Wow, another weekend gone too soon. The busier they are, the faster they fly by.
Sunday was the highly anticipated Blogger Run and Brunch! I stayed overnight at a friend Derek’s apartment near the park, so I wouldn’t have to get up too early for the 9AM race. Turns out my friend Derek’s girlfriend is a runner, so she actually joined the race with me, borrowing Katherine’s bib and dtag. We somehow way overestimated the amount of time it would take us to jog three blocks to the park, so we arrived to empty corrals at 8:15 with 45 minutes left to freeze our butts off. So we decided to stay warm by jogging around. After running down a very quiet and chilly Madison Ave for a while, we headed back over to the start. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any of the lovely blogger bunch anywhere 
.
A few minutes before the race started, I lost Meg to a last minute restroom run. So I set off on my own. Meg hadn’t mentioned how much of a runner she was, but I found out that she has run many marathons and was even a pace coach in California. I am happy she didn’t have me to slow her down! My race, though solitary, went smoothly. I took it really easy the first mile. I had to ditch my gloves and tuck the little hand fabric in the sleeves of my running jacket around my cuffed fingers to ease the intense burning going on. Once the icy pain eased, I happily sailed along until around mile two, when a six year old passed me, and I decided I better start picking it up a bit. When I reached mile 3, I realized I had taken it way too easy. I had never felt so fresh at that point in a race before. Since the last mile of the race was all downhill, I really tried to go for it. Fortunately, my playlist had some great sprint songs at the end. I finished pretty strong, but knew I could have ran much much harder overall.
Here was my totally randomly thrown together Gridiron Playlist. It ended up being great, I skipped You’re So Damn Hot and finished the race just as Kill the Director was starting. It was a good mix of new and old favs.
My time was actually my second fasted 4 miler with NYRR, but much slower than my 8:50 Turkey Trot Pace.
My official time was 38:21.
I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find Meg at the end, but she was right there as I crossed the finish. She finished in a speedy 32:08!
After the race, the real fun began. I dashed back to D’s to pick up my stuff, take off my bottom layer and throw on some jeans and then went to meet up with several of my favorite ladies! This of course included my blog crush, and NYC guest of honor, Meghann! Graduate Meghann is one of two blogs I don’t have on my google reader because I never go a day without checking it at least once—pure runspiration! Meghann is now fully aware that I am a creepy stalker. Happy Birthday BTW! And the other lovely lady is my friend, neighbor and fellow blogger Ashley. How are you so glowing and fresh after the race, Ash?
Brunch at Arte was great. It gave me a chance to catch up with Dori, Heather, Katie, Jesse and several other great bloggers and runners! I hope to run and brunch with you all soon. I am thinking of signing up for the Shamrock and the NYRR8000, anyone else?
After brunch ended, I headed to work for a few hours, and then to help a friend get ready for a superbowl party. While I like football okay, I love the superbowl, and I fully embraced the opportunity to do some baking!
Images graciously used from Google Images to represent likeness.
I made Southern Style Cornbread adapted from the amazing Angelica Kitchen recipe pg 158:
- 1 cup cornmeal
- 1/2 cup ww flour
- 1/2 cup flour
- 3 tsp. baking powder
- few dashed garlic powder
- 1 cup skim milk or butter milk
- 1/4 EVO
- 1 egg
- 1/4 pure maple syrup
- 1/2 tsp. sea salt
Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. delicious
I made one of my favorite desserts of all time:
CHOCOLATE STREUSEL BARS
- 1 ¾ cups unsifted flour
- 1 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar
- ½ cup unsweetened cocoa
- 1 cup cold margarine or butter
- 2 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
- 1 (14-ounce) can Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk
- (NOT evaporated milk)
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ cup chopped walnuts (or chocolate morsels)
Preheat oven to 350°. In large bowl, combine flour, sugar and cocoa. Cut in margarine until crumbly (mixture will be dry). Reserving 2 cups crumb mixture, press remainder on bottom of 13 x 9-inch baking pan. Bake 15 minutes. In large mixer bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Gradually beat in Eagle Brand until smooth. Add egg and vanilla; mix well. Pour over prepared crust. Combine nuts (or morsels) with reserved crumb mixture; sprinkle evenly over cheese mixture. Bake 20-25 minutes or until bubbly. Cool. Chill. Cut into bars. Store covered in refrigerator.
Finally for a super simple, yet very impressive appetizer, I made
Caprese Skewers
- bocconcini (mozzarella balls)–find very very fresh!
- sweet cherry tomatoes (or grape in a pinch)
- fresh basil leaves
- s+p
- evoo and balsamic
- dried oregano
Simple skewer the mozzarella on a toothpick/skewer, follow with a basil leave and one tomato. Around completed skewers on a platter and drizzle with EVOO, BV, Salt, Pepper and dried oregano. Viola. As long as your ingredients are super fresh and high quality, this will be molto bene! I stole the idea from Miss RR
Also on the extensive party menu was: a whole roasted turkey, chili, two types of ziti with homemade sauce, white sweet potato fries, fresh guac, bean dip, chocolate chip cookies, banana pudding, baby carrots (all me), chips, pretzels, fried cheese sticks, tacitos, mini pizza, nuts, candy corn, and beer. I think there were more food options than interceptions and completions combined. lol.
I hope you all enjoyed the superbowl/and or the commercials. If anyone is interested here are some of the songs played in the commercials. It includes Two Weeks by Grizzly Bear, which Gena recently put on a mix for me and I LOVE. Also, here’s what happened if you called Barney!
Hope you all had a great Monday! I hope to finally put together my next NYC post soon!
(Trey Songz)
