Back to School

Posted in personal reflections by Chocolate Covered Race Medals

Guys — I went back to school and took a Blogging 101 class today by the amazing, inspirational, and Anne The Adventurer.

I want to take some time and process everything, but what I can say right now is I am more excited than ever to be a blogger, more appreciative of the readers I have, and more inspired to create BETTER work. For myself, and for you all.

Thanks Anne, and thanks to much to you all.

1Oct2013

Single Serving Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Posted in recipes, Uncategorized by Chocolate Covered Race Medals

The wait is over 🙂 I apologize for teasing you all the past few days with delicious looking pictures of peanut butter goodness.

But now I will finally share with you all my new FAVORITE recipe that takes just a few minutes, and even fewer ingredients!

SIngle Serving Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

1.5 tablespoons of creamy peanut butter
2 tablespoons of Whole Wheat Flour
Pinch of baking soda
Pinch of salt (I used Pink Himalayan Fresh Ground Salt)
1/4 tablespoon of vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon of apple sauce
1.25 tablespoons of maple syrup
About 10 large chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 and spray/oil your baking sheet
Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl (flour, baking soda, salt)
Mix in the peanut butter well
Add the rest of the wet ingredients (vanilla, applesauce, maple syrup)
Mix in chocolate chips
Separate into two cookies
Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes
Let cool and Enjoy!

If you like peanut butter — and chocolate, you will LOVE these cookies. And if you’re like me and have no restraint when it comes to either, you will appreciate the portion control forced upon you 🙂

Question of the Afternoon: If you could personalize any cookie — what would you make?

1Oct2013

Happy Tummy Equals a Happy Run

Posted in running, workouts for the day by Chocolate Covered Race Medals

Good Morning — Happy Tuesday and we’re done with Monday to everyone 🙂

Zach and I had a VERY relaxing evening — including some delicious grub.

Open faced sammies and side salads (Have I told you we have a problem with this meal . . . meaning we eat it a couple times a week. It’s so good).

The sandwiches were done on toasted golden raisin bread, which was AMAZING, with cranberry herb turkey, fresh heirloom tomatoes, greens and pepper jack cheese. While they toasted up in the oven, Zach grllled up a HUGE onion he had gotten from the market this weekend, and honestly besides the bread, it was the highlight of the meal. YUM

And of course, our side of greens. Which had purple tomatoes, broccoli, Anaheim pepper and light Cesar dressing.

I topped the meal off with some more cookies. . . which I will be sharing the recipe with you all this afternoon. It’s a GREAT one.

Our tummies and our souls were happy last night :).

All that good grub fueled me well, and I woke up this morning ready to run.

Well kind of . . . but I have an amazing husband who brought me coffee in bed at 5 til 6:00 AM, so I had a bit of a boost by the time I was in the gym running at 620.

Workout of the Day: 5 miles — speed work

I didn’t take any pictures, because I figure I’ve shared quite a few treadmill pictures with you all lately, but I did keep track of my splits. Since I was working on speed, I was curious about what my mile times were — and just in case you all are too, I’ll share them with you 🙂

Mile 1: 9:42
Mile 2: 19:20
Mile 2.5: 24:00 (started the speed work)
Mile 3: 28:16
Mile 3.5 32:22 (one mile of speed work done @ 8:22 min mile)
Mile 4: 36:33
Mile 4.5 40:37 (second mile at 8:15 min mile)
Mile 5: 44:50

Overall I was really happy with how I felt this entire run. For the next 2 weeks, I want to try and keep my mid-week runs at 5 miles, then drop them to 4 and 3 miles for the last 2 weeks when I taper.

The race is creepin’ up on me. . . I have one more progressive long run (longer than my previous weeks run), then I’m dropping to 10 and 8 or 9 respectfully before the race. It’s gettin real y’all!