude who wears the Air Jesus sandals!) | Kylie at TriFuel.com | Trail Bum ]

 

In my continued attempt to not gain an unsightly amount of winter weight and lose all of my fitness I signed up for another ultra-run, the Calico Ghost Town 50k. The race is a benefit for Discovery Trails, whose focus is education about the Mojave desert. Their tag-line is Learning From Adventure, which I can get behind!

Speaking of adventure, I’m sure some people drive to a race, race it and then go home. Seems too simple. And boring, really. We make it a huge adventure: camping, stopping at places of interest on the way, eating at great places and generally using the race as an excuse to get away and do rad stuff. First on the list: stopping at a vegetarian restaurant. One World Cafe is in the burbs of the San Gabriel Valley, the part of the ‘Los Angeles Area’ that is the sprawl associated with my city. When I go on a long bike ride I head north, south or west, rarely east into Sprawlville. But when we’re driving out that way, it’s a treat to hit up one of the Supreme Master vegan restaurants.  And yes, they have a Supreme Burrito, but I stuck with the Pan-Asian stuff. I can’t get enough of these spots lately.

Calico ghost town is located half-way between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, in the Mojave desert.  It’s just too far to drive morning of without getting up stupid early. Last weekend Mike and I drove down to South Orange County to ride a PCH Randonneurs 200k that started at 630am. Needless to say, him and I did not start at 630am. At least it made us hustle to get to the first control before it closed. But then luckily we could take the remaining 110 miles at the Swarm! ‘Can Stop Will Stop’ chill pace. Riding in South Orange County is very beautiful, but the only photo I have is of this crazy cockpit:

Back to the run! We rolled up to Calico in time to check in for the race and scope the town. I’ve been to a few and I appreciate the throwback to olden times. We learned that Calico was bought and preserved by Walter Knott, the founder of Knott’s Berry Farm amusement park, who was a far-right wingnut that had racist policies at his amusement park. It has long since been sold to San Bernardino County, but we couldn’t help but notice that the Welcome sign was in English, French, German and Japanese, but not Spanish and that there was no brothel!

The goodie bag was provided by an outlet mall which may have something to do with the pose I’m striking.

Checked in for the race and content with seeing most of the town we headed down to the campground to set up camp and make dinner. As I’ve said before, I love when you can camp at a race start! So Max, Donovan and I got a fire going and whipped up some pancakes and beans in honor of Burro Schmidt, whose tunnel we visited the last time we drove out to an ultra-run.  I was nervous about making pancakes on a camp stove! The first time I ever camped in my life was at an Earth First! forest defense thing in Pennsylvania and I was blown away that you could camp and still eat pancakes. Still, I had never done it. The photo below is proof that it can happen!

Even though we were in bed at a reasonable hour, that 6am alarm felt too early. We sprung up and got water going for coffee, took down on our camp and drank said coffee in time to swing by the bathrooms (to avoid a Have To Poop scenario like my first ultra) and run to the start with a whopping 4 minutes before the gun. Nice. Max had hurt his ankle the day before so he decided not to run. I’ve never run with Donovan before but we decided to stick together as we both had sub-6hr times in mind. Ends up I avoided the dreaded Have To Poop scenario, but he did not! Two times ducking into the desert for him would be the difference in our times. Now I had looked at the course photos from the website, but I was not expecting the course to be so beautiful. It was magnificent! We ran through red canyons, down washes, over tight, rolling hills, through two tiny tunnels (!!); much of it with unbelievable views of or from the desert mountains. There was a technical section that took me ten minutes to slowly climb down using my arms on rocks for balance. SO fun. Not sure I can go back to road running….

At mile 22 I decided I was going to run every hill that was left. Felt good to push. Since I train on hills a lot just because of where I live, that came easy, but I’d struggle to keep people I had passed from catching me on the down hills or flats. Still, my descents definitely improved from the Ridgecrest run last month. So I’m rolling along, feeling good, running everything and I get to the last aid station. Now one note about this race is that it is supported by the locals. The folks at the aid stations are not runners. They were SUPER FUN. They loved it. Constant jokes (‘We got some meth in the back if you need a boost!’). So at the last aid, I say, ‘3.1 miles, right?’ Nope, 4.5 miles. Oops. I’m tired, it’s getting hot. I have no idea what time it is. Whatever. I run past some dudes in 4×4 trucks playing on some hills. They say hello. Then I see the campground! Sweet. The course went through it, which is now two out of two times that has happened. Should we make it a ritual to sleep on the course?

A few more ups and downs and then I’m in town and I see Max! He jogs along for awhile and then splits off to meet me at the finish. I pushed on the last hill to pass the triathlete I’d been back and forth with. Holding him off on the descent I cross the line at 5 hours and 47 minutes. Stoked (ended up 31st out of 121).  Donovan crosses 5 minutes later and we head into the saloon for our post-race meal. The young lady working was kind enough to give us french fries instead of pizza….

On the way home we stopped at Viva La Vegan, an all vegan grocery store in the Inland Empire that has a grip of frozen pizzas (good for National Vegan Pizza Day):

But I bought some chocolate hazelnut butter and we finished the drive back to LA for some pizza from a pizza shop.  This race is part of the So Cal Ultra Running Series, which I signed up for, just for fun. I was already to tell you about the next crazy run I’m signed up for, the Twin Peaks 50-miler, but I just found out that it’s postponed until October! Wtf? Look at this elevation profile:

I’ve been gearing up for this and using it for the fear I need to train properly and now it’s not happening! Bummer. It was scheduled for February 12th, what should I do instead?