Merry Xmas

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

First ride in the snow

Sunday I went for a short ride in the forest, it was the first ride in the snow this winter. It was so much fun that I can't wait for the next chance for another ride. Sadly my battery was dying so I couldn't take pictures but at least I could record the ride :)

PS: I was so busy lately that I forgot that 4 years have passed since I started this blog...

Body weight building

I like very much bodybuilding but it requires a lot of time. Recently I discovered body weight building which requires less time and I saw results faster. I'm lucky that we have at the office a power tower and it takes me less than 5 minutes a day to have a complete workout.

I started slowly, with only a few repetitions but as I get more powerful I can do harder and longer exercises. The winter is long and the human body doesn't have limits so who knows what can happen until spring. My main goal is to be able to do muscle ups and maybe walk on my hands.

Here are some videos for motivation:

New kitchen toy

I bough a new kitchen toy, a Moulinex meat mincer. But it is also a vegetable/fruit shredder and slicer, a mini food processor.

It is a great tool, I already used it to mince meat, to shred carrots, horseradish and onions. I will post a moussaka recipe soon  ;)

PS: If you are looking for some cheap electronics check out this link today because it is black friday again.

Night Ride

If you are looking for a way to spice up your rides (with more adrenaline) or you just don't have time to ride when there is natural light outside try to go for a ride in the dark.

There is a very nice trail around the city with a killer down hill at the end which is about 20 km long. It was perfect for a night ride. We had a bad start, a lot of problems with the light and branches but after that it was a nice ride. The speed seemed higher on the climbs, sometimes it was hard to let the brakes loose on the down hills. Check out the track here.

It was interesting that it was a lot warmer in the forest and it was very cold when we got out in the fields. It was a nice ride with a few small crashes and a flat tire. I hope I can go for another night ride soon.

Pictures from the Bicycle March

I've participated in the Bicycle March two weeks ago. It was almost like a Critical Mass...
It was smaller and more civilized than a CM but I think it was a good start.

(More about this in Romanian here)

New homepage

As you noticed (or not) I have changed the homepage.  I wanted to have a portfolio page for a long time and last week after reading a great tutorial (about how to set a static homepage for Blogger) I've made the necessary settings.

The next steps I have to make is to complete this page and make a next new contact page.

Movie batch

A few movies to watch in the weekend...

Le Tour de France 2013

The Tour is on again :)

For all you guys who don't have access to a tv you can watch the race live on the internet. I found a good site a few years ago where they post the links of the live streams http://www.cyclingfans.com/tour-de-france/live. Enjoy :)

Riding in the city

For a few weeks my city bike was broken so I used my mountain bike which has a cycle computer.

 The stats for the first week:
 - distance: 119.55 km
 - average speed: 15.5 km/h
 - maximum speed: 44.2 km/h
 - time: 7:41:33

The second week I had ridden 80 kilometers (including a short ride) and the third week I had about 65 km. I was amazed how many kilometers I ride with the bike in the city, the average is around 50-60 kilometers a week, that means about 2500 km a year :)

My first half marathon

Last weekend I decided to test my limits again. The fist edition of Mures Half Marathon was a big test for me because I've never run so many kilometers and I have basically no real training. The same thing happened last year when I decided to participate in a 100 kilometer race.

The main idea in these long races is to be prepared mentally and just focus on finishing the race. I thought that it will be very especially after running just 10 km on the treadmill in one hour. I was expecting to run about 2 hours and 10 minutes. I ended up finishing the race in 1:32:14.

The race wasn't really a half marathon it was only about 18 km long. I started slowly to warm up and I was very careful to drink and eat some magnesium candies almost every lap. In the first lap I though that I was too slow because I saw that my lap times were about 10 minutes. It took me a few laps to realize that one lap was supposed to be about 2km so my time was ok. 

The crowd was great and all those people gave me extra energy. The finish line was packed we people and a lot of kids who were handing out water. The 6th lap was the best lap, I thought that I was flying. The 8th lap was the worst because I didn't get no water in that lap and I was preparing for to more dry laps. But the next lap I got water and the last lap was only 8:28.

It was a very nice experience and I hope I can run again soon :)

Nettle omelet

Spring is here so there are a lot of fresh foods around for free, for example stinging nettle. On a Saturday morning before cooking my regular omelet I went out and gather some stinging nettle. I've washed them and put them in the pan with some water.

I left the nettle cooking while I was mixing the eggs.

I poured the eggs in the pan and cooked the omelet

Served with some cheese and toast it was delicious.

PS: eating stinging nettle is very healthy, if you don't believe me google it :)

Running on the treadmill

This week my football game was cancelled so I though I should test myself and run an hour on the treadmill. I got changed and with a bottle of water I selected a workout wit 3 hills. The first 10 minutes were very hard but after I got properly warmed up the time begun to pass faster. Every 10 minutes I drank some water because my mouth was drying out and I was sweating like crazy, this is why it is better to workout outdoor. 

The last 15 minutes were very hard also, I was trying to focus and find motivation while counting the minutes. I don't know how many times I thought that I want to stop for just a minute and get some rest. In the and I managed to run 10 kilometers in one hour, with 3 minutes of warm up and 3 minutes of cool down. I ended up burning 767 calories which is the equivalent of a big lunch. Even after an hour after the run I was still sweating :)

I hope that next time I will be running in the forest, that is the next new workout that I want to try out.

