Month: October 2020

I have heard of people becoming born again virgins. Can one have a born-again PR? Let me begin by saying that I have run in a handful of races since the “Corn Teen” of 2020.

not me

The first two were tiny and shy, unsure of what to do in this Covid landscape. One was through the ground of mental hospital on an insanely (poor taste?) hot day. It was a race to promote mental health so there is that irony. Another was the slightly chaotic, very wet and very disappointing 8k that I was unprepared for written about here.

I didn’t think I liked running in races, I am not especially fast, except compared to women of a certain age. Typically, I spend the first mile freaking out that I won’t be able to finish and that they will find me curled in the fetal position when they “sweep” the course at the end. The second mile I am cursing my idiotic ideas and vowing to never race again. “This is the last race I will ever run in, I will only run for fun from this day forth!” By the 3rd mile, I see the literal light at the end of the tunnel and I tell myself the faster I run the faster it will be over. It doesn’t help to think that when I am finishing mile 2, my much faster son has finished the race and is snacking.

Is it me or is that last 0.1 unnecessary? Is it not the longest 100 meters on planet Earth? Do the laws of physics cease to exist? I always forget about that damn 0.1.

Not running in actual races has made me slow. Not even particularly steady, but significantly slower. I thought I would be ok with this but I am not. There is still some life in this old girl yet.

Back to my PR goal of running in the 25’s for my next 5k. Well, I was looking through our local run club results and the results from the last Turkey Trot we ran in Florida and found that I have already done this, more than once! I have no recollection of this, I thought my time was in the 26 range but no, 25:10 is my PR and I see no way that I am capable of running this time in 3 days. That’s something like an 8:06 pace, a pace which is perilously close to what I consider a “sprint.”

But do I look good?

On a positive note, I have been stealing the running sunglasses my son got for his birthday often enough that he finally yelled at me and I bought my own. Like everything I do and buy, I spent way too much time analyzing and being “frugal”. Ordinarily I buy whatever sunglasses are available from TJ Maxx or Marshalls, the idea of buying sunglasses without trying them on seemed foreign. How would I know if they were distorted or if I looked like a cast member from Dynasty?

I settled on these and I love them, the Tifosi “Swank.” The matte finish is so much better for sweaty faces. Having the bright polarizing lens means I don’t have to keep pulling my glasses up and down depending on the tree canopy above, allowing me to leap gracefully over the rocks and roots on the trail. They look pretty cool, at least as cool as I am willing to look. Though more expensive then the 9.99 glasses I usually buy, they are not ridiculously expensive.

In case I didn’t like the Tifosi’s, I bought these Knockarounds. I liked these too so I am keeping them both! They are a little less fancy than the Tifosis but they are still much better than my usual sunglasses!

The pair of Goodr that my son has are nice too, I wasn’t as crazy about the mirrored lenses but they have a great lightweight feel and ample but not overly dark light blocking.

All three of these brands, Knockarounds, Tifosi and Goodr have fun colors and remind me of the Swatch watches I so loved as a kid. I am coming full-circle, I will be the old lady trying to chase her best 5k time wearing some crazy sunglasses and checking my time on a swatch non-smart watch. Maybe a perm and bangs to complete my teen look?

We can at least all agree, I will be wearing ugly Hokas.

While I may not be able to run a 25:15, my goal is still to see a 25 in front of my time. I have been doing at least one speed workout a week, which I hate. I can feel a difference when I run faster, my legs hurt and I sound and look like Cujo on a hot day. Speed is not my friend. The one thing I have learned is to never say never, maybe I will like speed workouts someday. After my lobotomy.

Next, I will regale you with spooky tales of my pumpkin pie.

Hello darkness my old friend. Fall is a tough time for me, I don’t like winter and the darkness. The short days are especially difficult, I frequently joke that I am solar powered.

This fall came earlier than usual for our area. Without a prolonged “Indian Summer” I didn’t have a chance to feel tired of the heat. We never really go to say goodbye.

In years past, I have let myself get stressed out from all from all of the obligatory decorative clutter that appears in our house between October and January 1st. Now, I am embracing the mess. Or tying to.

When the days get shorter, I cook and bake more, I read more. I paint more. All of this indoor and inner reflection comes with a price, too much navel gazing, too much self-analysis.

