Cynthia you can claim your prize by sending jackie@trychips a note and arrange for your prize to be sent.  Congratulations.   Thanks to everyone who participated in our 2012 Flying Pig Marathon Expo Contest.

May 3, 2012

Tim made Try Chips Crusted Organic Chicken for dinner and it came out great!  Recipe here in case you want to TRY!  When Tim’s kids were little he used to make them Captain Crunch Crusted Chicken as one of their favorites.  Very unhealthy by the way.  But he would take the Captain Crunch crush it up – use it like bread crumbs on the chicken and deep fry it.   He got a little healthier when he learned to bake it instead in the oven to take away the frying concept.

Talking with a TRYBE member at the St. Luke’s Half Marathon they suggested the Try Chips might make a great crust on fish and reminded Tim of the days of Captain Crunch.  In the kitchen he did his magic crushing up the Try Chips into little pieces and using them to bread the chicken.  The fruit really came alive in the oven with the olive oil.   The pineapple from Aspire really lit up the flavors as well as the apples, blueberries/acai from Endeavor and the strawberries and peaches from Venture mixed so well to make a perfect crust on the chicken.   Tim TRYED each of our flavors as he loves to experiment and Try Chips are the perfect ingredient to let your imagination soar!

RECIPE:

Organic Free Range Chicken Breasts, 1 free range local egg, 1 pack of Try Chips your favorite flavor, olive oil, sea salt, organic milk, black pepper, black sesame seeds.

Take chicken breasts and dip in mixed egg mixed in bit of organic milk – take Try Chips crush up into little pieces as small as you like.  Dip chicken in the Try Chips mix and roll around covering the chicken completely.  Place chicken in baking dish on top of think layer of olive oil. Cook at 350 degrees F – for about 30 minutes to 45 minutes depending on size of chicken breasts to internal temp of 165. Sprinkle with a little sea salt, black sesame seeds, black pepper and any other spice you like.  Serve with rice or black beans or both!  TRY ANYTHING!

May 1, 2012

St. Luke Half Marathon Expo Try Chips winner announced!  Nancy Jo Mulry, you won the drawing… send us a note and claim your prize!

April 25th – Hyner View Challenge

Hyner View Trail Challenge, Renovo, PA.   Tim & Jerry ran the 25k (sort of ran) – joined by Tim and Jackie’s daughter Amanda and her friend Genevive.  Jackie ran (and yes she ran) the 50K!  This is one of the toughest events of the year.  Wow still feeling the pain in our legs after 4 days.  Lots of climbs and then as soon as you get to the top – go right down.  No one in PA believes in switchbacks – just up and down all day long.  We are proud to be part of such a great Endeavor – first class event put on by our good friend Craig Flemming and the PA Trail Dogs.   And to top it all off they buy 1400 packs of Try Chips to give to each participant… how could we be more honored than to be included in everyone’s packs!

This marks the 3rd year anniversary of Tim and Jerry incorporating Try Chips (Try Team LLC) – we took our logo idea to the top of Hyner View in 2009.  While running the event we decided to go forward on the company and filed our papers a week later in May 2009!  Three years later, we both are loving that choice we made at the top of Hyner View!

New Post April 17th:

We had a great time at the Martian Marathon in Michigan!  We can not TRY without our TRYBE and to help us Sandy and Erick Stiner really rolled out the red carpet.   How great – they fed us, housed us and worked all day helping us pour Try Chips.  The result a record sale over 700 packs of Try Chips sold!!!  We could not have done it without them! – As a small company starting out we love that our customers become our best friends.

This is why we have decided to stick to selling directly to our customers as best we can.  We can only make so many packs of Try Chips so instead of having them sit on a shelf someplace we sell direct to our friends.  To be a sustainable company we want to be able to provide the best service and product but also be part of our customers lives in all they TRY.   This is what the TRYBE (Tribe) is all about!

January 11, 2012

Our Trip Continues in South Carolina and Georgia before we head to Charleston, SC Marathon and 100K Bike Tour. While in Columbia, South Carolina we helped man the registration table at the Harbison 50K – this was a great way to meet each runner in person and give them a pack of Try Chips to TRY!  We traded race director Dan Hartley our services and Try Chips for everyone in exchange for letting Jackie and Tim run the event as a team.

