Paleo Creek!

I am struggling to get motivated. Well it is either that or I just completely lack focus. I am so unfocused and unmotivated that I can’t decide.

This always seems to happen after coming home from a fantastic trip. And although I already have the next couple of trips somewhat planned – which should inherently make me motivated since I will be ice climbing in LESS THAN TWO MONTHS IN BOZEMAN – it is hard for me to fall back into everyday life at home sometimes.

This especially happens when I come back with a bit of a tweak or strained muscle and I can’t fall right back into my fitness routine which seems to ground my entire day.

The annoying thing is that I *thought* I had actually escaped the Creek unscathed – well save for my forearms which “Supercrack” took a nice little bite out of (and that have left me tons of scabs that I cannot.stop.picking!!!!!!).

Supercrack scrapes. They look even better now that I have been picking them!

My last trip to the Creek in April resulted in a VERY strained bicep, which I had also strained doing mixed climbing in Ouray earlier this year AND ice climbing in Ouray last year…and well, it is obviously just a persistent injury that doesn’t take much to rear its ugly head. It actually felt fine the whole time in the Creek save for some yucky twinges in the squeeze chimney at the Battle of the Bulge and a wee bit on the awkward mantle on the South Six Shooter. But as my body tends to do on “recovery” days, all the aches and pains come out. I tested it with a 30-minute row on Sunday and it still felt a bit buggered. So, I am totally bummed about it, especially since I expected to come home and start training on the Concept2 hardcore in prep for C.R.A.S.H.-Bs.

Alas, what can I do? I skipped CrossFit this morning because it involved an obscene amount of ring dips for a strained bicep, which leaves me taking a complete rest day (and is in fact most likely what I actually need, but I don’t WANT (wah, wah, wah) because it leaves me feeling unmotivated and unfocused, see?! I mean the point of this post isn’t supposed to be dealing with my bicep, geez!

Speaking of CrossFit, this weekend I am going to go to training for my Level 1 Certification! I am very excited about this because I will also be staying with my sister at her new apartment in ATL. I expect us to cook and eat lots of yummy paleo food and am excited to see what she looks like after starting her own paleo journey this summer (and see her sweet new pad!).

On that note (the paleo note AND the trip note) I am happy to finally get into the meat of this post (focus, Maija!) and report that it is possible to eat paleo in the Creek! Thanks to Danika for letting us use some coolers we were able to keep fresh eggs and veggies at the ready along with some chicken in a bag and dehydrated meat from US Wellness Meats. Here is what a typical day looked like:

Breakfast: Coffee + paleo banana bread as a starter (one awesome thing about the Creek is the lack of alpine starts!). For the main course we scrambled eggs with nitrate- and sugar-free dried beef & salami from US Wellness Meats and onions and topped it off with 1/2 an avocado and some salsa (Danika’s dog Ave also enjoyed it when I “dropped” this meat while cutting it). That was plenty of food to keep us climbing until well into the afternoon.

Lunch (which is actually just snacks throughout the day in between climbs): Carrots. Lots and lots of carrots (which I love), almond butter in a squeeze pouch, Lara bars, hard boiled eggs (for me) and jerky for the boy.

Dinner: A cucumber or some celery sticks with almond butter for the antipasti (along with some wine or Jack Daniels after a hard day of sending!) followed by a stir fry of peppers, onions and chicken in a bag with salsa & avocado (which can make everything taste better). Some nights we had a “chicken salad” instead which required no cooking as it was a hash of chicken in a bag, avocado & a bunch of veggies. Sometimes for desert I would have a few little bites of my paleo pumpkin granola (aiming for the dates and pecans to get paired on the spoon together and make sweet magic in my mouth!).

My body was sooooo grateful for me sticking to the paleo plan while in the Creek and not gumming it up with any dairy or gluten. Staying relatively clean (save for the alcohol on a few nights) really helped me sleep well at night (except when the coyotes started howling, which I just love to hear anyways!) and feel fully recovered each morning. For me – not being an awesome climber – I get WORKED in the Creek! I actually climbed tons better this trip than my last one, but it is still such a *physical* place to climb. One of my favorite things about the Creek is that for everyone there is a crack size that just sucks. And so no matter how “good” you are, you can find something in the Creek that is hard. Or if you are me you can think almost everything is hard. Except gold cams, which I love. But never mind all that, I will be writing a separate trip report anyways!

I actually did find some dairy-free gelato in Moab too which was a fantastic treat on our rest day, and after our last day climbing the South Six Shooter. The Moab Brewery had a THIN MINT dairy-free gelato that was just BOMB. I am still thinking about it. Hellz bellz that was tasty stuff.

Crazy awesome Chicks sighting in Moab (at the Moab Brewery home of BOMB gelato) where I ran into Cheryl & Kate who were in town for Outerbike! We got to eat dinner with these two awesome gals, who I will be seeing again in just a few weeks!

As to the not so tasty stuff, I have to say that the chicken in a bag totally tasted like tuna. I don’t know why. It SAYS it is chicken, but if you didn’t know you might suspect it was tuna. The boy agrees with me there so the salsa was a critical element to covering up the tuna taste (hot sauce for him). And it worked pretty well, and my body was thankful for the protein regardless of the taste.

I know you are probably wondering why I don’t have photos of my food from the Creek, and it’s because I rarely had my phone with me to take any. Why? Because in the Creek you are in the blissful land of NO SERVICE which means the days are so simple: Wake up. Poop in a bag (yes, poop in a bag). Drink coffee. Eat breakfast. Go climbing. Send! Come back to camp. Sit around complaining about how toes hurt from jamming them in cracks. Put on lots of layers when sun goes down. Eat dinner. Go to bed. Listen to coyotes. Nowhere do you check your phone x 12 looking for text messages, FB posts, Instagram photos or Tweets. It is blissful. And it makes me wonder how much time I waste every day doing that (which means A LOT!)

Raven in a tree in Arches National Park on our rest day.

So, I leave you with one little treat because it CANNOT wait until my next post which lists all my latest recipe wins. Trust me, this is THAT GOOD – Chocolate Mousse http://vegan-magic.blogspot.com/2012/09/chocolate-mousse-no-added-sugar.html with only four ingredients and it is TO.DIE.FOR. P.S. I have found that some of my favorite “paleo deserts” are made by vegans. Funny, huh? And by funny I mean since I now eat animal protein 3x/day whereas they never do. Ironic. But, they sure do know how to make some yummy dairy-free treats!!!