I painted this over the weekend, I actually worked on 2 paintings side by side. Using this opportunity to tweak a few things from one to the other, playing with color and light. I am also attempting to maximize my very expensive Arches watercolor paper which comes in the most awkward sizes. Picture an angry beret-wearing, cigarette smoking cabal deciding, “Ah, yes, we shall make the papier of a useless size for any of those American frames. They shall buy beaucoup papier, cutting into even more useless scraps. Viola! C’est magnifique!

Can you tell that I took 4 years of French in high school? Or that I also took 2 years in college. It wasn’t pretty.

This painting is from a photo I took at Fairy Stone State Park early this spring. It was very cold and a storm was rolling in with darkness overtaking the light. Kind of how I feel right now.

This makes me feel cold.

I am counting down to December 21st, at least then I know they days will be getting longer. I will always love you, Summer! If you come back I won’t complain about mosquitoes. Maybe chiggers, but not the mosquitoes!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/889564041/storm-on-mountain-lake-at-sunset?ref=shop_home_active_1&frs=1

Fairy Stone State Park has beautiful lakefront cabins, some original post and beam and some modern. There are several good hiking trails, including one that travels on an old iron mining trail! Another trail goes to a scenic waterfall. The fairy stones are fun to hunt for but your best bet is to drive to the other side of the park to hunt!

Some blogs post beautiful photographs of carefully staged food, if you have read anything on this blog, you know this is not one of them.

My sister sent me a text message asking for the recipe of a childhood favorite, Apple Chocolate Chip Cake. It doesn’t sound like much, the name, though descriptive, doesn’t sounds appealing. It is delicious and simple, two of my favorite things.

I sent her a quick photo of the recipe. A recipe scrawled on a post-it-note and stuck inside the cover of a “vintage” The New York Time International Cookbook. I have never actually cooked one of these international dishes but I have moved this book to at least 14 different residences over the past 20-ish years so I feel like this book is essential to my household.

I have made this recipe so many times I don’t read it except to verify the age old question, “am I using baking powder or baking soda?” My sister, “lol”ed at my directions. And the patina of my cover.

Follow me for more delicious recipes!

The big joke here is that I am what you might call a “one bowl baker,” which is code for a lazy and terrible baker. My love of minimalism and efficiency is greater than my need to be a perfect baker so I mix my “wet” ingredients and then add scoops of my dry ingredients, in the same bowl! With the exception of a meringue or a souffle, which I clearly have no business making, I stick to my one-bowl rule.

The writing on the upper right is my mother’s, though I have no recollection of her adding her helpful hints. I never dust pans and certainly wouldn’t dust them with breadcrumbs. My life is too short for dry-cleaning, owning shirts that aren’t wrinkle free and dusting cake pans.

I get angry when I am scrolling through War and Peace to find the directions to a recipe, clearly a simple, “add” and “mix” is sufficient to make a cake.

As a minimalist, I try not to attach too much sentiment to material things. I take a lot of photographs, try to create as many fun memories as I can but I don’t have a lot of “mementos.” My kids won’t inherit much from me other than my love of karaoke and combination oily/dry skin.

This is my heirloom, I rewrote this recipe at one point from an even older post-it note than had lost its stick and been taped several times. Behold my children, someday, this will be yours.

Growing up, I called this recipe, Auntie Hazel’s Apple Cake. Hazel was a classic Yankee farmer who owned a large apple orchard in Rhode Island. I never had a relationship with any relatives outside of my parents so this was as close as I get to family recipes.

Since the recipe involved apples, it all made sense to my young mind. I proudly told everyone who came into contact with this delicious recipe that it was “Auntie Hazel’s Apple Chocolate Chip Cake.” Only it wasn’t her recipe. My mother casually mentioned it came from a magazine and had nothing to do with the apple orchard of my youth.

This will have to suffice as an heirloom recipe for my children.

On the other side of their family, my husband has this book, filled with classic Italian cookie recipes from his mother. Did I mention his family had been bakers in Italy?

Someday, my children will fight over one of these books.

Though I am not a good baker, I substitute ingredients early and often, I know how to pick and stick with a winner. Much like marriage, you may have to modify a bit but ultimately, there is no substitute for comfort.

I have made this recipe more times than I can count, I am posting the “classic” version as well as my “modified” version.

