Winter (Finally) Comes to Central Texas

This past winter has been a strange one in a lot of places. For starters, much of the South has been blanketed by snow (even parts of Florida!), and it finally hit central Texas today.

As much as I kvetch about snow, it was really cool seeing it after over a year...Actually, make that 2 years. The last time I saw the powdery stuff was in New Jersey, winter 2008. It seems like eons ago, even though it's only been 24 months between now and then.

I wound up not doing the 45-minute tempo run that's on my training schedule. Instead, I walked and took pictures... Very soothing for the soul, and a rare treat for me.

Fluff(y)

Recently, I came across this interesting use of cottage cheese in a quasi-dessert recipe (I'll explain the "quasi" part later), and made a batch of it. It's dubbed "fluff," for a better lack of a word.

The basic recipe comes down to using 1 cup of cottage cheese (preferably fat free, or 1%) and 1 package of sugar-free Jell-O, your choice of flavor. Splenda and protein powder sometimes makes an appearance in some variations of "fluff," too. But I didn't want to spoil the recipe's pureness - heh - so I excluded them.

My only tweaks to this is that I strained the cottage cheese in a coffee filter to make it creamier, and I chilled the Jell-O so that it could really be, well, Jell-O. (You can wait for the mixture to reach room temperature when making fluff, but I also wanted to eat some of those nommy gelatinous squares all by themselves). You simply take the two ingredients, and blend them together until a pink, fluffy mixture is formed.

Mine came out looking like this:


I easily ate this in two servings. It came out light and pleasantly sweet, and it was also quite filling.

I referred to it earlier as a "quasi-dessert" because it's apparently favored among female figure competitors when trying to satisfy their sweet tooths, but with minimal caloric and carb damage. And let's be real here, this would never make its way to a normal person's dining room table! But for someone who's trying to drop a few pounds (ok, I admit, that's me at the moment), this is a good weapon in combating the hungreez, or a really bad case of the sweet munchies.

However, I can't help but add that when I saw my concoction, it reminded me of the pink slime in Ghostbusters 2. Remember how New York City's sewers in that flick got all clogged up with the stuff?



Pleasant eating everyone!

Training Update

2/9/10 - 5.31 mile run, 50:13

Warmed up by doing an easy mile, then the rest I ran comfortably "hard." Today is a shorter run (around 3 miles), and I may or may not do it as speedwork.

I've also decided that this Sunday's half marathon will be a training module, and not an opportunity to PR. It will also provide an experimental ground for using Galloway's run/walk method. And let me confess: while I realistically don't think I will set a new record here, I am still secretly, deep down inside, hoping that happens. But I won't hold my breath here, either.

Reality Bites

To help me prepare for my upcoming May 2nd shindig, I recently purchased Jeff Galloway's "Marathon: You Can Do It!". And I'm so glad that his run/walk formula exists, because I've concluded that's the only hope I have for finishing my marathon this spring.

Earlier today, I laid out my marathon training program. I have only 12 weeks now to get geared up for it - not a very optimal amount of time. Ah well, what was I gonna do? I'm impulsive that way. Getting back on track, since I haven't done any mileage-building beyond my half in December, I missed getting in some crucial training. *sigh* It doesn't matter anyhow; I don't have a set time goal in mind for the NJ Marathon. But still, I can't help but feel this wasn't the brightest of ideas.

Just allow me to have a freak-out moment (or two) over this, then carry on.