Tapering

I love tapering! I wish every workout week was all about cutting back. I thought about going to the gym this morning but decided not to. I'm tapering, I shouldn't be adding extra workouts this week as I prepare for the big race on Sunday. Oh tapering. But I guess if I was constantly cutting back my workouts, then I would eventually stop working out. And not working out is not an option, so it's good that I don't "taper" all the time.

It was so nice running only 5 miles on Sunday. The weather was finally cool (although a bit windy). I had forgotten what it felt like to run in 55 degree weather. Every other run so far during running clinic has been done when it's been 75+ degrees, making running rather unenjoyable. Who wants to run 10 miles when it's hot and humid outside? Not me.

Let's all just keep our fingers crossed that at 7:15am on Sunday it is 50 degrees outside with no rain or wind. The current forecast is looking a little iffy. Granted, it's Tuesday and Sunday is still 5 days away so the weather forecast is bound to change at least once. But I don't like where it is headed. Rain would probably be better to run in than wind. But I don't want it to rain since my sisters are making signs to hold along the race course. How crappy for them to be standing out in the rain, cheering me on, holding up signs that are being ruined in the rain. I don't want my sparkly signs to be ruined! I'm planning on keeping them forever after the race.

I never thought that I would be the person who said, "Yeah, I only ran 5 miles on Sunday. It was a shorter run." When I started running, on my first ever treadmill run, I managed more than a mile without stopping. That was a workout! But I was so proud of myself. Then I did my first 5k (who remembers the Turkey Trot... Bridget, Sara, Leah???) and thought that was an accomplishment never to be duplicated. And now here I am, having completed numerous 5k races, two 10k races, and ready to conquer a 10 mile race. I never thought that I would be a "runner". Never!

TC 10 mile... here I come!!

College Football

Let me just say this... I love college football! There is just something about it that is so much more inspiring than watching the NFL. I'm not going to lie, I'm not a huge Vikings fan. I don't cheer against them, I don't hope that they lose, but I definitely don't purposefully sit down on a Sunday (or Monday) to watch them. But college football on the other hand, I will make sure that I am home to watch select games.

I know it's going to sound random, but I love the Florida Gators. I think it started when I was young girl (approx. 13 years old) watching football with my Dad. For whatever reason, he was cheering on Florida State - we were watching the big FSU/UF game. Being 13, I wanted to cheer against him, so I picked the Gators. And what do you know, the Gators won. My love for them was cemented after that victory. I'm telling you, this love goes way back to the days of Danny Wuerffel - I didn't just jump on the bandwagon when Tim Tebow arrived.

So today, I had to make time for the Florida / Tennessee game. I could have wasted way more minutes at my beloved Roseville library (I'm very good at wasting time at the library), but I didn't because the game was starting at 2:30 and I needed to be home to cheer on the Gators. All of that trash talking that Lane Kiffin did before the season began just made me even more fired up. I mean, please... did he really think that his team was going to march into "The Swamp" and beat the Gators? Yeah right! [Side note: Thank goodness they were on channel 4 because now that I don't get "deluxe" cable I would have been very, very disappointed to have missed the game due to it being a "sports" channel. Thank you CBS!]

And along with loving Florida, I also love Tim Tebow. How can a person not love #15?! He plays with grit. He plays with passion. He's fired up and he makes a statement on the field. He doesn't let Eric Berry - SEC Defensive Player of the Year - scare him. No, no. Tim meets Berry literally head on and shows Berry whose field it is - it's Tim's. [Side note: Tebow is the returning SEC Offensive Player of the Year. So he's got himself some skills as well.] And, Tim was the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy. Really, how can you not love him?

There's just something about the atmosphere of a college football game. The students. The band. The passion. The grit. There is so much festivity that it's hard not to fall in love with the game. Now that the MN Gophers finally have an on-campus stadium, they will rekindle that spirit. Not that people didn't cheer for them when they played in the Metrodome, it's just better now that they're in their own stadium. (Not that I would know since I haven't been to "The Bank" yet, but I can only imagine how fantastic it is there.)

I just love college football and I'm so happy it's September!!

Public Libraries

Can I just say, I love my public library. Even though my beloved Roseville library is currently under construction and I have to go to its temporary location, I still love it. Actually, the temporary location is closer to me than the permanent location, so it's kind of a plus that they had to move over here for a year. There's nothing like free internet and free books.

Did you know that the Roseville branch of the Ramsey County Library system is the busiest public library in the state? It is. So not only do I love it, but apparently everyone else loves it too. And really, what's not to love? There's free internet. Thousands of books at my disposal to check out. A dvd rental selection that's rather large. A coffee shop. Too many perks to even list.

So I guess this is a big giant "Thank you" to my public library. If I wasn't unemployed, I probably wouldn't have fallen so in love with my library. So "THANKS" for all of the free services!

Running Clinic

Who knew Running Clinic was going to be so much fun?! Not me! The meeting tonight is our sixth meeting, meaning I'm half way done with the class and half way to my goal of running 10 miles. These first six weeks have gone by so fast that I know October 4th will be here in no time.

Last weekend we ran 6.2 miles (accomplished in 64 minutes in dreadfully humid weather). This weekend... 7 miles! This will be the first time I've ever ran past the 6.5 mile mark, so hopefully it all goes well. I wish I was going to be in town so that I could run with all of my new running friends, but I'll be home Blue Earth running on my own.