Classic Apple Chocolate Chip Cake

  1. Cream 1 cup of sugar, 3/4 cup oil in a bowl. Add 2 eggs and beat until fluffy. Add 2 tsp of vanilla extract and mix.
  2. In a separate large bowl, sift together (ha ha) 2 cups flour, dash salt and 1 tsp of baking soda.
  3. With the precision of the bomb squad, carefully add the wet ingredients to the dry (or the other way around I can’t remember) Mix until blended
  4. Add 3-4 apples, peeled and slices and 1 cup of chocolate chips, mix.
  5. Grease a bundt pan, pour in batter, scoop it, etc.
  6. Bake at 350 for almost an hour. It will get fairly dark, you don’t want it undercooked.

Modified Apple Chocolate Chip Cake

  1. Get your favorite bowl, cream 1/2 cup sugar with olive oil and whole plain yogurt, I add equal amounts to create 3/4 cup total
  2. Add 2 eggs, mix until fluffy, add 1tsp vanilla extract and a whisp of cinnamon
  3. throw in your dash of salt, add 1 tsp of baking soda, mix a tad
  4. Add 1 cup almond flour, mix a bit
  5. Add 1 cup of gluten-laden white flour, mix until blended
  6. Mix in the apples (3-4 sliced and peeled) and 1 cup chocolate chip
  7. Grease your bundt pan, add batter, bake at 350 for around an hour
  8. Do not underbake, the apples release moisture.
Food photography is not my strong point, let’s call it rustic and agree that my granite is ugly.

We like to hike as a family. Well, my husband and I like to hike so by virtue of the “I am your parent, obey me” property, we hike as a family. I am not going to romanticize this, there is an undercurrent of whining and eye rolling when I announce we are going for a hike. I tend to do things on the spur of the moment, throw a “picnic” lunch into a bag and hit the road. Before we had the beloved shed-cabin documented here, here and here.

Room with a view!

I love this little table, it’s from IKEA and came with 4 chairs. It is made from real wood and matches our unfinished cabin! You can’t beat the price and the small foot print works well for us.

We have hiked many trails, for years I have wanted to blog about our various hikes but never got around to it. I will attempt to pick one trail and see how it goes from there. I have so many favorites but I will try to stay on topic and focus on ONE hike!

Recently we hiked to Hanging Rock Raptor Observatory. I will admit, I had images of vultures and condors soaring overhead with a dark bell-tower looming atop the mountain. It wasn’t like that. This was for us, an easy and short hike, it should be doable for most people and families. There is an elevation gain but the trail is clear and it is a steady rise to the top. Once at the top there is an observatory (not a dark tower) with several steep flights of steps. It was under construction when we went which was eavn more terrifying. There were many brave volunteers replacing the decking around the observatory.

One of the volunteers showed us the “peaks” of interest. From this observatory you can see Flat Top/Sharp Top as well as Buffalo Mountain (all of which we have hiked and are fantastic!).

Getting there:

The road in is windy, like most mountain roads. There was a Mennonite bakery with delicious hand pies (think hostess but much better) on the main road just before you turn on to . The road is paved all of the way to the parking lot ( if you hike many trails you know that sometimes the roads are very rough.) The lot is small so plan accordingly and on weekends, it fills early. There were no open spots when we arrived, we drove further down the road to turn around when we saw a group walking up what was labeled “Fire Tower Road”. We pulled over onto the very wide shoulder and checked the map.

All roads do not lead to the Observatory.

We hiked this fire road to where I thought there was a trail which would intersect with the Allegheny trail. It did not, we turned around and drove back to the trail head lot.

The hike up is an incline, but not very steep, the trail is well cleared and not a rock scramble. The elevation at the top is over 3500 ft and it was quite cool, be prepared for the lower temps in cooler weather. It would be a nice hike in summer to get away from the heat!

Clearly we need to work on posture…

It’s about a mile to the top, there was a port-a-potty just past the building but the sign on it said it was closed due to Covid. One of my troop used it and said it was particulary nasty, closed apparently meant no cleaning or emptying.

I wished it were a little more like a haunted tower with spider webs, dark clouds and menacing raptors. Maybe a quothing Raven or two.

Once you reach the top, or use the port-a-potty, you can climb on the rocks and peer over. There is a very steep drop off and no barrier so I would be very careful! Here are some views from the top and a picture of me slinking towards the top of the rock!

This is a great family hike, it is about a mile each direction, here is a longer description of the hike.

Apparently I will only run rainy races this year. At least it was cooler than the last race and I was prepared to run in wet conditions.

