Quick Dinner…

On March 20, 2016March 20, 2016 By thearcticrunnerIn Alaska, FoodLeave a comment

This is my favourite easy and inexpensive quick dinner. Its also a great way to use up all the left over veggies I often find creeping around the crisper drawer. Chicken Smoked Sausage and veggies over red beans and rice.

I really like the chicken version of the smoked sausage…we all know the brand that comes in the distinctive u-shaped shaped package. The chicken version is lower in fat and I think it has a better taste. It also browns nicer with a lot less fat left in the pan. Which I hate, it makes all my veggies slimey. YUCK. Turkey version is also good if you can find it.

First off, I chop everything up nice and pretty. Today I had some of those mini sweet peppers, cremini mushrooms, broccoli, white onion and chopped garlic

FullSizeRender — *all chopped and ready to go!*

I then lightly stir fry all the veggies. I like to use my “half” wok for this. It gives me lots of room and its a lot less bulky than my full on wok.

I then remove the veggies and lightly brown the chicken smoked sausage. And then all the kids get back in the pool!

FullSizeRender 4 — *now season to taste!*

I like to then serve this over red beans and rice or just white or brown rice. Tonight I had red beans and brown rice! I also like to add some hot sauce at the very end. I prefer to add a jalapeno in with the bell peppers, but I didn’t have any on hand. I like Mexican hot sauce, sriracha, or Korean hot pepper paste. Tonight sriracha won.

This is quick and easy and can take a little as 15 minutes to prepare. The longest part is waiting for the rice to cook. For emergencies I often have a bag or two of the frozen steamer bags, which take about 3 minutes to heat. Or you can forgo the rice and just eat as is or wrapped in a low carb tortilla. It has a good mix of protein and fiber and is really filling. One sausage easily will last me two big meals or one big meal and two lunches. This is my go to dinner for nights I have running club. I come home cold, tired, and starving. This warm savory dish is perfect to recharging the batteries.

Spring Break!!!!

On March 19, 2016 By thearcticrunnerIn Alaska, Fairbanks, InkNBurn, InknBurn Ambassador, Make Alaska Great, Spring Break, UAFLeave a comment

As my friend T. would say, Sweet Baby Cthulhu, its Spring Break Week. Heading into the tail end of the week we got a day off, WOOT. So not only as a student did I get a break from class but as a Uni employee I got Friday off! So instead of sleeping in and drinking my weight in coffee, I hauled my tail to my office anyway. Time to catch up on all of the homework that I have been avoiding for weeks. Deadlines ticking in the background, I had to put my nose down and actually do the work.

Whew, this class is harder than I thought it would be. Advanced International Macro Economics. I have a great professor thankfully who is super organized and expectations and due dates are clearly outlined. If not for this and the fact she is in tune with the progress of the class I am not sure I would be able to make it through. I spent all day reviewing the lectures, which I took weeks ago, and finished my questions. Whew. I do think that I understand it better now.

To celebrate my completion of the long over due homework I took a stroll around campus. It warmed up nicely from the -17 in the am to a brisk 24 (above) by 3 pm. I so love the view from the West Ridge of Campus. I totally love our campus. Its small but amazing in a lot of ways. When the sky is clear you can see the Alaska Range behind me and there are amazing ski trails right behind my office. What more could you want. As I walk around our campus I can only think about our future.

As a student and employee of the University of Alaska I feel very protective of our institution, from Juneau-Anchorage-Fairbanks-Rural sites. Right now we are at a crucial time. The State of Alaska is cutting our funding putting world class education at jeopardy. World class instruction and training are more important than ever in our geographically isolated state. Not to mention the impact it has on jobs, the community, and beyond. It is time to speak up to our representative and let them know how important our University system is to the state, not just in our 3 main locations but all of the rural sites that we serve! We all want to do our part to balance to State budget, but we can’t destroy the systems that we have. Alaska is isolated enough as it is, cutting off our main avenue of Higher Education and Occupational training is crazy. As the oil field go idle with this low oil prices, occupational re-training is going to be essential to the continued economic growth of our beautiful state. (These are my opinions, not the University of Alaska)

I urge you to visit The Alaska State Legislature to find your local representative or make a general testimony and voice your opinion on the value of the University of Alaska and higher education and training.

Beware the Ides of March.

On March 15, 2016March 15, 2016 By thearcticrunnerIn Alaska, InkNBurn, RunningLeave a comment

March Clip Art #5183

Today may not have been a great day for the mighty Caesar but around here its a pretty good day. I may even have a Caesar Salad and I promise to not stab the dressing in the back in frustration when I can’t get the darn safety seal off! Not only the Ides of March but St. Patricks day is also coming up. This week is coming up green.

Another bright spot is that it snowed! Well….okay maybe it was just a skiff but it gives me hope that we just maybe will get one more good snow before it all melts away.

St. Patty’s run is this weekend but its going to be way to cold for me to wear my new awesome INKnBurn Lucky Charms 2 skirt. I might just wear it anyways over a pair of fleece tights because its so awesome. I will just have to dig out a green pullover to finish off the look and a hat, some kind of awesome hat.

