Hello!! Welcome back.

OK. Let's go back to yesterday and the trip up to Gear West in Long Lake. We had a really fun time. Shaun, who is a self-professed non-shopper, was such a good sport! Kevin at Gear West was a great help with wetsuit selection as well as their care and feeding. ;-) Shaun got a full wetsuit and a great deal was available on a sleeveless one for me so that's what I got. Gettinginto a wetsuit is a bit like trying to pull a balloon over a watermelon, I discovered! After the stop at Gear West we went down the street for a late lunch at Red Rooster. Very tasty. Then it was off to Trader Joe's for a few groceries. Such a fun place to shop. Thank you Judy and Shaun for indulging me!

Probably 50 or so attended the morning long run at the RAC. It felt like winter again with the temp at the start at about 20 degrees and a NW wind. Brrrrrr. I'm so ready for spring to come and stay. Enough already! I ran 20.70, mostly with Dan and Trevor. Our pace for much of the run averaged 8:11 or so, but after I left Silver Lake to return to the RAC and Trevor and Dan made another loop around the lake, I know my pace slowed w-a-a-a-a-y down. The ole' legs were shot after my lift/swim/bike/run workout yesterday. I'm glad I got the miles in, but there will be NO running tomorrow, I can say that for sure!!

I had a couple of requests for the recipes from today (photos in yesterday's post). Both were new recipes and both were keepers. The bars (a Land O'Lakes recipe) ...

Chocolate Chunk Almond Blondies
1 1/4 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 Tbsp. light corn syrup
2 tsp. vanilla
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup chocolate chunk baking chips
1 cup English milk chocolate toffe bits (Heath)
1/2 cup sliced almonds

Heat oven to 375. Combine brown sugar, butter and sugar in large bowl. Beat at medium speed until creamy. Add eggs, corn syrup and vanilla; continue beating, scraping bowl occasionally, until well mxied. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt until well mixed. Stir in chocolate chunk baking chis and 1/2 cup toffee bits.

Spread batter in greased 9 x 13 pan. Sprinkle with almonds and remaining toffee bits, pressing down slightly.

Bake for 23 to 30 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely.

Here's the cookie recipe: Ghirardelli Ultimate Double Chocolate Cookies

After the run, I went down to Decorah, IA to visit my oldest son Eric who's a senior at Luther College. I stopped at a few places along the way. (Eric had called me back saying he wanted to sleep a little longer. It was already 11:30 AM. :-) We were going to have lunch, but we both decided we weren't very hungry so we went to the Whippy Dip instead. The Whippy Dip was already a longtime fixture in Decorah when I arrived at Luther in the fall of 1978. It was a cold day for ice cream, but that's OK. We drove an 8-mile (hilly) loop that Eric likes to run. It would be very pretty when there are leaves on the trees. I'd like to go down and run it with him some time. Very nice afternoon together.

The Rochester Family Y is in talks with the city to take over the Silver Lake Pool. Post-Bulletin article A couple of weeks ago, Ellen mentioned this to me and said that it would be available to the triathlete community for swim/bike/run workouts, which would be great because it's a long pool. Stay tuned.

Ed Maslowski has volunteered to be a regular writer for the RTC News. This is great! I am thrilled to have him on board. And he volunteered out of the blue ... no begging, pleading or cookie bribes were involved. :-)

Chris O'Brien stopped at Runners' Gate ...

in Lakeville yesterday and she reports: "Phil Hoffland ...

is the owner, very nice gentleman! The store is nice and clean and very well organized.

Lots of parking. They have running groups there during the week and Saturday mornings. He thought it would be great to have some runners from Rochester come up and do a saturday run with them. He will also give you a discount on everything bought if you tell him "your a RTC member". The store has been there 4 and half yrs and Phil just finished the re-model job about a month ago. Nice slection of clothes and shoes. I came out there with a new pair of shoes, a dry wicking shirt, and blinking safety! He has a treadmill so you can try out your shoes and a mirror there to so you can check out your running form..." Thanks for the scoop, Chris!

Fetzer update: 134 pounds of Gatorade concentrate arrived yesterday! 124 registered as of this writing. Thank you to Karla Behringer for volunteering, and Kyle Kircher for volunteering your daughters. :-)

I've had another very full day and I'm ready to put my feet up. So I think I will ... after I hang up my load of running clothes to dry. Weather looks much better for tomorrow, so enjoy!!

Toodles.