Last night we ran 8 hills. Not only am able to run more hills each week, but the time it takes me to tackle hill is getting faster. The first time I ran hills - 91 seconds to tackle the hill. Last night - 85 seconds. That's almost 10 seconds faster. And I was able to run up the hill 8 times, 85 seconds each time. Consistency is key!!!

The best part about running clinic... all of the new friends (Giselle, Celeste, AJ, Anmol, Julia). [Side note: Tracy, you're the best and I would really struggle without you.] I really thought that I was going to be the slowest person there and the most inexperienced. As it turns out, I'm one of the faster runners and have a decent amount of "running" knowledge already. I can't wait to learn more and make more friends.

And really, I can't wait for all of us to cross the finish line on October 4th!!!

Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes

This recipe makes a lot of cupcakes! I made almost 4 dozen cupcakes from this recipe. My bowl of batter was so very close to overflowing. It was quite interesting mixing the final few ingredients into the batter. I was very close to making a huge mess in my kitchen.

Martha suggests making your own vanilla frosting. Instead, I purchased fluffy white frosting and also used some chocolate fudge frosting. I think I liked the fluffy white frosting more, but who can turn down chocolate frosted buttermilk cupcakes? No one that I know of.

Since I got so many cupcakes from this recipe, I decided to freeze some of them. We'll see how well they thaw when I decide to remove them from the freezer. For whatever reason, these cupcakes seemed a bit on the dry side. So I really hope they aren't even more dry tasting when I thaw the frozen ones. I don't know if I mis-measured some of the dry ingredients but they just didn't seem as moist as I was hoping they would be. They were still good, just a little dry.

They were a huge hit with some of my former co-workers. I baked the batch the day before we met up for a happy hour. So not only do they miss me and my excellent "work" skills, but now they really miss me because they got a taste of the yummy cupcakes they don't get to eat. :)

Other than the chocolate chip cupcakes, these have been my favorite. Very classic recipe.

Dreaded Hills

Hills. To run them, can't really be described. I thought that I knew what it would be like to run up and down hills as a workout but they were so different than what I was expecting. I thought that I would hate them more than I actually do. Believe me, I don't love them by a long shot but they aren't as killer as I thought they would be.

Hills are very deceiving. You see it in front of you as you stand at the bottom and look up. Then you pump yourself up and tell yourself that you can tackle it. Then you're actually running up the hill and you get about half way up and want to stop. Once you're at the top, you're just huffing and puffing. The last thing you want to do is run back down and do it all over again. But as you're slowly running down to the bottom, you almost forget how painful it was running to the top. Then you do it all over again.

Today, Tracy and I ran up the horrible hill near my apartment. We decided to run hills in the morning since it's going to be 90 degrees today. So rather than run hills with our running clinic friends at 6pm when it's super hot outside, we decided to get them out of the way this morning while it was "cool". It felt like it was 100+ degrees outside while we were running. I checked the weather when we got back to my apartment, it was only 77 degrees.

So we get to the bottom of the hill (we did a 12 minute warm up run prior to arriving at the bottom of the hill). It didn't look that bad. It looked better than the Randolph hill we run with the running clinic group. Our goal, 2 sets of 4 hills (total of 8 hills). We'd previously ran 6 hills and 7 hills, so we figured why not just add one more. Big mistake! We ran the first hill and thought that we were going to die. We slowly jogged back down and got pumped to run up again. By the time we made it to the top the second time, we really thought we were going to die.

After finally catching our breath and we're back at the bottom, we're deciding how many hills we're actually going to run given that 2 hills have totally wiped us out, this girl comes up and completely charges the hill. I mean, she's sprinting. Obviously we couldn't let her just show us how it's done. So we buck up and start the insanity again.

Needless to say, we only managed 4 hills before jogging home. (And the last hill wasn't even the complete hill, we didn't go all the way down to the bottom before turning around to come back up.)

Raspberry Marble Cheesecakes

Creamy. Smooth. Delicious. These are some yummy cupcakes. These are also some pain-in-the-ass cupcakes to make. Although super good to eat, I probably won't make them again unless I really like the person who requests them.

I had way more cream cheese batter than I had crumbly graham cracker crust (you bake the graham cracker crust first, let cool, then fill with the cream cheese batter). There would have been an easy way to remedy this situation, just make some more graham cracker crust. But by the time I realized how short I was on crust, I just couldn't be bothered to make more. I was already 34 cupcakes in and the water bath was driving me crazy, so I just threw out the rest of the batter and called it good.

One problem, I don't think the water bath went far enough up the cupcake tin (3/4 of the way up the cupcake tin, as recommended by Martha) because the cupcakes didn't quite set-up as well as I would have liked. After they were cooled and refrigerated, they definitely needed to be eaten with a spoon instead of just by peeling away the paper liner. They were baked, just a little on the creamy side.

In regards to the water bath issue... you try and find a pan that is big enough to fit a cupcake tin in it plus water. I had to purchase a turkey roasting pan (thankfully it was on clearance at Target), which still wasn't quite the right size but I didn't know what else I was going to use. Once the first pan was baked, I had to figure out a way to un-wedge the cupcake tin from the water bath so that I could cool the cupcakes and get my next batch baking. I ran out of patience by the time the third batch was baking - hence me throwing away the extra batter instead of making more crust.

Next up: Yellow Buttermilk. I think these are going to be dangerously good.