The Fine Art Of Cross Country Racing

 

 

Cross Country Racing is much like survival of the fittest. Animals in the jungle fight tooth and nail for their lives to outrun the predator. A cheetah runs after a gazelle. The gazelle has to outrun even the slowest cheetah if it wants to survive in a race. It all begins in the starting boxes.

The blood in your system circulates around your body faster than the outrageous flow of Niagara Falls. The sweat in the palm of your hands collect as your fists tighten. The blood is pumping faster and faster as the arm of the starter raises up into the air slowly and sits there like the burning afternoon sun. The POP of a gun sends you off down the chute. You are the gazelle. All of the girls behind you are the hungry, vicious cheetahs trying to catch you. You keep telling yourself to “push ahead”, “keep going” and “don’t let up”. Meter after meter. Four thousand times.

You forcibly push yourself up the hills like they’re the greatest obstacles you’ve ever encountered. The smallest and steepest hills seem to be as big as Mount Everest.  My teammates, friends and family are lined along the course ever so strategically to give me that extra push of motivation to maintain my effort and speed. As I am advancing forward to outrun all of the cheetahs surrounding me, I realize that I am only behind 25 or so girls which meant I have already outrun 180 of them. With this extra peace of mind, I push through my last 400 meters. Breathless, weak, and nauseous, I finish 29^th/205. I am the 29^th gazelle to outrun 176 vicious cheetahs.

 Surviving in a race isn’t always easy but that’s what makes it one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences I have ever encountered.

Food Inc

Food Inc is a great documentary on Netflix that I'd highly recommend anybody to watch if you're interested in health or just the food industry in general.

Food Inc. was a very powerful documentary that brought forth a lot of information about the past, present and future food industry practices and techniques. The purpose of Food Inc. was to make the consumer aware of not only what goes on behind closed doors but also aware of where the food actually comes from and our buying power as consumers.

In the opening credits, we see a typical supermarket scene that uses classic pictures of farms and fresh air. This uses appeals to tradition. The film is later contradicted with scenes from a chicken coop that practiced harsh and cruel actions on chickens. The purpose of these contradicting scenes are to shows the consumers the contrast between what is marketed vs reality and truth. The information is implied in this documentary with the intent to open the consumer’s eyes to the truth. Other harsh scenes are presented with dark, ominous music scores to set the tone and mood.

When we are introduced to Kevin’s mom, the film uses appeal to emotion. The tone of the film shifts slightly different depth of emotion. Images of Kevin flash across the screen with a narration of his story. This also uses course of action because of the laws and bills that Kevin’s mom tried to get passed. She made sure to take these issues to legislation and get more officials who had more power to change the food industry which allowed for more publicity to make it a public movement, requiring a bigger crowd of action. It was meant to support the claims of unsanitary, harsh conditions supported by the meat industry. This related back to the purpose of the film that opens the consumers’ eyes to the dangers and sketchy-ness of the origin of meat product.

The film shows how much of an impact the general public has on controlling the food industry by sharing the history of fast food. They use upbeat music and images that display the typical “American Way”. This uses populum and appeal to emotion. Once we had been set up to understand our impact on American food culture, we are taken inside of the industry again, similarly in-depth like the meat industry with dairy and produce. This is done with the rhetorical device of course of action. This showed us the recent demand for Organic dairy and produce. We are introduced to a farmer who worked at a dairy to produce organic products for Walmart, explaining that their consumers had demanded a wide variety of yogurt; so more had been produced to be put on shelves. This was done by using course of action (explaining the demand and showing the fulfillment of the demand) and claim of reality (showing the industries for what they really are and how they operate)

Food Inc used many strategies to achieve its purpose including ad populum, course of action, appeal to emotion, claim of reality and many more. The purpose of Food Inc. was achieved by showing the consumers the truth of the food industry, the source of food and buying power of the consumers.  (542)

