Good morning! I'm a little slow-moving today after a long, relaxing weekend and yesterday's interval workout. In the morning, I met Moravian's XC team and Jesse at a local park to do some quarter mile intervals. Jesse planned them to be slightly faster than race pace because he wanted the team to get used to the feeling of going out a little faster and sustaining that pace longer into the race. Here I am...ready to run on grass...
The team did 14 x 400 on 1:30 rest. Initially he had me down to run 86-88 second pace, but I started with an 82 and pretty much maintained that throughout the session. At the half way point, he gave us a 5 minute break where he wanted us to jog/walk to recover. By interval #12, I was exhausted. This was the most I've done for a workout in a while and I needed a longer break. I recovered while they ran interval #13 and finished with the final lap.
2 mile cool down and stretches The girls did an amazing job throughout the workout and I was so happy to have had the opportunity to join them. Here we are, a very sweaty post-run picture.
On the way home, I stopped at Panera Bread for chocolate milk. Two, to be exact. Chocolate milk is a great post-workout or post-race snack.
When I got home, I made Ina Garten's Orange Chocolate Chunk cupcakes with chocolate ganache frosting. The recipe calls for an orange/sugar simple syrup to be poured over the baked cakes. Once out of the oven, I punctured the cupcakes with a toothpick so the liquid would seep into them.
The finished product...
The cupcakes were very tasty, but I unfortunately baked them about three minutes too long.
The reason I made cupcakes was because we celebrated our friend's {Jolene} birthday. My husband has been good friends with her since 1996, when they started teaching together. To date, he has never remembered her birthday so as a joke, he bought cards from the dollar store and labeled them by year...starting with the present.
It was hilarious...
For dinner, I marinated a sirloin and Fred grilled it to perfection. Sides of green beans, red quinoa with feta cheese and peas, and a salad completed the menu.
The salad was simply romaine lettuce, dried cranberries, shaved fennel and Parmesan, raw pumpkin and sunflower seeds and a dressing of yesterday's oil and vinegar with salt, pepper and fresh basil. The lime infused olive oil and coconut white balsamic vinegar balanced each other extremely well. So good!
As for running, today is my off day. My body will be happy for the break....
Happy Labor Day! So far I've had a fun-filled long weekend complete with good food, friends and some running in between. On Saturday, Fred and I went over to the Moravian College football game...first one of the season! Unfortunately they lost, but it was nice to see the football crowd. I saw my third cousin, Coach Mak. He used to be the Athletic Director, but currently he is the assistant golf coach.
Later on in the day, we headed to a party hosted by our friend, Bob. I was undecided what to take at first, but then I settled on a tasty red sangria with oranges, limes, apples and lemons.
At Bob's party, the food was amazing. He had homemade pierogies with buttery, sauteed onions. O.M.G. So good! Here are some random photos from the afternoon starting with Fred and me...
My sister Tara...
My favorite brother-in-law, Tyler!
Heather, Carla, her daughter...
Jesse and Carla...
My sister and her old buddy, Eric...
It was so great to see Mike Warwick! Mike was Moravian's Sports Information Director when I was there and at that time, he made a few trips with the cross-country and track teams to the Division III national championships. He is currently the SID at Ithaca College in New York State.
Quoit time!
Freedom Cross-Country coaches {Cadee and Bob} with their first place trophy from Friday's Moravian Academy Invitational.
Jesse and my dad playing quoits...
Mike, Patrick and Bob...
Good times!!!
Yesterday I met my friend, Jeannine, at Billy's Downtown Diner for brunch. I decided to forfeit my usual yogurt parfait sundae and went for their French Toast with Nutella and a side of crispy bacon. Holy goodness!!
After our brunch, we thought we would walk around downtown for a bit. Bethlehem is gorgeous in their historic area. We thought this was a pretty picture with the gate open and the leaves on the sidewalk.
On our excursion, we stopped at the olive oil and vinegar tasting room on Main Street. It's one of my favorite places and I was out of my favorite oil so we popped in. After trying several samples, we both settled on some new flavors....Coconut white balsamic vinegar and Persian lime flavored olive oil. In addition, we purchased an Australian olive oil which is amazing on a salad with fresh lemon juice and shaved Parmesan.
For today, I am about to head off to do a workout with Moravian's XC team. Jesse is planning some intervals on the grass. Then I am having our friends over later for a belated birthday dinner/Labor Day cookout. Enjoy your day!
