Fluffy omelet with goat fromage and my feet don’t hurt.

I guess you could say I finished the 5K race yesterday. Because I DID!

It’s not like we had to go up a steep Seattle hill or anything and I did not feel like throwing up after that. I’m a professional after all. The day was beautiful. It was sunny. We were in a park. I could hear the birds. There were people propagating Mexican stereotypes and everybody (just about everybody) wanted to get to the finish line.

But let’s start at the beginning – Saturday. I might as well have been pregnant because I had butterflies the size of giant moths in my stomach all morning. I knew I would finish the race but I just couldn’t shake that silly feeling. It made me think back to the days before an exam. Sweaty palms, that dreadful feeling of resignation and every part of you wishing that you’d just started studying a month earlier like Roll No 7. The show off. The eternal after-the-fact, just-outside-the-door paper discusser. The kind you would watch just to see when they finished and walked out so you could feel so sorry for yourself. Watch and despise. Watch and despise. Except for Saahil. He was cool but that was in college.

My race friend and lomo friend familiarised me with every form of “race etiquette” right down to the part where we weren’t supposed to wear the official race T-shirts so we wouldn’t look like n00bs. This was just past 6.30 am and along with some of the first rays of daylight, I was soaking it all in. She also familiarised me with the term “side ache”, which I want to use from now on. It sounds so much nicer than “exercise-related transient abdominal pain”. It also sounds like something a n00b would say, so I like side ache.

We walked down to the park where the race would happen and we practice ran the hill which would be part of the route. When Ashley first told me about it the day before I clearly remember letting out a “WHAT?!” I meant it. This was a “WHAT?!” hill and I thought we would run up it once.

WHAT?!

Twice. It happened twice. I’m glad I didn’t know this before.

I would love nothing more than to dramatise every step of the way but I can’t. I loved it all and I let all the drama happen before: Right down to getting hit on by random strangers who can’t quite grasp the meaning of “I’m married.” I had an official running time of 33 minutes and I came 700 and something out of a thousand and something. It was the best feeling in the world after I stopped feeling like vomit and we completely deserved every sip of that free drink.*

Now I know what you’re thinking: “You have the 10K, still.” Oh yes I know. I’ve known it since that January day, when I made an imaginary bucket list (of nothing). This was the same day I decided  that the ability to walk was a luxury. Yes, I have that 10K still and the longer it hangs over my head, the better I feel.

Throw me out of my comfort zone why don’t you, life? Because I guess I can finish the next one too.

One of my interweb friends suggested I make this on the exact same morning I decided that I would. In the spirit of not fighting fate, I went with my gut and came out very pleased with myself. The fact that I got breakfast AND blueberry tea out of it was a bonus.

Ingredients

• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• A bit of goat cheese
• Chopped chives
• Butter or oil, to lightly grease the pan
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Blueberry tea (entirely optional)

Keep your eggs out of the fridge at least 30 minutes before you start the party. Separate the egg whites from the yolks in two bowls. It’s better to use a glass bowl for the whites. You’re going to have to beat the crap out of the egg whites but if you’re life is blessed with an immersion/hand blender, you should be okay. On the lowest setting, I beat the egg whites for a minute until they got frothy. A minute later, they started to get frothier and dense as well. I turned the blender to a slightly higher speed (just by 1) and kept it at that for 5 more minutes and then stopped it. The egg whites were forming into gentle peaks which were not quite like meringues (stiff) but definitely fluffy omelet-worthy. I beat the egg yolks in their own bowl by hand and then gently folded them into the white with a spatula.

I put a pan on the stove on medium heat and added a little butter to it just to grease the pan ever-so-lightly. I poured in the eggs and took a deep breath. I only breathed again after I successfully managed to flip the omelet (4 minutes later) without it turning to a four-letter word zone. Very dangerous territory.

Once the omelet was cooked on both sides, I put it on a plate. It was then sprinkled with salt, pepper, goat cheese and chives and eaten as is.

Consumed, devoured, all that good well-deserved Sunday kind of stuff, where I was extra glad to have feet.

I hope you are too.

(YAY!)