What are we talking about today?

I'll get back to theme days once I find a groove of posting regularly. In the meantime, most of my posts are about some variation of books, bikes, buses, or Broadway. Plus bits about writing, nonprofits, and grief from time to time.

This blog is mostly lighthearted and pretty silly. It's not about the terrible things happening in the world, but please know that I'm not ignoring those things. I just generally don't write about them here.

27 November 2008

Three up, three down.

Or, perhaps I should borrow from the new gymnastics rules, and say, "Three up, three count." Whichever.

So, after the running club end-of-year dinner in January, I evolved three running goals for myself for 2008. (I've been saying all day that I had four goals, but now that I'm writing it down, I don't remember a fourth one.)

1. Finish in the WTRC's "66 Mile Club."
2. Finish a half marathon.
3. Finish a race in a 10 minute per mile pace or faster.

1: Did it. Made it to 66 racing miles on November 8th. So come the year-end dinner in January, I get the really nice "66 Mile" t-shirt. I'll be wearing that thing to church, to work, and everywhere in between. There will be no parting me from that shirt. Except, you know, to wash it every now and then.

2: I think I may have mentioned that I ran a half marathon. I could have made it to 66 miles without the half marathon, but it certainly helped.

3: This one has me tickled pink. And I don't even like pink. But we ran the two mile race at the Turkey Trot this morning, and I finished in 19:12. For those of you keeping track at home, that's 9:36 per mile. I nearly collapsed when I came across the line, but it was mostly from happiness. And then my mp3 player broke. Can't have everything.

Three up, three down. Now to work on my 2009 running goals.

3 comments:

Beth said...

At least your mp3 player broke at the end of the race....

So for soft cookies - yes, the easiest thing to do is to shorten the baking time a bit. I like my chocolate cookies soft and I bake them until you can just barely tell that the edges are starting to change color (which happens to be 9 minutes per sheet). The other thing you can do is play around with the recipe a bit. Are they hard because they're spreading out really thin? Add more flour or a bit of cornstarch so they'll stay thicker while baking. Or chill (or even freeze) the cookies before popping them into the oven. Are they soft at first and then harden up after a day or so? Try adding something that will attract moisture, like replacing some of the sugar with corn syrup, or perhaps adding a little extra egg yolk (I'd say maybe half of a yolk unless it's a really big batch).

Oh, and if you try any of the above - only change one thing at a time. You may end up having to go through several batches before you end up with the perfect recipe but it will totally be worth it. I know because I eventually worked out the recipe for the absolute best chocolate cookies on the planet. :-)

Oh, and you asked what alcohol went well with knitting - most people say wine, but because I am terrible at picking wine (mostly because I never choose wine), I generally use a splash of vodka in a glass of juice.

Timbra said...

very very cool. meeting goals is always a very uplifting thing. now when you say "three down" you mean the mp THREE player is down? i think that's what you mean, and it's very clever and it took me a minute to get it. . . . anyway, congrats on meeting your goals!!!

Su said...

Timbra, that would have been very clever, if that was what I had meant. But it wasn't; I just meant that I got all three of my goals. However, thank you for ascribing such cleverness to me. :)

Beth, you rock. But we already knew that. :) I will work at my cookie-making until I am satisfied with the result.