We ran the 50K (25K each) Jackie ran it in 3 hours and 4 minutes – Tim ran it it in 3 hours 24 minutes.  (Total TRY TEAM TIME 6:28) – Sure was a fun day meeting new Try Chips TRYBE members – hearing their stories of TRY and connecting with folks who understand what TRY is all about!

Our trip is all about TRYING to be sustainable – so we are camping for about 90% of the trip and making our own camp cooked foods.   The first night was a bit cold (28 degrees) so instead of pitching our tent since we got in so late.. we just rolled out the sleeping bags and slept in the Jerry mobile.

Jackie has been doing a bang up job on sampling our Try Chips at the Earth Fare stores.   Usually what happens is Tim works in the Earth Fare cafe responding to e-mails and doing our posts and Jackie samples to customers who come into the store.   At the Columbia Earth Fare store Jackie sold out the entire stock of Try Chips the store had in less than an hour.

POST #1

Starting January 3rd Tim and Jackie from Try Chips hit the road in our Try Chips Mobile and Wagon (Actually we took Jerry’s mobile and left the Try Chips mobile at home as it would not pull the wagon)

First stop Asheville, NC to visit with Earth Fare stores who now carry our Try Chips and meet with some new and old friends while in town.

Our first stop on the trip was to meet with our new friends at Chi Living.  Danny and Katherine are the creators of the Chi Running method and have really saved Tim’s knees for sure when he runs.   We are big fans and so nice to meet a couple who work together to make the world a better place to TRY!

We were so excited to meet with them, laugh a little and get to talk more with Gordon their new company strategist.

Our next stop brought us to two Earth Fare stores in Asheville, NC where Jackie spent a few hours handing out samples and letting folks who came to the store know more about all the great attributes of Try Chips!

We then stopped in to see our good friends at Fast Pivot http://www.fastpivot.com/ – Matt, Daphne and Jonathan who helped us build our Try Chips online store.   They rock and help us get Try Chips to all our TRYBE (tribe) members in a fast and efficient way!

Our last day in Asheville brought a little challenge as we could not get the wagon back on the Jerry Mobile… As strong as Jackie is we had to turn to the other Jack to get the hitch up high enough to move on to Columbia SC.

This was our second challenge with the wagon as in Virginia we needed to stop and get new tires for it.   We sure miss the Try Chips mobile, but the wagon has way more room!

Lisa Buohler has been a fan of Try Chips for quite some time.  We are so proud to count her as one of our TRYBE (Tribe) Members.  Lisa not only is an inspiration for all she TRY’s but she also is one of our most ardent supporters!  Thanks Lisa and to all your friends who have been following your amazing Endeavor’s!

Take Try Chips with you on all your Endeavors!

But in telling his story, Jeremiah mentions matter-of-factly that not once but twice he suffered an illness in which doctors weren’t sure if he’d be able to walk. When he was 6 years old he contracted encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain most commonly caused by a viral infection. The disease returned in a milder form when he was 16. And those early battles are enough to give Jeremiah a lifetime of perspective.

“I was never supposed to be able to walk again and that drove me to get out there and get moving,” he said. “In the beginning, I didn’t think about it too much because I was pretty young, but the second half of high school I started to consider that God had given me this ability to to run and I started using it more. I guess in a way it has encouraged me to work harder. When things really get me feeling down, I can see how blessed I am to be where I am. When I look back at that time, I couldn’t even walk. It didn’t drive me then as much as it does now, especially with two kids to see how blessed and healthy they are.”

As Jeremiah started running more himself, taking on local 5K races and getting into the half marathon distance, he began coaching. A teacher at Mifflinburg MIddle School in Pennsylvania, he is entering his ninth year as a the district’s track and field coach and his third as its cross country coach.

When it comes to the social hierarchy of teenage life, running is often not part of the glamorous cadre of sports. But Jeremiah has helped create a culture on his team where they embrace their sport and have become ambassadors for it.

“We have a saying on our team that says, ‘Your sports punishment is our passion.’ The kids have really embraced that idea,” Jeremiah said. “They’re pretty well-respected by their peers. They’ll talk about workouts they’ve done and that goes a long way because when they hear about the workouts, others will say, ‘There’s no way I can do that. I have so much respect for what you’ve done.’

“When you go out and run at a race, there’s not a large cheering section when you come back. There are no cheerleaders or band at our events. But we’ve built our pride up. Even though it can be a punishment in some ways for other sports, it’s what we do and the kids have embraced it.”

