Taking it easy before the decline

I've been getting more and more tired over the last couple of weeks. Two factors: not getting enough sleep; and intense work days.  And it's been having a detrimental effect on my ability to recover from training.  So on Friday morning I woke up with a really sore throat, sore inside my ears and a stuffy feeling in my head.

I thought it'd wear off over the first couple of hours, as those things often do, so I went in to work.  But by 10am it was getting worse and I was getting more and more tired, so I decided to get the important meetings out of the way and head home.  Sacking off my T1 brick training session and crashing out to bed I slept through until 5am, when Mr TOTKat got up for his trek to a far away parkrun.  Within seconds, I was back asleep again until 7am when the daylight lamp and radio woke me again.  I turned off the lamp and fell back asleep one more time until about 8.30am.  And ohboy did I need it.  I really think I needed to take that little break and have a good ol' sleep to avoid the beginnings of sliding towards over training.  Better to pull away from the brink way before I get anywhere near it than not.  I've still got a sore throat this morning, but it's not so bad so I'll train today and try out my spanky new tri suit (2011 Speedo LZR Triathlon Pro suit - don't forget the "UK15" voucher code if you're buying from Wiggle between 13/03/2012 14:00 GMT and 22/03/2012 14:00 GMT).

I tried it on and it's really very tight, and looks good apart from a bit of back fat around the arm holes, but really very light and sounds like a canvas shopping bag!  Can't wait to feel what it's like in the water.
I did also get the 2XU compression tri suit which is fantastically soft and comfortable.  It'd be good to do a couple of time trials with those two on to see if there's a material difference in how I feel when racing in them, in terms of comfort and speed.

I almost called this a rest day...

Cycling to work has become so normal already that I almost entitled this post something related to having a rest day. But hey, I cycled 30km. I didn't go to the gym, but I did cycle 30km. It is a taper week, so I don't feel -so- bad about not doing any weight training, but I'll maybe give in and go tomorrow. It depends if I can fit it in.

Today, I still have that background nausea I get with throat infections, but no sign of an actual infection. Yes my throat is sore (less sore than yesterday, thankfully) and my eyes and ears feel hot (and I have a temperature that's about 0.8C higher than my usual), but there are no typical white sores on my throat, so...

Dinner tonight was my first foray into using quinoa (and yes, that's a slightly exploded poached egg on top of the salmon in the photo *ahem*). I can't say I'm all that impressed. It takes ages to cook, so is less convenient than couscous. It's not easy to cook - you need to simmer it until it absorbs all of the water, the same way you do with some styles of rice and is also a method for couscous on the hob, but it takes 20 minutes! It doesn't even taste great. It's not horrible, but there's none of the nuttiness of couscous. Yeah, I keep comparing it with couscous, but that's where I'm coming from as an alternative. Hey ho. Maybe it'll be good in stews when it gets cold.

Any suggestions?

I'm sulking at home today - rotten sore throat which came on yesterday morning and got worse through the day and night to real ow proportions this morning.  I'm hoping it will bugger off swiftly in time for the cleaner coming tomorrow, never mind stuff that needs doing at work and the last TTT on Monday...

Anyhoo, I'm sore, sleepy, hungry and need recipe ideas for something based around some Kara coconut milk - I really want to try this and now is as a good a time as any.  I have lots of fruit (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and mango) and the usual clean-food freak with a protein habit on the side stuff in the fridge and cupboard (though no spinach at the moment, so I can't have a Green Monster).  The Kara web site has a whole one drink recipe idea and even I could have come up with "whizz it up with strawberries and a sweetner of some kind"... though that does sound nice, it's also a bit on the boring side!  So... people, help me out with something I can have that's not going to be more than 250kcals or so.  Otherwise I'm gonna sit here under my furry blankie and get grumpier and grumpier with hunger!