January 1st, 2013 - A Walk on the Gower

It didn't stop raining for the last 10 days of 2012.  Every day it rained.  Some days I went for a run in the rain, some days I went for a cycle in the rain.  But by Dec 28th I had enough and I didn't go out in the rain.  I sorted my clothes and I listed things on eBay and I cleaned my kitchen and I slept a lot.  I figured I gave it a good shot - the world was telling me to not exercise and who was I to argue with the weather.

On Dec 31st we sat around a sometimes rainy fire on the Gower - one of the most lovely places in South Wales.  It rained in splotches all evening, but dried around 9pm.  At 12:05 I went to bed, because I am not a party animal.  I hibernate.

When we woke up there was a yellow orb in the sky!  It was blue all around, and green, and not wet at all!  Happy January 1st!

So we went for a bit of a walk:

Ben was our guide.

The sun was out, but it was cold!  I dont think my camera knows how to photograph really white skin in a really bright sun!

There was a sand dune, and some of our group ran up it.  The small black lump is one of our group sliding down it.  I did not have the energy, so I was photographer.

Here's hoping for more SUN in 2013!

Happy New Year! 2012 review and some 2013 goals!

Happy new year!  2012 was a pretty awesome year!

I got to visit lots of places:

January - Israel

(With Andy) 

 May - Portugal

June - Holland/Belgium/France (cycle touring!)

(With Andy)

July - Morocco

(with my brother Zachary)

August - Rome!

(With Lois and Geraint)

I cycled loads, and acquired my first Road Bike!

I succeeded well in my resolution to buy less crap - I have mostly shopped in charity shops for work clothes and own a good selection of quailty outdoors gear from proper retailers

I've cooked more an eaten better - I learned to cook better asian food (another resolution)

It's been a pretty epic year, but 2013 is gearing up to be even better!  I've made a few resolutions, some fitness, some food, some quite specific.  

My first resolution (more of a goal!) is to learn how to do 10 push ups!!!

Right now I can do...

.... 1/2 a push up.  I can't get back up. 

Any tips for being better at pushups?  Girl pushups are lame and I can do those forever, I think I just need to keep trying for a pushup and eventually I'll... push up!

Happy 2013 y'all!

Fire Island Cardiff: Restaurant Review

My intention with this blog was most about food - but then I found it easier to write about exercise.   There are already some awesome and well established food bloggers in Cardiff - Nicky at Your Last Mouthful, Nicki at the now disbanded Cardiff Bites, Lifestyle award winner Ed from Gourmet Gorro, and Stephen from The Aptly named Stephen Nottingham's Food Blog to name a few.  All of them are great, all of them make me hungry, but as Ravenous Rachel I figured I may as well lend my few cents to the world of people writing about the food they eat.

My first review is of Fire Island Cardiff - the new venture from Beatbox Bars - the guys behind Buffalo and Ten Feet Tall.  Fire Island is a new cask ale and craft beer bar in Cardiff specializing in BBQ food.

I love BBQ.  I love Beer.

I hoped I would love Fire Island.

We went as part of a group booking and tried the Christmas menu.  Unfortunately one of our group couldn't come - and the food was pre-ordered.  Fortunately, this meant I got to try loads more than I initially ordered.

For starter I pinched someone's basked of ribs.  It was, in one word, delicious.  I'm not sure if I've ever had ribs before, mostly because they seemed so messy (I know, I lose loads of food blogger cred for this) but this messy was good.  This messy was tender and tasty and succulent and a bit crunchy in bits and soft in others... perfect.  I wouldn't say it was the best BBQ ever, or even whether I know exactly what sauce they used, but I would say that it was well done BBQ food and if someone served it to me at a BBQ I would try to be their friend. It was served with a nice pot of dipping sauce - and I do love a good sauce.

I know my photo isn't great,  but to take a photo before eating it all was success enough for me!

With an Anchor Steam to wash it down my night was off to a good start.

More Food! Pulled Pork sandwich!

Pork was soft and delicious.  Melt in your mouth good!  Well flavoured - not too spicy but with a taste that lingers.  The jar of pickle(?) that accompanied it went so well with the pork - balanced the bbq flavour without overpowering it.  I'm not a fan of mayonaise so didn't try the potato salad, but all in all I was very pleased with the order.  At £8.50 I would definitely order it again.

At this point I tried the Flying Dog beers.  From Maryland, I never drank them when I lived in DC but I jumped at the oppertunity to drink them here!  Raging Bitch was probably my favourite, an 8.2% Belgium Style IPA went down like it was way less strong.  Same with the 7.1% snake dog.  Easy drinking with an ABV to keep the night rolling!

Okay, so I'm only 75% through this post and I already want to go back.  I want to eat BBQ and I want to drink beer.  But anyways...

Dessert!

Chcolate-y.  Decadent.  I was only going to have one bite.  then I had all the bites.  I don't think I needed dessert after all the delicious meats, but it's nice to have something on offer different from the standard brownie or ice cream.  Some others in the group ordered a crumble with custard, the custard came in an adorable pot and was creamy and scrumptious, the crumble just the right amount of crunchy and sweet.

All in all a lovely place to eat and share a few beers - different than what Cardiff already offers.  Even thought I didn't write about them here Fire Island specializes in fine and local craft ales - I'll be doing a beer post sometime soon with the help of my brewer half.   This would be a nice place for a casual evening, food before a film,  or a date with an awesome girl (or guy) who likes good beer.  I just hope it stays about the food and the cask ales, It's found quite a niche separate from the sometimes cookie-cutter city-centre offerings.  Well Done Fire Island!


