All Laced Up

Whoo hoo!! About 35 runners this morning to give a test drive to the Lace-Up Against Breast Cancer half marathon course. (Or some of it anyway.)

I had about 16 degrees on my thermometer before I left, and there was a bit of a south wind, and some re-frozen slush from yesterday's thaw, but overall it was a good morning for a mid-January run.

The course was overall in pretty good shape. The paths are plowed nice and wide. It was a pretty run on a very pretty winter morning.

 This old body felt pretty good for about 10-11 miles, then I was out of gas. And fluids. I'd gone off the course at 7 miles in search of water (found some), but still needed more. Needed calories too. But I pressed on, with an occasional short walk, and made it back. Thank you to Mike and Randy for hauling me back through the last half to 3/4 of a mile. I was certainly dragging. But considering I ran a marathon 6 days ago, spent 2 hours on the Stairmaster yesterday, and we ran with temps in the teens and less than ideal footing, it was a good (enough) run.

1:56.41 for 13.33 miles. Then it was off to Brothers ...

to wish John Shonyo HAPPY 60th BIRTHDAY!! (with grandson Oliver)

and for my walnut pancake.

I asked for sugar free syrup (40 calories for a whole 1/4 cup) as adding the walnuts to the pancake was a bit of an indulgence. Randy ...

and Roger ...

 had a walnut 'cake as well. They enjoyed them. :-) And you know what? I even had 2 (little) glasses of some kind of beer. I have to say that a beer hasn't tasted much better than that. It was only 10:30 AM!! What got into me??

But I certainly wasn't the only one indulging. :-)

(Thank you Roger for sending the photos. Above: Randy, Tom, Paul, Mike, Andy.) The 18 crumb cakes I made yesterday ...

all found a good home and seemed to be well-received. Someone made a comment during breakfast that a person that shall go unnamed made a comment that he felt like a "50-year old woman" when he was tired on a run. Excuse me?? This blogger is turning the big 5-0 this year!! I'm not sure how I feel about that remark!! (All in fun. TOTALLY. Especially since I can usually keep up with him. :-) One of the servers at Brothers came up to me as I was leaving and said that she (and her sister, I think) are "bleaders" (blog readers). How cool is that?? She made me feel like a celebrity in my own mind. :-) Anyway, she had some questions about a budget for a 5K race ... and I still need to get in touch with her. All in all, a very good morning so far.

When I left Brothers, I headed for the fairgrounds for the Indoor Farmers' Market (where I ran into Greg Sellnow).

I made the rounds, then decided what I was going to buy. I wanted some Brussels sprouts, but there were none to be had. Lots of taters, onions, beets, carrots (in general, root vegetables), baked goods, meats, honey, eggs, and other things. I was very intrigued by these beautiful carrots ($1.50/lb).

I decided on ...

some beautiful, fresh eggs (still cheaper than a dozen brown eggs at HyVee), some colorful carrots (I just ate one of the really light ones for a snack--delicious, as homegrown carrots are anyway), and some beets ($3/box as oppposed to $2.50 to $2.99 for 3 beets at the local grocery stores). I was happy with my selection. So tonight I made some Roasted Beets and Sweets (sweet potatoes) for supper.

They're absolutely delicious--sweet as candy. There's an onion in there too, along with olive oil, 1 tsp each: s/p, sugar and 1 garlic powder.

John had the LUABC embroidered hats at Brothers today. They look really nice.

Mike and I are committee members, so we got ours early. I took pink, of course. I'm a bit of a pink fan.

A carpool effort is in the works for the Securian half marathon next Saturday in St. Paul. If you're interested, contact Tom Woo (or me, and I'll contact Tom). I'm still undecided. Not in racing shape, and I want to see what the weather will be like. But the little road trip would be fun.

Here's the little Zoom!Yah!Yah! write-up in the Northfield News. I don't know if there are any photos or not. None on the web. They did have a photographer there, though.

So what did I do with the rest of my day? Dusted. Vacuumed. Worked on Fetzer 20K stuff (parade permit, sponsorships, advertising, ...). And then started cleaning my sewing room. What a HUGE job that is. But I got quite a bit done. Lots of stuff to give away, mostly patterns that I won't use any more. I'm still working on organizing my fabric stash. I like it organized by color, and somewhat by theme (fall, Christmas, etc.) I'll get there. I think I'm going to haul my machine down to the family room tomorrow and sew during "the game", or at least do some cutting. I'm going to make a scrappy quilt with ... a bunch of scraps!! I'm also going to try a new recipe for Oatmeal Bread and make some split pea soup. With a Vikings win, it'll be a good afternoon. :-)

I've also got a box full of food magazine: bon Appetit, Taste of Home, Quick County Cooking, etc. If anyone wants them, lemme know!

Well, I've reached the end of another rambling post. Have a good evening, what's left of it.

Cheers.