| This past weekend was a busy one. Saturday the Alley Pond Striders had their monthly refreshment run. I decided to bake something for the after-run brunch. My mind was settled on a pumpkin muffin recipe that I found in Cooking Light magazine. I spent the week before accumulating the ingredients that weren't already in my kitchen. A lot of it was on sale for Thanksgiving so I stocked up on canned pumpkin and such. I was all ready on Friday night to get down to some serious baking when I realized that I was missing one of the most important parts of this project - I didn't own a muffin tin. Off to the internet to search for another recipe for a cake or bread that used the same ingredients. I settled on a spiced pumpkin bread also from Cooking Light.
Saturday morning I went for a short easy run in the park, since I was planning on doing a race on Sunday. The pumpkin bread was a big hit and disappeared in minutes. I tried everything and ended up with most of a crumb cake to take home when we were cleaning up. I threw it straight in the freezer when I got home so I wouldn't be tempted to eat the entire thing.
After showering and gathering my stuff, I headed off to Chelly's for a MetroStitcher gathering. The theme was a yard sale - bring anything you no longer wanted and either price it for sale or throw it in a giveaway pile. I managed to get rid of some old magazines and charts that I had been hanging onto for no good reason. I also continued to snack on some not-so-good for me items and had two slices of pizza and two bottles of beer. I kind of ignored the fact that I was planning on racing the next morning. I got home at a reasonable time and managed to be in bed early
Sunday was the Mineola Mustang 5k. I hadn't preregistered so I thought getting there an hour early would be enough time. It was, but I never remember that it is probably going to be hard to park anywhere near the start area. Got a bit of a warmup jogging the quarter mile from where I found parking and signed up for the race. I wasn't planning on a getting in a real race, but I was hoping to keep a 9:00 pace.
I was freezing at the start. Still not used to the cold weather, it had been in the 60s earlier last week, I wasn't sure how warmly to dress. I went for the tights and a long sleeve shirt. I also remembered my light gloves for which I was glad. The gun went off and the fairly large field started moving. I got across the start line in probably a minute or so and settled into a comfortable pace. The first mile went by in a little over 9 minutes race time, but about 8:45 by my watch. I felt good so I decided to pick it up a bit. The race clock said 17:02 at the two mile mark. This was going really well and I started to look for other runners who might be in my age group. I started to slowly pick off runners in the third mile. I decided that this might be a better race than I had planned and chose to really start to push the pace. For the last quarter of a mile I was really feeling it, but I was flying by other runners. I gave it one good push over the finish line. 26:30 -- a new personal best! I was so pleased. I haven't been feeling like the running has been going that well since the start of the summer, so I'm stunned that I managed a PR in a 5k.
I stuck around to see how my time stacked up in my division. 22nd out of 66. Not too bad. The organizers had a raffle and besides the standard bagels and water, there were cakes and cookies provided by Entenmann's, one of the sponsors. After a while they started to clear up the food and were handing out the unopened boxes. I got three boxes shoved in my arms. Gosh, this is getting difficult to resist! Everything is in the freezer so that I have some time to think over a sudden urge for baked goods. I'm bringing all of it over to my parent's tomorrow for Thanksgiving. Hopefully, my family will eat it and I won't have to stare at for the next week.
Happy holiday to everyone!
Labels: races, running, stitching |
happy Thanksgiving! :) p.s. I need help running..