Details:
Fire Island Cardiff
http://fireislandcardiff.co.uk/
02920 236091
8 Westgate Street,
Cardiff

Friday Ride

Happy friday!  I'm still off work for that Christmas - New Years break, so today all I had to do was go see my good friend Jen and her adorable baby in Risca.  I looked on the internet and Risca is only 12 miles from me - "Up the valleys" as they say, so I decided to cycle.

I got ready and looked like a douchy cyclist, wearing my new bib and cold weather gear! So I put on a tee-shirt (from another cycle - the Taff Trail ride 2012) to look less like a douche.

The first bit of the ride was fine, a bit rainy, and unseasonably warm.  

 After the first 8 miles I had a bit of a nightmare when the road became steeper and steeper - apparently there are 2 fairly big hills between Cardiff and Risca.   Here is the elevation chart (the middle bar is 500, the top line is 750):

I took this photo because it was really steep and rocky and horrible and I ended up walking down a mountain about 2 miles.  But the photo looks nice so I'm not sure why I didn't ride down :/

It felt more like this. 

Except with more gravel, and I was walking, and wearing clip shoes, and holding a road bike.

 This is what Risca looked like.

 And this is me thinking "what the hell am I doing:

And this is my bike on the train home, because that ride was 8 miles of ouch and 4 miles of terrible. 

I should do it again sometime, I couldn't ride much worse than I did.  Maybe with a mountain bike next time.

Or a big heaping slice of RULE 5

An Independent Triathlon Thursday

Today I did what I've decided to call an "Independant Triathlon" An Independent Triathlon is where you go for a swim and a run and a ride in the same day but transition includes watching tv and tweeting.

It all started this afternoon when I was feeling antsy but didn't know what to do, so I did some laps around Maindy Track because I had no better ideas.


When I got back I watched an episode of storage wars, then did a fairly slow 5k (34 minutes).


I wondered if my lethargy was caused by the fact that I've eaten nothing but cheese and bread and chocolate and more cheese and more bread for the last 3 days.  So I made this shrimp and veggie stir fry with noodles and avocado and Sriracha:

om. flipping. nom.

I love Sriracha.  It is like spicy asian heaven.  Sometimes food does not have enough spice, and I just add Sriracha, and KABLAMO food is delicious.

So spicy. So delicious.

In the evening Andy and I went to the Cardiff pool for swim training with the Cardiff Tri club. We got there a bit early, so like true athletes we spent 30 minutes on the slides:

HORRAY SLIDES!

All in all it took me 6 hours for my independent triathlon.  Also everything was in the wrong order, and the distances were wrong too!  How wrong? So wrong!

1) bike 9 miles (35 minutes)

Transition: 1 hour

2) run 3.3 miles (35 minutes)

Transition: 3 hours (including dinner and playing on slides)

3) Swim 1.25 miles (60 minutes)

Then I ate cake with ice cream.  That's recovery eating, right?

Merry Christmas! Dancing & Cleaning & Cardiff Park Run!

On Saturday I went out dancing with two of my favourite people in the world.  I took terrible photos like this:

And sang terrible songs by artists like Taylor Swift and Fall Out Boy.  It was an excellent night, and while I was not entirely drunk I was entirely awake until 4am and that effectively caused sunday to be a day of lounging and sleeping and eating.

Monday of Christmas eve we had a clean of the house.  I decided to see if we could move the oven as stuff had fallen behind it for the last 18 months of living here.  It turns out we can move the oven.  It turns out that we are disgusting people who don't clean under our oven for 18 months.

Mega Yuck!

After cleaning I made dinner, which I forgot to photo but which was delicious.  and then we watched Love Actually in the Clean living room, which looked so awesome I had to take a photo. And we ate my favorite desert, which is M&S Sticky toffee pudding with clotted cream ice cream.  MEGA YUM!

 On Christmas Day I woke up at 8am for Park Run, which was delightfully festive and only mildly wet! Much better than Saturday!

I forgot to take off my jacket before we started so ended up carrying it around the course.  I think I also missed the photographer, I never know whether to smile or frown or run faster or slower.  I don't photograph well while running, probably because my red face blends right in to my red hair.

My Time was 30:32, which was faster than Saturday (by 4 minutes haha) but not my best of 30:00. 

I think it's about time for some food posts, so stay tuned for my recap of a delicious meal at the new Fire Island Cardiff and the Established but unique I Cook Thai.

A christmas eve cycle and some Christmas-y presents!

Happy Christmas Eve everyone!  Today it was only mildly rainy, so I got on the bike for a little jaunt to try out my new cycling gear!  My dad bought me a very exciting selection of base layers and other awesomeness, I now own the complete DHB set, including the ever sexy cycling bib:

Bibs are the new Little black dress!

I also now own the following Merino base layers:

So warm! So quality! So comfy!

Unfortunately my gear to idea ratio is a bit high now - I have more cycling gear than skill.  But if not being cold (or riding in the rain) count as skills then I'm moving forward rapidly!

Yay more cycling!  Thumbs up for base layers!

After the ride we stopped at Maindy track, purely so I could finish my goal of not being The Slowest Rachel.  It worked, and now I'm 8th of the ladies, with 3 ladies slower than me.  Horray!

I need to adjust my mudguards, because I broke them on the first ride and now I come home looking like this:

hahaha poopy butt!

Anyways, now it's time for a massive house clean and a delicious dinner of discount M&S Salmon with discounted Morrisons ravioli and expensive M&S rocket!  NOM NOM!

Happy Christmas Eve Y'all!