Pooped. And loving' it. :-)

First off, it was great to see a little filtered sunshine today. It's great for my mental health. :-)

Feels like all I did today (pretty much, other than go to work and pick a couple more gallons of peas) was work out. I'll start at the beginning. Ran down to the Y this morning (2.0 miles) and lifted weights and swam for an hour. Ran home and dumped the backpack and then ran another mile (met Marie Boyd out running). After work, I made cookies for TNT this evening. I'll post the recipe below. Went down to Rochester Cycling & Fitness this afternoon to look at bikes after picking peas and broccoli. I've been having some mechanical "challenges" with my bike. It's a good bike, but it's old. (Jim Torgerson said this evening, "Renee, I think you have the oldest bike here." He was right. It's older than my kids. By several years. :-) When I use the front derailleur, sometimes, it just freewheels for up to like 10-15 seconds. Really throws me for a loop. The chain is on both the freewheel and a chainring, but nothing's happening when I pedal. Very frustrating. Also, I'd like a lighter bike. So ... I went to look at them. I test rode a TREK 4.2 WSD (women's geometry). Very nice. I liked it. The test drive loop that Deb suggested was 5 miles, so I rode that. Came home and put some sweet corn in the pressure cooker and got ready for Thursday Night Triathlon. Rode up there (6.5 miles) with a very full backpack (wetsuit, cap, goggles, towel, Tupperware full of cookies and a bag of cookies, and a camera. :-) When I got there, I found out they were doing a "long" (3 loop) workout this evening. 600M swim, 12+ mile bike, 5K run. Of course, since it was just a workout, we could do whatever we want. Well, if you know me, you know I'd do the whole thing. Yup. I did. And ... it felt like my best tri yet, especially on the run. Nothing hurt. Fatigue? Sure. To be expected. It's the reward for a hard workout. But I was pleasantly pain free. Nice sized group again tonight. I counted at least 30 on the way down to the beach.







Then I rode home and enjoyed a shower followed by a yummy salad and hunk of Great Harvest bread.

. So my totals for the day: about 1 hr 13 or 14 min. swim, 29.75 miles on the bike, and 8.1 mile run. A good day's workout. :-) The word "obsessive" was mentioned at TNT. Who, me??? Yeah, I guess that pretty much sums it up. :-) Andy and Jenny (foreground in the photo below) ...

are also doing Graniteman (Rockville, near St. Cloud) on Sunday, along with myself and Shaun and Sue Palmer. Good representation from Rochester! I'm having dinner with some of the St. Cloud River Runners on Saturday. I look forward to it!!

For tomorrow, not sure what I'll do. I was going to try a "long" run, but might be too tired for that. I'll see how I feel in the morning and go from there. I have a Physical Therapy appt. at 10:00 and might just ride the bike up to that. OK. On to other things.

I am going to distribute LUABC flyers outside the rooms at the hotel downtown (the one that contains Caribou Coffee by Methodist Hospital) at 8:00 PM Friday. If anyone would like to join me, please either just show up or email me. Thanks!!

Here's the promised cookie recipe. There was a request for it this evening, so I thought I'd post it as well.

Oatmeal Super-Chocolate-Chunk Cookies
1 c. unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 to 1 3/4 c. brown sugar, lightly packed
2 eggs
2 Tbsp. light corn syrup
1 Tbsp. vanilla (not 1 tsp!)
3/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour (I usually add about 1/3 cup more and flatten them before baking)
2 c. dry oatmeal, ground
1 c. pecan meal or 1 c. finely ground pecans
2 c. chocolate chunks
1 c. chocolate chips (I usually mix semi-sweet and bittersweet chips)
1 1/2 c. chopped, toasted pecans, optional but also very good!

In a large mixing bowl, mix by hand (about 30 strokes) the melted butter, sugar, eggs, syrup, vanilla and salt; the mixture should lighten in color slightly. Stir in the baking soda, flour, ground oatmeal and pecan meal, then the chips/chunks and bit and nuts.

To make big, palm-sized (3 1/2 to 4-inch) cookies, apportion dough with a muffin scoop or 1/4-cup measure. For smaller cookies, use a tablespoon cookie scoop, or a tablespoon generously heaped with. Deposit the cookie dough on ungreased or parchment-lined cookie sheets. (I flatten them here.)

Bake the cookies in a preheated 350 oven until they've puffed, about 11 to 12 minutes. They'll appear almost underdone, but will firm up once they come out of the oven. Remove the cookies from the oven, allow them to rest on the pans for 5 minutes, then transfer them to a rack to cool completely. Yield: about 24 large or 48 smaller cookies. (I usually get about 36 out of this recipe with a large cookie scoop.)

For Leslie: Here's my 7.15 mile "around the hill" course. From my house, out to Folwell to 23rd Ave to Fox Valley Drive. Down FVD to the west to county 22. Right/up the hill to the north to 2nd St SW. East on 2nd St to the 52 frontage road. South on the frontage road all the way around the hill back to FVD. Up FVD and home. There you go!!

Can't remember if I mentioned it already, but the Rochester Half Marathon & 5K (Aug. 22) is going to have technical shirts this year. And as in the past, custom finisher's medals for all those who run the half marathon. Please consider running it!


10:50 PM. Time for bed. Good night!!