This time, I tried to find a course map. The link to the race page went to an email address so that didn’t quite work out for me. I underestimated the hills, my phone told me there was a nearly half a mile of ascent but my speed training carried me through!

We all ran hard, I think in part to make up for our lackluster performance at the previous race. I was most proud of my daughter, she had a PR and ran a 23:20 ish which was 40 seconds faster than her prior PR. It was an out an back course so I got to see both of my kids as they sailed through the back half!

Why did I feel so much stronger in this race? I ran 2 and 3 day streaks in a row, usually I run every other day. I also incorporated some sprints into my regular run and did a track workout with my daughter. My 5k time was 26:11 which will not quality me for any product endorsements or coaching gigs, but it it a time I am proud to tell other people!

What are my next goals?

  1. To get into the 25 minute range for a 5k. Most of our upcoming races that have not been cancelled are 8 or 10ks.
  2. Run some races outside of the area, I like a change of scenery, it satisfies my “wanderlust gene!”. As the daughter of an immigrant and a descendant of Mormon Pioneers, it’s strong in me.

During the quarantine I did a lot of (social)distance running. I had nothing to train for and didn’t pay much attention to my pace. Running fast makes me anxious, my body experiences the adrenaline rush as a full blown panic attack. Therefore, I prefer slower, longer runs. As mentioned before, I am still relatively new to running, I have no younger me to compare myself to aside from the forced Presidential Fitness Test mile in high school.

The competitive streak I didn’t know I had comes out during races. Intellectually I know that I am running in the least competitive age group (at least in my area) and in a smaller community, it’s not the Olympics. Spiritually, I am Flo Jo, without the finger nails.

As mentioned previously I was disappointed in my last race. Yes, the conditions were terrible but I sucked wind. I decided that my “leisurely stroll through the park” runs were not helping me improve my speed.

My kids are putting me on a speed workout plan! Today I ran 1/4 mile repeats (1 lap to me) 400’s to the track people out there.

1st lap was a warm up 9:41

2nd was 7:11

3rd lap was a slower lap at 8:02

4th was 7:30

5th 7:51

6th was a 6:47 (Flo-Jo!)

7th lap 7:30

I walked for around 30 seconds in between, my daughter also had me do some shorter sprints but I don’t know how to time them well, they were around a 6:23 pace

I felt pretty good, maybe I should run my next 5k in half mile bursts!

I also ran 3 days in a row, I will take tomorrow as a rest day, I have a feeling I will need it.

Tracking my runs is something I obsess over. Not because I am in some sort of Olympic training program but I think it helps to keep me accountable and I take pride in my steady, though slow, progress.

Over the summer, Runkeeper began to give me fits. My GPS would stop tracking as soon as I woke my screen up. I would run 5 miles and have Runkeeper tell me I went half a mile at a pace of 32 miles per minute. I tried changing the sleep settings, nothing seemed to help.

Reluctantly, I tried a few other aps. Map my Run has too many advertising features and it seemed like the most useful stuff was a premium upgrade. I settled on Samsung Health. It gives me all of the useful data which for me includes, current pace, average pace, distance and duration. You can also monitor cadence and elevation, which isn’t available on many free aps.

My biggest complaint is that I find the interface difficult to use when I am actually running. Runkeeper has that tacky orange and blue but easy to read screen. I have a tendency to think I am running faster than I actual am so a visual reminder keeps me on pace. Yes, I am one of those old ladies who runs with her phone. What if I need to make a phone call? What if my kids have an emergency? What if I need to send a cell tower ping for my last known location so the FBI can track me? What if I see the perfect sunrise and need to take a photo while being kidnapped?

Running with your phone presents some difficulties. In the beginning of my running journey, I would just hold my phone. After one race in particular, I developed a neural cyst I believe from squeezing my phone in my efforts to break the sound barrier.

Arm bands do not work well for me. Like many runners, I have spindly little arms and every arm band I tried wound up around my wrists. In addition, I am a fiddler, it is too difficult for me to navigate spotify and my running ap while staring at my under-developed bicep.

A simple hand held holder works best for me. I can still take a photo when I unstrap the phone, it’s a little clunky but much easier than trying to fish my phone out of a slot type holder.

this is not my hairy wrist

I am going to work on toggling my settings for Samsung health, the ap provides a lot of data which is great to review after a run but I need to find a away to make it more user friendly whilst running.