Happy Easter!

I wish you a Very Happy Easter!

Kellemes Husveti Unnepeket Kivanok!

Paste fericit tuturor!

Happy Easter!

Buona Pasqua!

Felices Pascuas!

Joyeuses Paques!

Frohe Ostern!

Bike parking in Targu Mures

In the city where I live there are some very old bike parkings, with old bike stands where you have to put one of the tires of the bike. If it is raining there is a big chance you will get dirty when you are tying the tire to the stand. To make thing worse these bike stands are put in some regular parking spaces where the cars have access, so they get unusable sometimes:

not even the police cares

But there is good news, new bike stands are starting to show up in the city. There is a nonprofit organization in the town and they are setting up the new bike parkings.

You can donate money for these bike stands or you can buy some stuff from their website, I bough a raincoat.

First Spring ride

The weather is so warm these days that you can say that Spring is already here. The ground is almost dry so we went for a short ride a few days ago.

Strava didn't record all the ride because it was looking for the gps signal but it only missed about 10 minutes. It was a very nice, it was cool that after a long winter I could descend with full speed, I didn't have to worry about slipping :)

Stats:
 - Moving time 00:48:16
 - Elapsed Time 00:52:00
 - Max Speed 51.3km/h
 - Avg Speed 15.1km/h
 - Distance 12.1 km

Healthy breakfast

My breakfast every morning at work is yogurt with cereals and honey. It is very delicious and it doesn't contain artificial sweetener and flavors. Here is my recipe:

about 300 grams of yogurt

4 tablespoons of  cereals wit nuts and dried fruits

one tablespoon of honey

mix it

This is a good breakfast wit a lot of vitamins, good sugars and proteins. You can use fresh fruits for an extra kick :)

One more winter ride

Last Sunday I went for a ride in the forest. Last week the temperature was high so most of the snow has melted and there was a lot of mud. Before the weekend it started to snow and on Saturday a few centimeters of snow was covering the mud. I hoped that there is enough snow so I went for a ride.

There was enough snow in the forest so it was a nice ride. It was slippery because of the wet snow and soe mud but it was a lot of fun.

My bike computer is not working so I don't know the statistics of the ride, but it was about 20 km long and way too much fun :)

This was probably the last snowy ride, spring is just around the corner.

Power Tools

Every man likes toys and every real man likes to have some power tools.

I bought an electric drill and it is very cool. Drilling holes in the wall is a lot of fun, this is a very powerful machine and it goes through the wall like your knife goes through butter. I'm looking forward to the next time when I have to drill some holes in the wall.

Tip for the girls: next week is Valentines day and if your bf likes to fix thing around the house get him some power tools

Winter rides

I had three rides this year in the snow, but I was to lazy to upload the pictures.

The first ride was a bit muddy, but it was fun:

The second ride was partly in the forest and partly on the road which was wet so i had to put all my clothes in the washing machine.

The last ride was this Saturday and I recorded it on Strava, and I will probably track my next rides to.

Stats:
 - distance: 12, 3 km
 - time: 1:39:04
 - average speed: 7,4 km/h
 - max speed: 27,3 km/h

2012 retrospective

As I did a year ago I'm writing a post summarizing the last year. Last year was a very fast year, although I rode only a few kilometers on two wheels there were a lot of big changes in my life. On two wheels my biggest achievement was that I completed a 100 kilometer marathon.

Stats for last year (about 1500 km, down from 3500 a year before):

 - a few hundred kilometers on the trainer
 - a few hundred kilometers on the city bike
 - 615.8 kilometers off-road, the clock is now at 8475.8

 - 300 kilometers on the road, the clock is now at 5954

I don't have a cool picture presentation like I had last year and I didn't ride as much either but I played football and spend a lot of time in the gym.

I have no big goals for this year, I only want to ride as much as I can (at least 30 kilometers every week with the city bike) and just be happy :)

Lasagna recipe

Lasagna (or lasagne) is Garfield's favorite food and one of my favorite dishes to. It is a relatively easy recipe but it takes some time to prepare it mainly because you have to make two sauces and then assemble it.

First you have to make a bolognese sauce like this:

put chopped onions and olive oil in a pot

after a few minutes add about 600 grams of ground meat (I prefer mixed ground meat, pig and beef), season with salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic

stir an cook until the meat gets brown

add tomato juice and/or whole tomatoes, season with oregano, basil,  rosemary and bay leaf

I added some frozen vegetables (corn, beans, carrots and peas)

Until the bolognese sauce is cooking (about 15 minutes) you can make the béchamel sauce:

put butter in a pot

when the butter starts to melt add flour and stir

add some milk

add milk and flour while stirring until you get the desired amount of sauce

season with pepper and nutmeg (very delicious and aromatic spice)

cook until the sauce thickens

The bolognese sauce

spread some butter in an oven pan

put one layer of béchamel sauce

and one layer of bolognese sauce

sprinkle some grated parmesan cheese

add one layer of lasagna pasta

Repeat these steps (béchamel sauce, bolognese sauce, parmesan, pasta) until you run out of sauces. Save some béchamel sauce to put on top of the last layer of pasta.

add  some cheese and some butter pieces on the top

cover it with a foil and put it in the oven for about 20-30 minutes, until the pasta gets tender  (check with a fork)

cut ii in small pieces and enjoy

Bon appetit!