About This Embracing Weather Thing…

Well I’m still all for winter at the moment. Despite yet another nor’easter supposedly bearing down on us sometime in the next few days I’m sort of digging the snow.  Maybe it’s because I know that this will be my last real winter?

While the snow may be really REALLY pretty to run in or look at while sipping hot cocoa or snowshoeing (I think I’m going this weekend!) or building snowmen, I am not such a big fan of this

SALT

Don’t get me wrong: I am a salt-a-holic and douse my food in it.  I think I’ve said before that I have the ability to go through a salt shaker every 10 days or so. I do NOT, however, enjoy road salt. As you can see in the picture above my legs get covered in it.  The sign of a salt truck now sends shivers down my spine. Because it dries out my skin and stings like a….

I didn’t let it stop my workout though:

• Warm up
• 5.6 miles “tempo” @ 7:39 average (2.2 @ 7:46, 2.2 @ 7:43, 1.2 @ 7:21)
• 1.2 miles easy/recovery @ 8:49
• 1.2 miles hard / re-tempo @ 7:25
• Warm down

Totals:

• 16 miles
• 138 minutes, 29 seconds
• 8:40 pace

I guess for whatever reason I really turned it on the last bit of the hard stuff.  I’m slowly getting back into the training mode although holding this pace was TOUGH.  I really cannot believe that I ran 26.2 miles a little over 7 weeks ago at a *faster* pace.  Sometimes I feel like WR was a fluke. I guess I have a ways to go before the training mode muscles get back into full swing.

I’m really proud that I was able to bang out some really great last hard miles. It felt good to see the results of an effort that felt really taxing.  After seeing a not-what-I-wanted first two loops I must have dug real deep.  I’m not so proud of how long it took me to mentally get my body into it.  Hence those first few miles at the not-what-I-wanted pace.  But overall this “tempo” (and I still want to keep calling it tempo!) was the fastest out of the weeks I’ve been doing them post-WR.

Progress.

In the not-so-progress view, as I probably should be eating better night-before-quality-workout snacks: this run was  fueled, not by cookies, but by brownies.  Work was really rough yesterday so I went over to my friend’s house and while he was rockclimbing, my other friend and I made the brownies (she’s such a better baker than me. So she’s my baking buddy) and we all had brownie sundaes (warm from the oven) at midnight. I’m normally not a brownie person and when I do get a craving I like gooey ones.  My baking friend said she had success with this recipe:

Nestle Chewy Cocoa Brownies

(from the box of cocoa powder from Nestle)

Yeah so we dug in quickly...deal with it

Ingredients:

• 1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup NESTLE® TOLL HOUSE® Baking Cocoa
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup chopped nuts
• powdered sugar
• ADDITION FROM US: 1/2 cup melted chocolate chips.  We didn’t think the mix looked Chocolaty enough. I suppose you don’t have to melt the chips but we did.

Directions:

1. PREHEAT oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 13×9-inch baking pan.
2. (Additional added by us) MELT 1/2 cup chocolate chips in microwave until melted
3. COMBINE sugar, butter and water in large bowl. Stir in eggs and vanilla extract. Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in medium bowl; stir into sugar mixture and add Chocolate Chips). Spread into prepared baking pan (the mixture was REALLY thick and hard to spread).
4. BAKE for 18 to 25 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out slightly sticky (it took us about 26 actually). Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Sprinkle with powdered sugar (optional). Cut into bars.
5. ENJOY (we sure did. And with ice cream too)

They turned out really well and we dug in immediately.  I’m sorry for making your pants expand by proxy but hey, mine are expanding in real life I’m sure 😉

And I promise that the next recipe I post won’t be dessert.  Tomorrow night (the night the nor’easter is supposed to hit) my friends and I are likely going to make something special for dinner.  Just so you don’t think I’m on my way to a diabetic coma or something…

And check out the giveaways from Tricia (Endurance isn’t only Physical) and The Hotlegs Runner