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.
I am the sister and somewhat of the opposite when it comes to baking. Measure twice (with a digital scale) and add once is my motto and I often buy things with the intention they will be heirlooms.
I vouch for this humble cake. It is simple, hearty, and delivers a delicious result that requires no more than an active 15 minutes in the kitchen (five of those minutes peeling and chopping apples).
I’ve often wondered about its origins. I suspect it is some depression or WWII era recipe, made in a time when butter was scarce hence why it is made with oil and a lesser amount of sugar – (though as a cake with fruit in it vegetable oil is fairly typical, so perhaps I shouldn’t read too much into that).
With regard to baking powder/baking soda – I wonder if we have it wrong all these years. Baking soda leavens when introduced to an acid. There isn’t much acidic here. Vegetable oil is completely neutral and the apples, while acidic, aren’t doing much acidifying until they’re baked and by then it would be too late for the baking soda to do any heavy lifting. The recipe, as cooked by my sister, adds yogurt (and sometimes olive oil) – that does have acid in it so at least the baking soda is doing something. But in my bakerly opinion, if you’re going to bake this the way it is written I think you’d be safe with 1 tsp baking powder and ½ tsp baking soda (baking powder, unlike its soda sister, leavens in the presence of liquid).
It is often difficult to gauge the doneness of cakes made with fresh fruit so I use a digital thermometer – your cake is done when the center is between 190º-200º. You could also make this cake with butter but remember that oils are 100% fat and American butter is only 80-85% fat. The rest is water, so you’ll want to add slightly more flour because there is no other liquid to pull out of the recipe. I also make this with 3 eggs rather than 2 because growing up we only ever had jumbo sized eggs and most recipes are written for large eggs not jumbo.
Whatever you do this is a stable recipe that fits “whatever you have on hand.” It is not fiddley, it will not fail you.