Easy like Sunday Morning.

Ok, I've been wanting to use that title for a while, but it's a big lie. 

You've fallen for a ruse.

Mileage wise, I did back off a bit this week, but all of my runs were tough. 

The toughest of which was...

wait for it....  

on sunday morning.

More on that later.

The Fundraising

I didn't have a whole lot of action in the fundraising department this week, but I did have one nice donation come in from glass artist Jenn Goodale.

Here are a couple of shots from the shoot I did for her in exchange for her donation.

If you like what you see, please support her by checking out more of her work on her website.

Glass Sculpture by Jenn Goodale

Corked Glass Bottles by Jenn Goodale        

The Training

32 Miles

As I started to say earlier, I backed off on the mileage quite a bit this week. This wasn't so much intentional as it was a result of crappy weather. Thursday's snow threw a monkey wrench in my home schedule, so I ended up completely missing my run. 

Saturday Long Run

12.25 miles

Another saturday, another freezing cold start to my weekly long run with the Run for the Memory crew! It's funny, but the cold is actually starting to become a non issue. That first mile or so is always a bit rough on the extremities, but before you know it...  nice and toasty. The only thing that keeps me off the road now is actual snow. It's a pain in the ass to run on!

This week we met at the top of Heartbreak Hill as normal, but because of the road conditions, we varied our route a bit. We descended and then climbed back up Heartbreak from both directions! The run ended up being a couple miles shorter than I was originally planning, but it was much tougher because of all of the extra hills.

The infamous Michelle Gonzales from the Alzheimer's Association made an appearance and ran 8 miles  with the Run for the Memory crew this week! 

Sunday Soup Group

10.2 Miles

This week, the soup group met in Douglas, MA for a 9 mile run. When I woke up in the morning I didn't think I would have too much trouble doing the full run because of my shorter than normal run on saturday. As we drove into town though, I started to get nervous. Hill, after hill, after hill. 

Some silly part of my brain still held out hope that the course would be flat. I did my normal 1 mile warm up and then headed out with the group.

This run was by far the hilliest that I've done yet. By the last 3 miles, my legs were screaming! I'm sure that if I hadn't done 12 miles the day before I would have had an easier time with it.

When it was over though, I felt great about doing back to back TOUGH 10+ mile runs!

Not to mention, it was time for soup!

The Payoff

Chili made by this weeks host Rob Rose.

I've had some requests for the recipes for the soups you've been seeing here, so I put in a request to all of our runners/chefs to supply me with the recipe when not legally obligated to do otherwise.

Here's Rob's recipe for this week's Chili.

Crock Pot Chili 

Ingredients: 

• 2 pounds lean ground beef

        • 1 cup chopped onion    

        • 1 large green bell pepper, seeded and diced

• 1 jalapeno pepper

• 1 tablespoon chili powder

• garlic powder to taste

• salt to taste

• pepper to taste

• 1 teaspoon sugar, or to taste

• 2 cans (approx. 16 ounces each) crushed tomatoes

• 1 can (16 ounces) tomato puree

• 1 can (16 ounces) kidney beans

• 2 cans (approx. 16 ounces each) chili hot beans

Preparation:

Brown ground beef. Saute chopped onion and green pepper in grease. Mix beef, onion and green pepper. Add spices; let stand 1 hour. Add tomatoes, tomato puree, beans; Cover and cook on LOW for 7 to 9 hours. Even better flavor refrigerated and reheated the next day.

Serves 8.

Soup Group Face of the Week!

Rob Rose is a new Soup Grouper this year and this weeks host. He has run 5 Half Marathons and plans on running as many half and full marathons as he can in the future!