We have visited the South Tower for the first time just a few weeks ago during The Prague Towers Game. I was sooo excited! I was just wondering why I had never visited it before?
Yes, you have to climb 287 steeply steps (which is not a big deal for me or my friends), but the view is even more stunning than you can expect.
I am often asked if I cook Russian food at home. I must admit, no I don’t. Since my early childhood a lot of Russian dishes seemed disgusting to me, especially, all kinds of salads with mayonnaise. I used to ask my mom to leave me all the salad ingredients separately and ate them as is.
I have been living in Europe for nine years now and ever since I moved I almost stopped to cook Russian food at all. Maybe the climate is not appropriate for such greasy food; maybe I found more interesting combinations, which I had never encountered living in Russia.
My mom came to visit me for the first time and started to cook some forgotten dishes from my childhood. They look so weird, but some are delicious. I got a present from my sister, a cup with fairy-tale heroes from one crazy Russian cartoon “The Hedgehog in the Fog” and I was happy as a child to eat food I had last time eaten many years ago in the dishes with very forgotten fairy-tale. Exciting!
As I am maintaining a healthy lifestyle and blah blah I want to share one recipe that is very high in proteins, easy and tasty. We ate it a lot with my siblings when we were children. It is called lazy vareniky, because you do not need to make dough or to roll curd cheese inside. It is all in one and it is very healthy.
For those, who are not familiar with curd cheese or tvorog (russian) or tvaroh (czech) or quark I explain.
Quark is a member of the acid-set cheese group. It is made by warming soured milk until the desired degree of coagulation (curdling) of milk proteins is met, and then strained. In Russian families, it is especially recommended for growing babies. It can be simply enjoyed with sour cream, or jam, sugar, sugar condensed milk, as a breakfast food. It is often used as a stuffing in blinchiki offered at many fast-food restaurants
Russian tvorog option is more hard than European. But in Czech Republic we can have almost the same. There are a lot of tvaroh to choose either hard or soft, because it is very common in Czech cuisine as well.
So I took 250g of hard tvaroh and 250 g of the soft one and mixed them together with one egg and a pinch of salt. Normally, we have to put sugar in it (about 2 table spoons), but remember, healthy food and do not put sugar. Then I take flour, in my case it is gluten free flour, and mix it in until it looks like soft dough (maybe about one cup or so). It must be really soft, almost the same as tvaroh or quark was before an egg was added. I feel like gluten free flour makes it much softer than normal one.
Then I make small balls or, another option is to cut it, as I did on the picture, then boil it in boiling water until they float (few minutes). Put small piece of butter on the top and a bit of icing sugar, if you want.
Another good recipe is a kompot. It is a traditional Russian drink – a kind of fruit and berry punch, but cooked in boiling water. Sometimes I add sugar, but more often I do not. Apples or pears make it sweet enough. I cook from frozen berries in winter and it tastes great. Can be drank cold or hot.
It has been three days since Prague Half Marathon. My emotions have settled down, my legs are not sore anymore and I am quite happy to share my experience with you.
I had prepared for the race a bit more this year. I wanted to beat my result and I wanted to see progress of my year around training process as well. First, I started a pre-race nutrition plan. I reduced, well, I almost excluded all sweets and unhealthy stuff. I was still gluten and meat free, which made my diet a bit tricky. The second day after I had started the meal plan I felt terrible. I had to miss several workouts, because I was weak and the baby was crying all night long. The start date was implacably approaching…
My husband took the baby the day before the race, so I had a chance to sleep all night. I even felt very strange as I had not slept uninterrupted for a long period. Notwithstanding I tried to have healthy breakfast the morning of the race: oatmeal. I could not eat that. I wanted peanut butter toast and I decided to follow my gut feeling. That was the right idea.
I met with my friends. We all were so cold. The weather was chilly and windy. I had my winter jacket on and I did not want to take it off for as long as I could.
I started in the middle of the coral E joining my friend. After the first 500 meters I felt my legs burning. I looked at my Garmin and saw that the pace was extremely fast for me (4:38min/k). I tried to slow down to 5:00/kilometer or even more. The first 5 kilometers I was battling with myself to slow down. But I did not want to listen to my mind. I was so excited, that I almost did a 5k PR, which is not a great idea when you run a half marathon.