Runner's Rut

A trend I've noticed with myself is that I get stuck in a runner's rut. I have no idea if that's even a term but if it's not then I'll coin it as my own. My own personal definition of a runner's rut is really hard to explain. It feels like no matter how hard I try, or how much effort I put into the workout, I get nothing in return. I hit a wall. Usually hitting a wall doesn't happen unless I get out too a fast in a race and try and pick myself back up towards the end.
The last few weeks during track I've felt really tired, sluggish and overworked. Even on the easiest workouts I could feel myself just hitting a wall. It's been almost 3 weeks and I'm still stuck feeling like there's no way out. I've tried different variations of running within the assigned workout to try and switch things up but even that doesn't seem to help. I've tried changing paces and running different splits a bit outside my assigned time frame.
Yesterday, at the very start of our workout, coach said something to me. He asked; "Are things just falling apart?" I said "Yeah, and they have been for a while." It's really disappointing to think about how much of a better runner I was just a short time ago during cross country. I feel like I'm on a constant decline and it's really worrying me.
I talked it over and there seems to be some hope left for me. I don't know the exact problem or the cause for that matter, but I think I can bring myself back.
Coach said something about how he tracked his progress with a heart rate monitor. He made himself stay within a range to keep his heart rate steady, running at a very slow pace. Within 2 weeks, he said he had cut off 2 minutes on each mile at recovery pace. I'm looking forward to trying it because it seems like it's worth it. I really have nothing to lose by taking it easy and trying something new.
As the saying goes, "Do what you've always done, and you'll get what you've always gotten." (372)

Mashed Cauliflower

I've seen a recipe for making mashed cauliflower that resembles mashed potatoes. I've always wanted to try it. A lot of people make it for the reason that it doesn't have as many carbs as potatoes do. I'm not really concerned about that but I think it's a good swap if you want something lighter or something higher in fiber. There are a lot of health benefits of cauliflower and not a lot of people eat it. I think it's pretty nasty when it's raw because it's just a bunch of crunchy nothingness.
Anyways, so you can use frozen or fresh cauliflower. They're both going to deliver the same health benefits. (Some say frozen vegetables don't have nearly as much nutritional value as fresh veggies do but it's actually a myth. Frozen vegetables have a greater health benefit because they are flash frozen immediately after they are picked and washed, preserving their vitamins. Fresh vegetables are transported across the country in a matter of days and sometimes more than a week causing them to lose not only their freshness but vitamins too.) Go ahead and cook the vegetable until you're able to separate it with a fork, that's how you know that it's done. Next, add it into a food processor with salt, pepper, garlic, almond milk and herbs. If you want to add butter (I'd use non-dairy butter on mine) you can add it in before you start to pulse it. Pulse it in the food processor until it resembles mashed potatoes. Then it's done!
It's a much lighter substitute to mashed potatoes that are lower in calories and high in fiber. The texture will really depend on how much almond milk you use to thicken or thin them. If you use too much, they may be runny.

Flavored Water

A widely known rule of the fitness industry is "don't drink your calories". A lot of the IIFYM "flexible dieters" follow this rule. They also are huge advocates of drinking lots and lots of water. Their reasons for this during bikini prep (for a show) is to reduce boating, water retention and to flush out toxins.
The problem is, many of them say "I hate drinking water" or "It doesn't taste good" or "It's hard to reach my water intake goal because I get bored". So I've seen a lot of people use flavored water packets to help them reach their water intake goals. Crystal Lite, powdered Gatorade, Propel, Mio, etc.
I personally don't think this is such a bad idea, but of course, just like everything else in life, it's all about moderation. A lot of the powders have hidden ingredients. First, let me back track with a short story. So I was looking in my pantry for something when I found a box of peach tea powder that you mix in with a 2 quart jug of water. I re purposed it into making my own stronger, more concentrated version of it by filling up my own regular water bottle and adjusting how much powder went into it. This got me thinking about how much I loved the Propel packets I used to mix in with water bottles.
I did my research and compared boxes to find that a majority of them have artificial sweeteners, as expected. However, not all have fake dyes and added sugar. In fact, some have added vitamins which made the ingredient label appear longer than it really is.
If you are the type of person to get addicted to things very easily, I'd recommend that you get the packets that don't have any dyes or the ingredient aspartame. If you can't help but to love the bright red and yellow colors, here's my strategy: Drink an 8 ounce glass of PLAIN water. Then "reward" yourself with a 16 ounce bottle of your flavored water, and alternate them to help ease up on the consumption of artificial ingredients.
Flavored water isn't exactly "healthy" but there are a lot worse things out there than drinking calorie free water. And at the end of the day, if it helps you reach your goals, then go for it.