They’ve embraced it, in part, because of Jeremiah’s enthusiasm for the sport and for sharing his passion for running. While coaching and teaching keep Jeremiah from training and racing as much as he would like, he is still active in the local running community and, more importantly, with his team. The workouts are informal over the summer and more directed once school begins in the fall, but by participating himself, he not only gains respect, he helps to motivate and inspire his student-athletes.

“I try to meet them in the summer to go for runs and show them it doesn’t always have to be work,” Jeremiah said. “I want them to see it can be enjoyable and a good social time with friends. We try to do other things, like ultimate frisbee, to get the same workouts in and hopefully they will realize this can be a lifetime event.

“I think the runners respect it to because I can say, ‘Hey, this is the workout’ and then go do it with them.”

And of course every summer is the traditional “beat the coach” 5K.

“Every summer we go to one of the local 5Ks and the kids see if they can beat me,” he said. “It’s a good family kind of thing. We go run for bragging rights for the next year. I think it’s important to do that while i still can. The day will come when I won’t be able to do that anymore, but if I can still do the same workout and still race, I think it’s important for the kids to see that.”

What inspires Jeremiah is the camaraderie of running, whether it’s helping one of his students reach his or her goal or goofing off at the track with his friends. It’s the people which keep him healthy as much as the exercise itself.

“Every kid is different. Some are inspired to win it all and have the talent to do that. Some are inspired by the idea of being able to run in college. For some, just finishing a race without walking may be their goal. You’ve got to set your goals and they’re different for each person and even for each race.

“The social aspect is a huge motivation. I love the people I run with. The other day we ran 40 100s on the track for a friend’s 40th birthday. It was dumb and useless but it was a great time and we just had so much fun doing something we loved with the people we cared about. Why else would you run these ungodly distances unless you were with people you liked?”

By Amy Moritz – you can read more from Amy at:

www.amymoritz.com

Brad Boisvert took up running seven years ago. He didn’t know his daily jog would develop the tools he needed to face a rare auto-immune disorder. When he couldn’t run, Brad Boisvert knew something was wrong. In December he had a respiratory infection, not uncommon in the winter months in Pennsylvania. But on New Year’s Eve, he began to feel a tingling sensation in his fingers and toes. The tingling turned to numbness and began to spread.

With his wife out shopping, he decided to do what he loves — he jumped on the treadmill in his home for a short run. Only the activity that he most looked forward to, that brought him joy, felt all wrong.

“I got up to get on the treadmill because you know, I  can’t stop running. I gotta keep going,” Brad said. “But when I got on the treadmill, I couldn’t feel from ankles down and from my wrist down. I started running but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t feel safe. My wife came home and took me to an emergency care clinic.

“They didn’t do much for me and basically told me it would get better or worse in the next 24 hours. I went home and went to bed right away. I woke up at 3 a.m. and I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t feel from my knees down and from my elbows down in my arms. We went to a hospital emergecy room and within two hours, they diagnosed me with Guillain-Barre Syndrome.”

Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) is a rare disorder where the body’s immune system attacks parts of the peripheral nervous system. While there’s no certainty as to how its contracted, symptoms often start to occur a few days after a respiratory or gastrointestinal viral infection.

After being admitted to the hospital, Boisvert’s symptoms progressed to the extreme. By Jan. 3, just three days after experiencing symptoms, he was paralyzed from the neck down. Doctors put him on ventilator then in a medically-induced coma in order to give him a series of blood treatments over the next 10 days.

It was seven years earlier when Brad took up running as a way to lose some weight. He wasn’t that big, but wanted to get into better shape. He started out running two days a week then increased to running every day. He didn’t run great distances — about four miles a day — and didn’t start racing until a few years ago completing a handful of half marathons and one trail marathon. But he loved what the active lifestyle of running brought to him. And in some ways, it helped save his life.

He developed an understanding of his body so he knew when something was wrong.  His doctors noted that the time he spent running had helped prepare his body to fight this auto-immune disease and that his attitude toward his body and physical activity may have accelerated the healing process.

“I don’t remember this, but my wife said when I was in the coma and they would bring me out from time to time to test me, I would get agitated because I wanted to get up and run,” Boisvert said. “One of the things I was always saying was that I was ready to run.