Finally, I was very happy and running easily, so I made my 10k personal record. That was inspiring, but not for a long time. Right after the 11th kilometer I felt weak. I ate a gel, drank some isotonic and was ready to continue, when I saw 1:50 pacemaker passed me by. I tried to follow him, but I felt tired. It seemed I had run too fast during the first half. As much as I tried to keep my pace above 5:30, I often saw 5:45 and tried even more with the same result.
At the 18th kilometer I started to feel frustrated, but my husband came to pace me at the end. He was chatting a lot and that made me angry, because I could barely speak. He did many sprints to make photos and cheer me up. I think it helped and I sprinted the last hundred meters to the finish line.
1 hour and 56 minutes this time. Maybe I would have been able to do better, if I did not run so fast in the beginning. Next time:)
Never the less, I am the 558th out of 2708 women and 289/1339 in my age group, which is at the top 25%. Continue reading
It is only three days before Prague half marathon. I had participated in it last year, when I was breastfeeding my 7-month-old son. I was neither involved in much training that time nor in good shape at all after my baby had been born.
I have done a lot during the last year, but I am still terrified. What if I will have no improvement? What if I do worse?
I have been trying to survive on reduced calories diet of about 2000 calories per day this week. I am feeling so miserable with this experiment now. I am about to fail every minute and start eating cakes and sugars right away. Everyone asks me why. Why and why have I been doing this now or at all? I decided to support my sister in her weight loss goal. I did not only consider the fact, that I am running a race soon and that I need much more food than she does, even if we are quite same at the first glance.
I have been making a lot of fruit shakes this week. I found it more exotic to replace Greek low fat yogurt with a coconut milk.
As far as the vegetables go, I was lazy to go to a supermarket, so I had no fish, no gluten free bread and no cheese. I only bought a lot of vegetables in a small shop not far from my place and baked them. Vegetables, baked with cumin seeds, turn out amazing.
Disclaimer:
This is not sponsored post. All matches are accidental.
I joined the Adidas boost run workout this Tuesday. I like to run alone usually. But I wanted to have a kind of group running experience and to follow a coach and his or her leading technics.
I had already had group workout with Nike this year and I could not say I was happy about that. So I was a little bit skeptical.
I ran to the Adidas store, because of my skepticism, I was thinking, at least I would run longer workout to get to the store and back home running. There were already some people waiting for a registration to get a free Adidas t-shirt. I did not hope to get one, because I am a woman and I had sad experience at Nike run, where guys were rude to girls to get a stamp at their card first. Yes, it is 21st century and guys are ready to kick you out of a line saying only, “I am sorry!” Embarrassing… But unexpectedly I got one this evening. T-shirts were separated by women’s and men’s. What a great fresh idea:)
Adidas kindly offered us to give a try their new boost running shoes. I was very happy about this shoes even though I am reluctant to say this because they were expensive and they were promoted everywhere with Adidas pushing you to buy them.
In the past I had a lot of issues with different types of running shoes. I have had knee pain, calluses and heel pain as I run on my heels too much. But those, boost glide shoes made me happy to dispose of all that problems at one run. We ran up the hill, a lot of Prague’s paving stone streets in the city center and then down the hill, quite fast to pommel my heels as I usually did, when ran the same path.
We had to choose a group. There were 4 groups: a fast or sightseeing paced group with a distance of either 5k or 8k. I chose the 8k fast group led by Marcel, which was fast enough, but I would say it was intermediate level. Good for me.
Night Prague view from the hill
We ran about 2k, then had a stretch and ran about 7 and a half. Yes, at the end we had more than 9k and came the last of four groups, but I believed that everyone was happy about longer distance.
I was so thirsty and had hypoglycemia at the end that I had to run into the store and grab grapes branch and shove them into my month immediately. I have to balance my nutrition when training. I am always feeling hungry.
After run snacks
Concerning the event’s organization, I am pleased to say, “Well done, Adidas, and keep it up!”
The only thing I am not very happy about is that my half marathon discount to Adidas and the discount voucher I got there after workout, both could not be applied to boost shoes. What a pity!
People often ask me about my sunglasses. I wonder, if I could sell them online in Prague or the price for Czech is dramatically high? It is about 160-170 EUR. The same as a pair of good sunglasses like Adidas, Gloryfy or Oakley.
I have been wearing this glasses since 2012 and I am still very happy with them. I get many compliments about them all the time.
