Livin' the Dream in Lima

Well, 2012 has come and gone. I haven't been able to blog as much as I would have liked (hello, life!), but thought it would be fun to look back at my year 'in running'. The Numbers miles logged: 2561 - not including tomorrow's run... planning on 6 or 7 more to finish the year! races run: 14 highest mileage week:  62 - training for the IL Marathon pairs of shoes gone through:  4 or so money spent on running shoes:  don't even want to think about it Clif bars consumed:   probably 250 or so, love those things!  number of miles run with my Business Man:  oh, about 2. :) I'll turn him into a runner someday... though he did run his first 5k! (with no training) Overall, it was an awesome year for running. I was really blessed to see a PR in every distance from the 5km to the marathon. I started the year by pretending to be in college again with an indoor 5km ... luckily I was able to hold my own and broke 19 minutes for the firs...

Tuesday Tangents: A few weekends ago I traveled to the grand ole' state of Illinois to celebrate one of my BFF's bachelorette party. She gets married in less than 2 weeks! We had lots of fun. We'll leave it at that. On the drive there, I stopped in our college town to run my favorite 3-mile route from back in the day. Yes I'm one of those  people who packs running clothes in their car for instances such as this. Totally fun though. While driving back to the Bean Town, I passed a truck on the highway. Carrying a treadmill. And then spent the next 20 miles wondering if it would be possible to run on the treadmill while driving down the interstate. Physics friends, help me out?? My friend Kristi came to visit us here in the Bean Town this weekend with her two wee ones. We had loads of fun... though we didn't quite bake as much as we did last year . Something about entertaining a 5 month old + 3 year old makes regular activities take three t...

It's been a busy couple weeks. We've had LOTS of time spent with family & friends, which is always awesome. I can't believe it's already December... time to whip out the mixers and baking sheets and get cookie-baking! I debated whether to do the 12 Days of Christmas Cookies here on the blog this year, considering it's been 85 years since I last posted a recipe. But I figured, "why not?!" It gives me a good excuse to try out 12 new recipes.  For day numero uno, we've got Rocky Ledge Bars . One of my fabulous teacher-baker friends introduced me to these bars and they're absolutely delicious.  [ Side note : She is also a cupcake queen and our students always tell us we should have a makeshift 'Cupcake Wars' at school... haha. As long as the students provide the $10K prize, I'm in.]   These bars are a twist on a basic blondie, with a buttery brown sugar base.. They're loaded with all sorts of goodies - semisweet choco...

Life is crazy, but awesome! I've been capturing what I can on my phone; here's a little update. :) A few weeks ago, my parents came out to visit and we headed over to Cleveland to see the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Who knew there could be TWO ENTIRE FLOORS dedicated to the Grateful Dead?! My dad was in heaven. It was actually pretty neat to see the artifacts and read the background of the band, considering I pretty much grew up listening to the Dead. We bought a second fridge. I abso-freakin-lutely LOVE it. Perfect for stocking up at Sam's Club. Or when I have 12 dozen cupcakes to store and they all have to be refrigerated.  I came up with some tasty Thanksgiving cupcake flavors. This is my favorite - Pecan Pie. Butter yellow cake filled with pecan pie filling and topped with fresh whipped cream. Definitely a knife & fork cupcake. I had an order for 125 cake pops. If you've ever made cake pops before, you know that's a lo...

To say this fall has been busy  is an understatement. Full-time teaching job + part-time bakery business + training 55-60 miles a week + random other activities that life brings... keeps me on my toes! I'm loving every second of it though. :) To sum up this fall training cycle in a sentence - it rocked. It was the first time I really ever put a plan together myself (I usually just use SmartCoach on Runnersworld.com, but a girl can only take so many mile repeat workouts. Seriously, I think that's the only type of speed training they've ever assigned me.)  Start of the Columbus Marathon - I ran the half. I was nervous that it would be too much/not enough/not the right kind of speedwork/too aggressive/not aggressive enough. Ya know what I mean? Turns out, it worked for me.  I topped out at about 60 miles a week, and most weeks had two speed workouts and a 12-15 mile long run. I made sure I got one solid speed workout, and if I happened to get the other one,...

The end of my training cycle is coming near... just 2 weeks to go. That means RACE TIME! I had three races scheduled for October: Oct 6 - Hands4Haiti Half Marathon Oct 13 - Cheerfund 15km Oct 21 - Columbus Half Marathon The original plan was just to run the Hands4Haiti Half as a training run. It's a really small, no-frills race here in the Bean Town, and I thought attempting a PR would be difficult. I was just going to go out and get my long run done (and maybe win. Seriously, last year the winning time was 1:35.) Then, I would taper, and race the 15km and Columbus Half all out. Well, here's how it went down. I carb-loaded like a champ Friday night (mmmm, pizza) and woke up Saturday morning ready to roll. I warmed up and made it to the start line. After chatting with some of the other runners, the race finally started. (15 minutes late, whoops.) Chillin' at the start. We thought it was funny that mostly women were at the front. Girl power! Two women to...

This weekend, my Business Man & I traveled home to visit our families. It has become our little tradition to head home the weekend of the Pumpkin Fest  - the cooler temps have usually just  arrived, there's pumpkin goodies all around, and of course, I get to race the Pumpkin Classic 10km . It's the perfect way to kick off fall. We got home late Friday night, and after a short night's sleep, we were up bright & early for the 10km. I know I haven't been blogging much about my training this fall (slacker!), but I've been putting in lots of hard work. Long runs, interval sessions, tempo runs. I was really excited to race yesterday morning, to see what kind of shape I was in. (I hadn't raced seriously since July 4.) My momma came along to walk the 2-mile, and my Business Man came to cheer us both. (My dad had to work, or he would've been there, too.) The weather was perfect - 50s and sunny, perfect for racing. Mom & I at the start, looki...

Isn't it funny how sometimes you just get a little carried away with life and your blog goes a month without an update?! I've been super busy ever since we got back from Colorado... between baking orders for  Sara's Sweets , training for the Columbus Half-marathon, and getting back into the swing of school. (We've already been back for 7 days... just 173 to go! Heh.) Systems of equations, anyone? School started last Tuesday, and we have had some pretty big changes. Instead of 95-minute blocks and semester classes, we now have 50-minute periods and classes that last all-year long. It's been a bit of an adjustment, but I like it so far. (Except for the whole four different preps at the same time. That's a lil' rough.) I've got several of the same students from last year, and they're a fun group. We're also acclimating to the new Common Core standards which is loads of fun. (Or not.) Some beautiful sugar cookies to lessen the blo...