Running to Think

The title of this post is a bit pretentious. I know. The less gadgets I run with the better.
These are the tools I use the most before, during and after my running sessions. Because, you know, running is not only about running.

I really cannot start without a Garmin watch. Even for slow pace runs. The list of watches is huge. After the Forerunner 410 - awful watch ever - things changed at Garmin and their devices became more reliable since then.

After running I usually upload my training session to Strava. Some followers will see my tracks and performance. And I will see them. It's nice to get inspired about many things, such as mileage per week or training strategy. I mostly use it to find new courses whenever I run abroad and I really have no time to explore myself.
Sometimes I bring my mobile phone with me, especially when I run to work with a urban hydration pack I convert to all-in-one backpack. These times I switch on the Strava app from Android.

Twitter is the App I use the most. For everything. News, updates about nutrition, sports and if you ever check my Twitter you might find something interesting. Although this is not guaranteed.

The new entry is MyFitnessPal that is helping me keeping track of how many calories I eat and how many I should (not) according to the daily training schedule.

One app that seems to be interesting but I honestly never used is Rock my Run that plays music at a pace that follows your running. Quite fun. But I prefer to adapt my pace to the music, which is usually at a high pace. The most efficient running technique is at 90 bpm (or 180, depending on how you count). I prefer the old good mp3 player.

Run long!

The period in which I don't run due to an injury is usually dedicated to, well... eating. I love eating. More specifically I love to spend time in the kitchen and experiment new recipes or just make those I remember from my mum, when I was living in southern Italy. Today I want to write about one italian recipe that is easy to make, healthy and really delicious. It's called "zucchine ripiene" which literally means "stuffed courgette".
You can stuff courgettes with many things such as rice, meat, tomato sauce, fish etcetera etcetera. Since we are vegetarians here I will stuff them with vegetables of course. This is my attempt to "genetically" modify a courgette and fill it with aubergines :)

So go to the market, the second place I spend more time after the kitchen, and buy yourself some round courgettes. Boil them for 5 minutes just to soften them a bit and chop the top without throwing it away. Then empty them with a tea spoon. Keep the flesh and blend it with some salt and pepper and 1 egg.



In the mean time prepare the aubergine, chop it and pan-fry it with some olive oil, red onion, some mushrooms. Add salt, cumin and pepper.



Here is the flesh of the courgette in the blender with the egg and salt and pepper. Add a slice of toasted bread if it appears too juicy.



Mix the aubergine with the cream obtained from the flesh of the courgettes and mix with a spoon. This will be the new flesh of our "enhanced" courgettes.


Stuff the courgettes with the mix and place them into the oven at 230 C for about 30 minutes. Only in the last 5 minutes add some cheese on top and you can leave the hat on ;)

Bon appétit!

Don't misunderstand us: we don't miss meat. Actually we're doing great without since a long time. All this started as an experiment. This time I didn't get much help from the Internet. The purpose of messing around in the kitchen was to bite a juicy hamburger while staying vegetarian on my ID.
Here is a delicious recipe to make some at home.

Ingredients:
400 gr lentils
1 red onion
5 slices of bread (guts and crumbs included)
1 egg
salt, pepper, cumin, garlic
mustard and, if you really wanna feel american ketchup and mayo (for one time you can) :)


Preparation:
Boil the lentils with the onion chopped in small pieces, add salt and drain almost all the water when finished.
Put the lentils in a blender together with the egg, cumin, garlic powder and pepper. Process for about 2 minutes. Add the slices of bread chopped in smaller pieces and process for other 2 minutes. The mix will look a bit drier and that's a good thing so that we can manipulate it later. It should look like the one in the picture below.




Shape it in the pan before it gets too cooked. I was impressed of how similar to meet it looked.
Once you get there, slice your bread and grill it a bit, slice some tomato and add a large leave of salad to your wonderful hamburger like in the picture.


A slice of cheese that will melt on the "meat" will make it even more delicious and real.
Enjoy!

ATTENTION: No animal has been killed to provide the pictures above :)

This summary will be short, for the reasons that will be clear in a minute.

21/04/2014
rest


22/04/2014