“The doctor’s were saying how good of shape my lungs were in from running. When I came out of the coma, within a week I was off the ventilator and walking on my own which is unheard of.”

“I was very strict about my rehabilitation. In the hospital, there were people young and older than me, some in worse shape some in better shape. But they would lay in bed until it was time for them to go to rehab and not do anything else. My therapist gave me things to do in my room. It wasn’t a lot. I was lifting my arms above my head or lifting my legs up in bed. I would do whatever they told me to do, as many times as they told me to do it. I’m structured that way. I believed that’s what helped me recover faster, too. I wanted to get back to running.”

The day after he was released from the hospital, Boisvert was back on the treadmill. He was walking very slowly. He knew his body and didn’t push it, but was consistent, working to get stronger and increase his endurance daily.

There is no cure for GBS, but the disorder is controllable and Brad has sensation back in his extremities and is back to his active lifestyle. He’s back to running, back to TRYing, because, rather simply, it makes him feel good.

“I never was a runner before in high school or college,” Brad said. “I can’t explain it very well, but it just feels like a little bit of freedom. Your mind is free at that point. There is nothing else you have to think about it. I don’t ever dread my run. I want to TRY and be the best and healthiest person I can be. I just want to feel good about myself.”

This fall, Brad plans to run in three half marathons. He’s not worried about personal records, just enjoying the ability to finish the 13.1 miles and knowing each step he takes helps him live a much healthier life.

You can read more by Amy Moritz here on Try Chips.com or at  www.amymoritz.com

Brad and Tim (Try Chips) at Dam Half Marathon- Brad's first event back after "Trying" experience.

All in the family: Keeping playtime alive

Growing up in a big family in Pennsylvania, Mary Kowalski and her siblings found ways to make their own fun. Sure they played high school sports, but the organized activities paled in comparison to the fun they would create for themselves. Playing outside was just part of their lifestyle. And even though the kids grew up, the grown ups kept on playing like kids.

That’s one of the reasons why Mary and several members of her family decided to participate in the inaugural Try All By Fire event. While the group regularly enters races together this was a unique opportunity for them to just play together.

“So many races are geared toward individuals,” Mary said. “Even if you register and go with with a bunch of friends, it ultimately comes down to doing it yourself. You’re all out there at the same time but at different places on the course.

“One of my sisters thought Try All By Fire was great because it was something we would normally do, but now, we don’t have to worry about what to make for dinner, there’s a party afterward and we get a sweatshirt.”

Mary will be participating a six-person team with three of her sisters, a brother and a brother-in-law. The group plans to start their day with some kayaking and finish off with mountain biking. Both are relatively new pursuits to the family, but changing up the activity is part of what makes it so much fun.

“The races we usually do, like the Megatransect, are all running and hiking,” Mary said. “We wanted to do something different so I worked on figuring out the logistics. This year, many of us got into kayaking, so we’re going to do about eight miles in the kayak. Two of my sisters are novices in mountain biking. They bike here and there, but they didn’t even have mountain bikes — we went looking to get them some. We went on a ride and it was a tough workout for them but the loved it. They said, ‘We’re in. This is great.’ That’s pretty much sums up how we are as family.”

Trying something new is part of the ethic Mary and her siblings were raised with. While they played organized sports growing up, the culture of youth sports was more relaxed without year-round single-sport commitments. The kids had plenty of time to create their own fun, explore and be active without having to coordinate schedules. Unstructured playtime was how they lived.

“When we grew up, the culture wasn’t as demanding,” Mary said. “If one of us played soccer, it wasn’t 12 months out of the year. Kids have less time to be creative these days and play outside, find fun and bike around the neighborhood. We just grew up that way. My brothers and sisters, we all played together and did stuff together and being active is one way we stayed close as a family.

“We had a good foundation. Because we weren’t lazy kids, it was easy to find fun as we got older. Now, one of us loves fishing and is constantly fishing and walking in the woods. It’s a natural progression. I started running and doing triathlons. As we got older, we found things we liked to do and it almost always involved family and the outdoors.”

Being active, healthy and connecting with family is part of what inspires Mary to keep trying new things. An athletic trainer at St. Francis University in Loretto, Pa., part of what inspires her to TRY is the desire to be healthy and fit. But the other part of it is having the opportunity to discover something fun and pass it on to someone else.