School Food

Over the past few years, the department of health and nutrition has been under fire for a few different reasons. There are so many questions as to why schools aren't offering very many healthy options for school lunches.
Most kids eat at school because they may not get meals at home if they live in poverty. Because of this, it's important for schools to offer good food with a lot of nutritional value to ensure that America's kids are getting enough nutrients to grow and excel in school.
Over the past few years, there have been new set laws and guidelines for nutrition in school lunches. I know that a few of them have some loopholes. A lot of them sound like a sorry excuse for nutrition. For example, the one that gets me the most is the fact that tomato sauce on pizza is counted as a vegetable as well as French fries. If these junk foods qualify for being nutritious, I feel like that's major issue.
I do applaud Michelle Obama's work because I have noticed that there are healthier snacks and more fresh fruits and vegetables offered than in the past. I remember in middle school when dessert was offered every single day and you could even pay extra to get a second serving of cookie dough. I used to buy chocolate chunk rice Krispy treats every day. I was still stick skinny but it wasn't an excuse to get junk food at lunch.
Even though there are healthier snacks offered, I have to go back to the topic of having absolute crap food as a main dish. How is popcorn chicken, nachos, corn dogs and pizza a healthy meal that will provide kids with proper nutrition and sustained energy? They're filled with oil, grease, and fat. Food is made in factories and froze to be shipped off to schools for the lunch ladies to pop into the oven. Food isn't actually made from scratch anymore. All school food is continence food. I feel like that is part of the problem.
There have been a lot of improvements in school lunches over the past few years, but we still have a long way to go as a country. (371)

Eating Out

A lot of people wonder how my friends and I can eat decently at restaurants. Ever since my friends and I have been eating more plant based, I've noticed how easy it is to make simple changes to make it fit specific dietary needs. Now, I don't eat out very often at all. Maybe a dozen times per YEAR. I know that seems crazy when I hear my friends going out to eat at least 3 times per week.
Just today, I went to get coffee with a friend. I normally never go to starbucks but since it's Friday, I offered to buy us a special treat. Plus triple shot espressos help me make it through my 13 hour days. I usually had bought a triple shot nonfat latte made with skim milk, which wasn't a good idea because I'm lactose intolerant anyways. Today I switched it up to help fit my plant based "needs". I switched to coconut milk instead of skim. They also offer soymilk but since there are health concerns with soymilk, I opted for coconut. I couldn't really taste it at all, even with absolutely no flavoring. Starbucks charges and extra $.60 for milk substitution. I personally think somebody who's vegan or has milk allergies shouldn't have to pay extra just to get coconut or soy milk instead of regular. That seems dumb to me.
At restaurants that mainly serve meat and dairy based dishes, it can be a bit more difficult to avoid consumption of these products. A few good places to eat out with friends are places like Chipotle, Hu Hot, etc. At chipotle, I'd order a burrito bowl with beans, rice, corn and salsa. Completely plant based and a healthier option than being weighed down by a floury tortilla and mounds of meat. At Hu Hot, the same rice based dish applies. I have actually never been there but I know that they offer a wide variety of vegetables. It would be pretty easy to get a bowl of rice with string beans, peppers, etc. I personally don't worry too much about sauces and things like that. I would definitely avoid buttermilk ranches and soy based sauces but other than that, I wouldn't really worry about dairy making it's way into it. If you order sauces and dressings on the side of dishes, you can control the amount that you're having.
I do like the fact that a lot of restaurant chains do offer a lot of options these days. You couldn't get them 10 years ago, which is a nice improvement to see. (431)