It is also an amazing week here at work. Arctic Science Summit Week 2016 is being hosted here at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Hundreds of amazing Arctic Researchers, NGO’s, Industry, Government, and academia, from all over the globe are here along with the Arctic Council Senior Officials meeting. The whole campus is abuzz with excitement! Even our former fearless leader came from Vienna to participate in this incredible collaborative summit.

It is ramping up to be extremely busy and I am trying to get ahead of everything in the next three weeks before I leave for Kona! I cannot wait to enjoy the sun and tropical island. Midterms are next week and the Sonot Ski Marathon is the weekend after that. Whew a lot is going on and time management is killing me right now.

Ive been good about keeping the workouts in other than swimming. The pool schedule here is too crazy over spring break for me to manage. And indoor cycling gets harder and harder. Being in San Diego last month really made to long for being out on the open road with my trusty Wendy (my Cervelo P2).

Thankfully I have Friday off to catch up on school and midterm work….And I hope to get in at least one long run this week!

Time…..Never Enough Time.

On March 9, 2016 By thearcticrunnerIn Alaska, Running, triathlon3 Comments

I never seem to have enough time to do everything that I need to do in a single day. I see other people balancing work and life and I just cannot seem to get it right. I have a lot of commitments this semester. Work, School, System Governance, Girls on the Run Coach, Running Club North Board of Directors, RCN and Skiing club commitments, not to mention my own training and family. I tend to end each day too tired, too hungry…and sometimes too cranky.

I need to figure out better time management. I am the type of person that needs some amount of down time to myself each day. I think I am going to have to give something up but giving something up causes great anxiety. Do I stop volunteering? Do I give up one of my positions in Governance or board seat? I really enjoy all of the work I do. I love my Girls on the Run group, that is something that I just will not give up. These girls are a group of the most amazing 6th graders I have ever met. I want to be a good role model and coach to them. They deserve at least that much.

My house is a borderline mess, which for me is saying a lot. My standards are pretty high, but its about time I realize that a little bit of unclean laundry or sink full of dishes is not the end of the world.

Next week is Spring Break, thank goodness. A week without school commitments and Girl on the Run (due to break) so this is going to be my week of getting my shit together.

I have my goal race for the Spring in less than a month, LavaMan in Kona, HI and I need to get my butt in gear and ready for it and the amazing days of vacation I get along with it.

And just like this kitty, I am going to just hang in there as best as I can. Spring is coming and along with that more time, more daylight, and more motivation.

Musings of the Long Run…

On March 7, 2016 By thearcticrunnerIn Alaska, InkNBurn, Running2 Comments

Weekends are the only time I have the ability to do my long runs. The workweek is too crowded with work, coaching, school work, and my volunteer commitments to do more than about 60-90 minutes TOPS. Therefore I save the long run or the long bike for the weekends. Which in turn eats up sometimes up to half my day, from preparing – doing – recovery. There has to be a better way, that or I need to be organized. Doing anything in the winter just takes so much work to get ready. But I have my IceBugs running shoes, which are the best thing since sliced bread, and my trusty InkNBurn Healing Mandala Pullover to power my run.

Long run Saturday had me doing the big 12’ish mile loop that starts at my house. Just me the road/trail/path and my trusty Icebugs. No music no distraction. With no music to distract me the long run turns into a 2+ hour marathon of so down right wacky internal dialogue and possibly the singing of classic show tunes 🙂

11988282_10207940092600612_8561935392340832468_n — Icebugs are the BombDiggity

I am pretty sure that I solved the mysteries of time travel. All thanks to the great scientific theories that I learned watching Men in Black III the night before 🙂 So I figured out a way for me to also go back and time to 6 grade to tell myself that running is a good thing and you should do more of it….well obviously that didn’t actually work out as I finished out my run at a very slow 12 mm ‘ish pace 🙂 Maybe I just need to watch more time traveling movies to figure out the right way. Maybe that one with Gerard Butler where they use a fax machine to go back in time…..HMMMM I wonder where the heck I am going to find a fax machine?!?!?

Then that kinda phased into thinking about fax machines…then that lead to printers….then boom thinking about 3D printing myself a fancy new bike and all the fun things that you could do with a cool 3D printing. Then I realized I am way to poor to even think about the printer or new things. Saving money for a trip is sucking all the fun out of my shopping habit!

I pretended that instead of being 23 degrees outside and snow that it was 78 and sand. I have no idea how the heck I am going to deal with the heat and humidity of LavaMan Triathlon in Kona next month. I am going to be so unacclimated.

The plan was to do the full 12 mile loop but I kinda pooped out at about mile 8 or so. The bike path on that part of the road was all torn up and the snow was lumpy bumpy from all the snow machines that ride on it. Yeah….way up here in the arctic we don’t call them snowmobiles, but snow machines. Go Figure. I always thought a snow “machine” made snow not rode on top of it!

I guess all in all it wasn’t the worst it could be considering Im still technically in hibernation for winter.

12803051_10208681835783728_7512326186648015902_n — *InknBurn – Healing Mandala!*

Here is to hoping the the next run being even better!