More Popcorn and a Triathlon

So in all the haste and excitement of signing up for summer races this year, my friends and I decided we really wanted to get in on the HyVee Triathlon.  It's apparently a pretty big deal.  It's an Olympic qualifier event, they give away over a million dollars in prizes, and athletes from all over the world to swim in our lake, bike on our streets, run to our capital, and eat our free post-race cookies.

There were, of course, a couple mild problems with wanting to compete.  At the time of singing up, A. I hadn't swum further than the distance between the pool bar and the deep end in about 5 years... and B. I didn't own a bike. Solution: Find two saps friends to form a relay team who will do the swim and bike while I run.  They do the parts I don't like, and I get all the glory of crossing the finish line and getting a medal.  Love it.

So to say thank you to these fine women, without whom I would not have been able to participate in this event, I made popcorn.  Our swimmer had tried my birthday cake popcorn that I made awhile back (after it sat in the car for 36 hours, melted, and reformed into a gallon sized bag hunk of deliciousness) and despite all this, she loved it.  So I made a couple new varieties- half of which we shoved into our transition bag to munch on during the event, the rest stayed in the car for the ride home.

Side note- apparently bringing in candy coated popcorn to a serious athletic event makes the "serious" athletes stare at you disapprovingly.  Whatever- carbs make you go fast.  We were just carbo-loading.  And every real athlete knows that cake mix is the best and purest pre-race carb.  I think.  Probably.  I like popcorn.

Other side note- this was probably one of the best, and most fun days of my life.  We hauled our little race-tattooed selves out of bed sometime between the hours of I hate life and F-off I'm still sleeping (so, like, 4) and made our way to the lake.  Two of my friends did the swim and after much waiting, they took off and absolutely rocked the entire 1.5K.  To give you some perspective, I did a baby-tri last month that was a 300 meter swim.  That's about 3 city blocks.  This was 5 times that length.  Holy god, that would have been a lot of flailing and lake water ingested.

Next, my girlfriend went off on the bike ride.  After dropping a chain and conquering the 25 miles of "rolling hills" (which is a really pretty way of saying that this ride was going to kick peoples asses.) She rolled on up and passed me the race chip.  My turn!

So, here's the thing.  I can run- I know that.  I've done a marathon.  I enjoy running.  I have, in the past, run a lot and trained well for various events.  I apparently have developed a bit of a running 'tude where I think I'm too good to train for a 6 mile run because I've done so many distances much longer than that.  But it had been awhile since I ran those distances.  Like, months.  And apparently my arrogance kicked my ass.  After standing for 5 hours, not training, and being freaked out/tense for the 30 min before my run because I was eyeing down every biker looking for my teammate... the run sucked.  After what I thought was about 20 minutes of running, my body was killing me and I was 99% certain they must not be posting mile markers every single mile.  Then I passed the sign that said "One Mile" and I knew I was in for it.

But somehow I stumbled across that finish line 53 minutes later, collected my medals and found my team.  Then the post race binge fest commenced.  Crap food tastes so much sweeter when it's free and I'm in spandex.  So after 4 free cookies, 3 pieces of free cake and a free protein bar, we grabbed lunch (and beer!) and called it a day.

But then we discovered the car popcorn.  Despite being not hungry in the slightest, we concluded our fantastic triathlon event by diving into the bags face first and frantically gorging, leaving our faces and hands completely covered in melted white chocolate.  We are the definition of classy.  It helps that I was a little drunk by this point.

So there you have it.  Running.  Swimming.  Biking.  Popcorn.  Beer.  Good friends.  Free stuff.  A medal.  Epic.

And now for some notes on my popcorn....

These are the four kinds I made: Birthday Cake (which I already described here), Nutterbutter, Cookies n' Cake, and Reese's Peanut Butter Pretzel.

Cookies n' Cake
One bag of popped, buttered popcorn (placed in a large bowl, no kernels)
8 ounces white chocolate
3/8 cup yellow cake mix (dry mix, not batter)
10-15 crushed Oreos

Melt chocolate in microwave according to package directions and whisk in cake mix.  Pour over popcorn and Oreos and mix.  Spread on a piece of parchment paper.  When hardened, break into pieces and serve.

Reese's Peanut Butter Pretzel

One bag of popped, buttered popcorn (placed in a large bowl, no kernels)

5 ounces white chocolate

5 ounces of peanut butter chips

1 cup chocolate coated peanut butter filled pretzels

Reese's Pieces (as many as you want)

Melt chocolate and peanut butter chips in microwave according to package directions.  Pour over popcorn, candies and pretzels and mix.  Spread on a piece of parchment paper.  When hardened, break into pieces and serve.

Nutterbutter 
One bag of popped, buttered popcorn (placed in a large bowl, no kernels)
5 ounces white chocolate
5 ounces of peanut butter chips
1 cup mini Nutterbutters


Melt chocolate and peanut butter chips in microwave according to package directions.  Pour over popcorn and cookies and mix.  Spread on a piece of parchment paper.  When hardened, break into pieces and serve.