Sunday, December 23, 2007

Running for chocolate

Here's a picture of our little tree, very much smaller than this one, being guarded by a Swedish Christmas goat.

We run for fitness, for PR's, for fun and best of all for food at the end of a nice long run. The promise today was for chocolate balls, a delicious family recipe for a Christmas treat which is basically an oversize chocolate with no redeeming value nutrician wise besides it's caloric and carb value. Think dates, peanut butter, icing sugar, coconut, combined with an egg and rolled in a chocolate... mmmm! I promised Andrew a special treat and this is what he got. He brought the Dunkin Donuts coffee and all was silent as we sat in my van chowing down. There was an odd number! Do you want the extra one I asked? "Sure !" he said snatching it quickly before I could say a word.

Another early 6am run at Boyden, this time with +2C, no wind and our friend Jonathan along for the ride. We cruised along very, very easily with the 1st mile at 9:05 and the fastest 16th mile of 8:08. There was lots of good conversation as we grilled Jon about his recent adventures at New York and his year of running. The roads were almost bare and I kept commenting on how few cars we met, in fact it was 7 miles in before we saw any traffic! I don't think we met a dozen cars on the entire loop which must be a record. After 17 we made a quick stop at the van to give Jon his treat while Andrew & I continued with a 3 mile out & back to get our 20. And then we savored our treats.

Week 1 of 18 is now complete. On Saturday I only did an easy 5 miles and so the Pfitz program was followed almost to the letter (unlike some folks) except for today's long run which called for 15 miles. Score is now Pfitz (6) - Andrew (1). Great week, total of 58 miles in 8hr 23 min, feeling good, legs and knee are fine but need to do some stretching to help the tight hamstrings.

Have a wonderful Christmas all with your family and friends!

6 comments:

Andrew said...

Mike doesn't like odd numbers. I was just helping him.

UMaine Cooperative Extension said...

I think, Mike, that your freindship with Andrew is testiment to the fact that, indeed, you do like odd numbers.

Merry Christmas!

DawnB said...

save some of those Christmas treats for me, when I've actually earned them I'll let you know :)

You had a great week.

happy holidays to you and yours!!

Garry said...

That is still a very nice tree! Sweets and beer that is why we run.
Have a great holiday!

Dubs said...

Merry Christmas! Love the outdoor lights & the tree! I was too lazy to help do the outdoor lights, so we stuck fake candles in all the windows! haha!! The chocolate sounds YUMMY and the run sounds relaxing without the traffic. I hope you had a Merry Christmas and best of luck in securing many PRs and a wonderful 2008!!

Dawn - Pink Chick Tris said...

My mouth was watering as I read your post. I so wish you lived closer. I've missed dropping by and please kick me in the butt for not coming by sooner.

I hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas. I need to update my blog. So much to tell, so much to read and always so little time.

All the best in 2008.