“It is actually fun to be fit and healthy,” Mary said. “What inspires me is once you go out and tell others what you’re doing, they try something and now they’re having fun and feel great about themselves and they tell other people. It’s like the Pied Piper effect. This person may have never thought they liked hiking but now they’re totally into it and they share it with other people.

“My family agrees I’m kind of the ring-leader of being healthy and fit and passing on that lifestyle to others. It’s something I enjoy doing. I want people to have high self-esteem because they’re able to do things because they’re healthy and not limited by being tired or 20-30 pounds overweight. I want people to feel good and see how easy and fun it is to find something you like to do that keeps you healthy.”

You can join Mary and her family at this years TRY ALL BY FIRE – Check it out! http://trychips.com/tryallbyfire/

-Amy Moritz www.amymoritz.com

She describes herself as a slightly overweight, middle-aged woman, someone trying to embrace a healthy way of eating and living and discovering that challenging herself brings its own set of unique rewards.

“I’m just a normal person. I’m not a competitive athlete,” Bingaman said. “I just want the chance to be a bit better. I heard a quote recently. The author is unknown, but I put it up to inspire me. It says, ‘Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can really go.’ You don’t really know what you can do until you try it.”

Becca’s journey began last year when the young woman who was the chief financial officer at her company passed away from cancer. In honor of her and to raise money for cancer charities, Becca participated in a three-mile fun run, thinking about her former coworker and her mother, who was also battling cancer at the same time.

“I figured I could walk three miles and I found that I’d walk then jog then walk,” Bingaman said. “It was mostly on trails and took me around 45 minutes. I walked way feeling good about myself, No. 1 for supporting a good cause but No. 2 for the fact that I did, I completed basically a 5K. I thought, wow, you know what, I want to see what I can do.”

She entered a local 5K and improved her time, finishing in around 40 minutes with a run-walk approach and she was officially hooked on running and racing. Becca ended up on a team for an indoor triathlon taking on the swimming and running portions. It was there she learned a bit about the mental game and the importance of nutrition.

“After I finished swimming, I thought holy cow, I was not prepared for that. I wasn’t prepared for all those people in the pool at the same time. I was intimidated by all of the people in serious mode. looking fast, and I asked myself, why are you here? Why do you think you can do this? Your mind is really your worst enemy.

“I got out of the pool shaking so badly. I went into the locker room and I had a bag of TRYChips in my locker. I ate those and I actually felt better right away. It was exactly what I needed. My problem was that I didn’t know how to fuel before, during or after and the triathlon got me thinking about that.”

As she found new challenge in fitness, including a night-time trail run and her first half marathon, Becca also plunged into overall health and wellness initiatives, enjoying not just running and moving but also finding ways to eat healthy and maintain a balance. Her new lifestyle has paid off in all areas of her life. Generally, she finds she has more energy and can sustain physical activity longer. The connection was evident this winter, when her home in Pennsylvania was under plenty of snow. Previously, Becca would have needed help with the shoveling, or needed to do it in small chunks. This time, she was able to shovel the driveway herself.

“It’s not that I was grossly overweight but I was not as physically active as I should have been,” Becca said. “I find that the more I try to be fit, the more I can do the things I enjoy. This is not a get-fit quick fix. This has been an inside and outside change that I can keep going for the rest of my life.

“People say to me that I should set a size or weight goal. And I’ve said no to that. I want to be fit and whatever that looks like on me, that’s what I’m going to be. I’m just thrilled with how far I’ve come. I feel like I have further to go, but every time I exercise or every time I enter a race, I’m one step closer. It’s a reminder, for me, that this is my new lifestyle.”

And Becca has some intensely personal reasons for embracing a healthy lifestyle. She witnessed her mother battle cancer 21 years ago, and survive. Then, cancer returned and her mother passed away last year.

“I know how valuable life is,” Becca said. “I watched my mom battle cancer and last year she lost her life to it. During my half marathon, I wore my mom’s cancer survivor t-shirt. She was overweight her whole adult life. She tried everything under the sun and it never worked. She never could win her [weight] battle and she gave up. I watched her body go through chemotherapy and radiation and thought, you know, I don’t want to do that. If I can change my life to better my odds of not having to do that, then I’ll do it. Life is too valuable.” 

You can find author Amy Moritz on her website at www.amymoritz.com