Back in the Saddle

Today’s photos are a blast from the past. They’re circa April 2005, nearly six years ago, when I was on assignment for a men’s magazine, on a ranch in south-central Colorado, learning how to ride bulls in a rodeo. (That’s me in the photo below getting bucked off.) It seemed apropos to share the photos, since the theme of today’s blog post is “back in the saddle.”

It’s been nearly eight weeks (yikes!) since we’ve done a blog post. This is the longest hiatus we’ve ever taken. But starting today, we’re back in the saddle again (can you hear the Aerosmith song playing in your head?).

As for where we’ve been this last long while…

The last two months have been some of the busiest in recent memory, maybe ever. Ironically, though we’ve been wholly absent from the gluten-free blogging world, gluten-free projects have occupied much of our time.

For one, Kelli and I were putting the finishing touches on Artisanal Gluten-Free Cooking’s “revised and expanded second edition.” It comes out later this spring, and is available for pre-order on Amazon. It’s basically Artisanal Gluten-Free Cooking on steroids. New cover. Old recipes have been updated (including all baking recipes re-worked to include gram measurements for the flour). New recipes added to the mix, including tortellini and cannoli. And completely re-photographed (with more than 50 new pictures throughout the book).

By far, the biggest commitment of my time was working on another book, The Gluten-Free Edge: A Nutrition and Training Guide for Peak Athletic Performance and an Active Gluten-Free Life, which I coauthored with Melissa of Gluten Free for Good. It also comes out later this spring and is available for pre-order on Amazon. If you’re gluten intolerant and an athlete, if you’re an athlete curious about voluntarily going gluten-free, or if you’re gluten-free and interested in living an active lifestyle, this book is a must-read. The Gluten-Free Edge takes the latest in gluten-free nutrition and sports medicine research and brings them together under one roof. We also interview and profile dozens of gluten-free athletes, whose stories illustrate the power of the gluten-free diet. They come from all backgrounds – men and women, many ages, amateur and pro, from a wide range of sports…basketball, baseball, football, lacrosse, soccer, triathlon, mountain biking, Xterra, running, swimming, cycling, yoga, pilates, skiing, mountaineering, and the list goes on. At the end of the book we include more than 50 nutrient-dense, whole foods gluten-free recipes to fuel your activity. And we’re thrilled and honored that Amy Yoder Begley—gluten-free celiac, US Olympian, and 6-time national champion distance runner—is writing the foreword.

In the final six weeks leading up to our deadline for The Gluten-Free Edge, it was all-consuming. All other aspects of life stopped…I stopped training (more on that tomorrow!), I stopped sleeping, I stopped spending time with family. I was basically sleeping 4 hours per night—typically going to be at 3:30am or so each night—and then waking 7:30am the next morning to go to my day job, then come home and write all night again. I’d emerge from the home office twice…once for 15 minutes to have dinner with the family, and again to put the girls to bed. That’s it.

By early January, I was beyond spent. Melissa and I submitted the manuscript to our publisher on a Friday afternoon, and by Saturday morning, Kelli, the girls, and I were on a plane to the Caribbean for some much-needed R&R.

Eight days later, life resumed and I was again in the thick of it, this time spending two more weeks revising and tweaking the manuscript of The Gluten-Free Edge. 

Just as I thought we would get back to blogging, life conspired to keep us away for a bit longer. Marin fell and cut her forehead open just above her eye, requiring a trip to the hospital. Then Charlotte got sick. Then the rest of us got sick from her. And so here we are, two months later, finally able to write a long overdue blog post.

Many thanks to those of you who wrote to ask if everything is okay. We sincerely appreciate your concern! In the coming days and weeks, our blog posts will help to further get you up to date with what we’ve been up to, and where life has taken us. For now, let us just say that it’s good to be back in the saddle again.

– Pete