A Great Saturday In Photos

A Great Long Run on the Trail

 

Homemade Raspberry Jam

Gus always looks guilty when he does his business. It’s hysterical, so I had to capture it, respectfully omitting the private parts of course

Sprouts Loot…recipe to come maybe? 🙂

Just a pup and his mom.

Nothing like the colors of fresh fruit

Oh yeah. . . recipe to come!

Loved the colors in my outfit.

My bag is smart.

Snacks are necessary after a long run.

So is beer…

Zach planning our hike tomorrow

Gus is a flirt.

Pizza NIGHT!

August Love

Goodnight All!

 

 

Fresh Homemade Raspberry Jam

My fiance is a jam FREAK. Specifically raspberry jam.

Every time we go to the grocery store (weekly mind you) the boy requests raspberry jam.

Well last week, when I made my Healthy Raspberry Crumble Bars, I also made homemade raspberry jam as the filling.

Zach LOVED it.  He dipped the raspberry bars in the leftover jam, and then use it through out the week on toast.

By Tuesday or Wednesday, he was requesting another batch.

Since I did it kind of haphazerdly last time, I thought I would be more specific this time and give you all a precise recipe, so the jam lover in your home can have a healthy, homemade option to enjoy 🙂

Homemade Fresh Raspberry Jam

Takes about 25 minutes cook time and makes about 1.5-2 cups of jam.

Ingredients

• Raspberries (I used a tin from the farmer’s market.  About 1.5 cups)
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• Juice from 1/2 a lime
• 1/2 cup of water

Directions

• Put the raspberries and 1/2 cup of water on the stove top and bring to a simmer.
• Once it reaches a simmer, cover and let it simmer for 8-10 minutes.
• When finished, pour the mixture out of the cooking pot and into a high edged container
• Blend the mix (I used an inversion blender) until desired thickness.  Add more water to thin it out if needed (I added another half cup)
• Put the mixture back into the cooking pot and bring back onto the stove top and add the lime juice.
• Bring it back up to a simmer.  Begin adding the sugar in small amounts, mixing throughly each time (I used four different batches for the half cup).
• Once all of the sugar has been added, turn off the heat and allow to cool.
• Moved to your desired container and enjoy! 🙂

Makes about 1.5 – 2 cups of jam.

And of course, directions in pictures 🙂

Start with your ingredients

Bring the raspberries to a simmer with water.

 

Put the mixture into a high top container and blend!

Put back on heat, add sugar in stages. Let cool, put in a container and enjoy! 🙂

Trust me, it’s so much better than anything you’ll get in a jar at the store 🙂

 

 

Another Long Run In The Books and I Feel Great :)

 

 

 

 

Obviously I was struggling a bit this morning with my looming long run ahead, but that’s fairly normal for this girl.

But I’m glad you guys liked the running quotes.  They got me motivated, laughing, and ready to go this morning for what ended up being a pretty great run.

Workout of the Day and Long Run of the Week:  10.20 miles in 100 minutes.

The morning started out like every Saturday morning.  Pre-run Larabar (thankfully Gus didn’t eat this one!)

I was feeling the PB chocolate this week.  Good choice me.

And a coffee in my favorite mug 🙂 14 days!

After I got my big girl pants on, I hit the road about 830.  Unfortunately, it was already fairly warm.

I decided to hit Cherry Creek Trail again since I knew it was going to be a hot one, and at least the trail provides a lot of shade.

 

Cherry Creek trail runs along the Platt River and is about as flat as it gets around here, which is nice for long runs.  In my 10.20  miles, I only got about 195 feet elevation gain, which is pretty minimal here in Denver.

The trail goes out about 4 miles from my apartment until it reaches an end point in the neighborhood of Cherry Creek.

I had quite a bit of running to do still this morning, so I decided to do something I’ve wanted to do for awhile…

House shop in Cherry Creek :).

You can’t see it but there is a BEAUTIFUL home behind that huge garden (and sun)

 

 

It was a nice distraction between miles 4.5 and 6 to be running by these houses.  A girl can dream for the future, right? 😉

The  neighborhood was my turn around and fuel up point.

 

My favorite, pink lemonade honey stingers.  They come highly recommended by this girl.

I ended up having a bit of time left after I got off Cherry Creek, so I just ran around the neighborhood until my 100 minutes were up.

 

100 minutes  and 10.20 miles later, I was done.

This was a strong run, mentally, for me this morning.

During my training for Steamboat, I struggled keeping pace without breaks, so I got in a bad habit of breaking often during long runs.  Something I’m learning is that taking more breaks actually causes me to struggle in my runs.

It takes me some time to get into the zone and just feel natural with my pace and movements.  When I constantly take breaks, I never really allow myself to get in that zone, I just get stuck in the uncomfortable nature of the run.

That’s never good.

Today, I focused on pushing through and not allowing myself to break except for my turn around and fuel up point, and overall I feel like it worked for me.

 

Blurry splits.

Overall I am VERY happy with this run!  None of my splits were over 10 (one right at 10), and I kept a fairly constant pace through out.  Not bad Ashley 🙂

Now I’m enjoying my favorite post long run breakfast and relaxing with the furballs and Zach.

Don’t you worry, I will eat both halves of the bagel. I just like to do one at a time so it stays warm and melty 🙂

 

I think there is some baking (raspberry jam per Zach’s request, and maybe boxed brownies, haha) and a trip to DBC for some beers this afternoon.  A-OK by me!

Question of the Day:  What was your work out this morning?  Who else had a long run?