Telltale Signs

Wow. What a beautiful day we enjoyed today. The telltale signs of spring were everywhere. The "plink!" of an aluminum bat making contact with a ball, strollers being pushed down the sidewalks, the confluence of rivers of melted snow at the end of the driveways, the return of songbirds. And tomorrow sounds even better!

I have had a VERY full weekend. I guess there's no better place to start than ... in the beginning.

Marathon Training at the RAC

Numbers were down a bit from last week, but there were still about 45 runners in attendance for the 15 mile jaunt in and around Rochester.

We left the RAC and headed toward Soldier's Field for the first water stop, then around the golf course to 16th St SW where we headed east to Mayo High School for water stop #2. The rest of the group headed south to Willow Creek middle school for a little out-and-back to add a little mileage. I'd decided by then that I was going to run the Lucky Green 5K so I needed to head back to the RAC in order to make it down to Running Room to register for the race before the 10:00 AM start. Somewhere north of Mayo I met up with Andy and Pete (in the photo below, along with water stop volunteer Tim Geise--thank you, Tim!) and we ran together for a bit.

I had 13.74 miles in by the time I got back to the car, and about 1:58 for time. A decent training run thus far. I quickly brought the morning treats to the RAC front desk for the rest of the runners when they returned (Tom O'., I need to get my Tupperware from you sometime), then dashed off to Running Room for the Lucky Green 5K.

Also participating in the event were 'Da Boyz: Ron Giles (3rd place), Mark Carey (4th place) and Chris Koch (2nd place). 117 runners ran the race, which is a great turnout for an early season race. I ran a 23:12 (7:28 pace) which was good enough for first female. What a fluke. Not my best 5K, but I was running on tired legs. So I came away with a $25 Running Room gift card. Can't beat that, especially since Wally comp'd my entry for baking him 8 dozen cookies. ;-) Complete results

Also running, in festive attire complete with blinking shamrocks on their necklaces were Peggy Morgan and Pam King ...

and John Brown and Rosemary Harnly.

When I got home, I started a loaf of whole wheat steel cut oat bread and a batch of cookies for the Distad's. Segue into ...

Chocolate

On a cold, windy, snowy training run a couple of weeks ago, talk had turned to chocolate. Trevor mentioned that his wife Helen had been in the chocolate making and cake decorating business a few years ago. I'd inquired as to whether she might be interested in a little chocolate making "class" in exchange for some homemade cookies and bread (and jam!) and indeed she was agreeable! So a few of us gathered at my house Saturday afternoon, after torching a fair number of calories that morning during our runs, for a lesson in tempering chocolate and preparing chocolate creations.

Helen is largely self-taught in the art of handling chocolate, and was very knowledgable and at ease in sharing her knowledge with her eager students (Lionel Cheng, Pam Kin, Dan and Heidi Strain, myself ... and husband Trevor and daughter Maleah, which I probably did not spell correctly!). We tempered chocolate (which makes it suitable for coating) and then prepared passion fruit truffles (very rich and very delicious--gave them all away), chocolate sauce (for ice cream--gave it all away--too dangerous to have in the house!), and chocolate clay, a tootsie roll type product, which we formed into roses.

We learned a lot and laughed a lot. It was a fun and memorable afternoon. Thank you again Distad family!

After a quick change of clothes it was off to the NE part of town for the final event on my calendar for the day. Segue to ...

Tom Woo's Surprise 50th Birthday Party

We met at Kingdom Buffet to celebrate Tom's 50th with Tom's family and friends. Several runners, co-workers and Tom's family were in attendance. We had LOTS of delicious Chinese food and a yummy DQ cake. A good time was had by one and all. Thank you Shirley Woo for a wonderful evening!

Well, that brought an end to my Saturday. I'm going to continue with Sunday in another post so that I can wrap this one up. 128 hits on Friday. :-) Thank you for reading!