In winter:
or in summer
I have been in love with running for a long time, but all my attempts failed due to one simple reason: I did not own proper shoes. I had shabby ones, which were not good even for walking, then I had „proper“ ones, but nobody told me, that you have to buy shoes one size bigger for running. I ran and had calluses and every attempt had to stop. I read a lot about running and came to a conclusion to try minimalistic shoes. I got much better with them; so then I went to a local triathlon store for a new pair and for the pronation/supination test. There I met Marcel for the first time. He was friendly, but he was very skeptical about this minimalistic trend. I bought a pair of New Balance road shoes, in spite of all advice Marcel gave me and went to France for three months.
Later on, after I returned, I came again to the store. We talked about training for an Ironman 70.3 and, because Marcel was an experienced coach, I decided to train with him.
But life was changeable for me and after few month I found that I was pregnant with my second baby and I took a break, but we have been friends since that time.
Marcel is a personal trainer for runners and triathletes. Also, he runs “Runpremio” sport store in Prague, where he and his team are ready to help people to make the right choice about sport equipment.
I asked him for a short interview about his career and how all that started for my blog and for my friends who are in this sport.
Tell me about your racing period and your best achievements.
During my active racing years I had an opportunity to work with successful coaches and experts in running technics, nutritionists and psychologists, who are also important in long races such an Ironman. Through that, I achieved good results in half marathon (1:17), marathon (2:47), Ironman (9:33).
I know that you were a pacemaker in Prague Marathon. Could you tell about this experience?
I first encountered a pacemaker during my first race at Prague HM. I felt just one minute behind a 1:30 pacemaker. During the last 4 km he did an unbelievable sprint, so I was fairly disappointed. Two years later I was a 1:30 pacemaker on the same race and I did it exactly as instructed: 4:16 min/km. Then I was a pacemaker at Prague Marathon several times and the last time I was a 3:00 pacemaker at Prague International Marathon, which got gold label that year, the first gold label for a race in Czech Republic.
Once I had more and more clients, I decided to create unique conditions for them and since then I was a personal pacemaker for my clients, especially for their first races. Clients had a full service with immediate supply of water, nutrition and psychological support. This year I was a pacemaker at the marathon for a woman, who finished as the fourth Czech woman.
I am very interested to learn about your experience with Asics. Can you tell me how it works?
Running expert is a person, who presents his country at special meetings, where we evaluate pros and cons of new running collections and decide whether to accept or decline them for future seasons.. I went to a meeting in Amsterdam from Asics and in South Korea from Adidas. There were about 40-70 people from different countries, who were recruited by personal trainers, top sellers and sportsmen. It is always interesting to find out what trend is popular in which country, what their specialists recommend and how is running developing there. I mean, while in some countries minimalism is only a starting trend, in others – they are back to cushioning shoes. And of course, it is an honor for everyone to be there and take part in developing and testing running shoes, which are going to sell the next years.
I looked back to school PE time and found how many useful exercises we had to do. But that time, as far as I remembered, I had hated them and thought ¨That sucks!¨ I really really did not understand why we should do that boring and confusing stuff.
Now I think that PE education has to start from theory, even in school, even for 6 years olds. We all do better, when understand a process. Doing something without understanding even for small children cannot be as useful as when they are involved. So, I do remember old school this spring.
To tell the truth I like my abs, but every fall they start to disappear and at the end of a winter I can barely see them at all. Sometimes I feel like: “Its not fair, I train almost every day, where are my abs? “ But the truth is abs are made in the kitchen. As cold and rains come, I start baking. Guess, who eats that baked staff? I do. Have you ever felt so proud of your workout that you did not feel guilty for a piece of cake? I have.
But spring is here, I have even some flowers on my terrace, and everything will soon be new! New grass growing, new flowers blooming, new seeds sprouting and that first day in the warm sun can’t help but bring a smile to your face. And then there are the smells – fresh dirt, fresh laundry, and well, fresh just about everything! As our external world basks in all of this newness, many of us also look to make a new start within ourselves. Those New Year’s resolutions seem cold and dark compared to the hopeful, sunny expectations of a spring resolution. So let’s get started – what do you want to do?
Me want new abs. No cookies, no cakes, no sweets… no coffee (sounds impossible!) I have to sell out all my baking stuff
Introducing our new logo!
I could not stay away from triathlon theme, I’m sorry:)
This is summer version for now. Lets see… Be shape&fresh run&mom!
