Rutabagas and running

A few weeks ago I went on a fresh veggie binge. I bought all kinds of seasonal vegetables with the intention of enjoy the harvests of fall. Then, a friend brought me over a large box of, you guessed it, vegetables. I have been eating lots of veggies ever since.

But there was a bit of a problem. I'm getting down to the last of them and there remained two, now-forlorn-looking rutabaga turnips. Oh dear.

Truth be told, I'm not a big fan of rutabagas. I mean, I'll eat them if I'm at someone's house and they are served for dinner, but let's just say that they do not appear on my list of Top 100 favorite foods.

But I'm even less of a fan of throwing out perfectly good, healthy food.

So, I went on a quest to find creative rutabaga recipes.

The Ginger Rutabaga Muffins turned out pretty well. The ginger really makes them, I think.

The mixed, roasted seasonal veggies that I did with potatoes, carrots and rutabaga, all tossed in some olive oil, salt, pepper and chili-infused honey were great!

But the best, by far, has been the Silky Rutabaga Apple Soup. I absolutely love blended veggie soups and this one is deee-vine!

Now, all my turnip has been used up and I'm a happy camper.

Oh yeah, and I had a great 17.78 km (11.05 mi) training run yesterday. It was windy, but otherwise a nice day for a long run. I have noticed that the long runs are not taking as much out of me as they used to. Although I'm tired later in the day, I don't come home puking, crapping or basically passing out as soon as I see the couch. Now I get home, have a shower and carry on with the day. I never thought it could be like that. But I am sure glad it has become that way. :-)

I've been researching, reading and planning. But not for my thesis. I'm taking a bit of a break from that for now. I've been looking into running, of course. I have set up a training program for the Calgary Marathon next year. Training starts today. I have 27 weeks to get myself ready.

There. I've declared it. I have a plan. Here's hoping I make it.

A month in review

Eep! It's been a month since my last blog post. Shame on me!

Well, I've been running, of course. I did my first cross country race on October 26. It was a 3 x 4 km relay. Karen was our team captain. What a blast! I wasn't too keen on the river crossings, as the water was icy, but it was good times all around! After the race there was soup and desserts for all. What a great way to spend a weekend afternoon.

I haven't been out as much doing speed work lately, as I was working in runs around my thesis. As of last Friday I sent my supervisor a draft of my thesis in its entirety. That included the changes we talked about when we met last month, as well as new stuff - introduction, literature review, conclusion, glossary and appendix. That endeavour pretty much consumed my life for two solid weeks.

Now that it is in I have a few weeks to breathe while Tim reads it over. In the meantime I get to prepare a manuscript for an academic journal and start applying for jobs. There isn't much in Canada for jobs in my field. There seems to be more in the U.S., so that is what I am looking at. The job applications take a long time to do, but if it gets me a job, I'll be happy.

Tonight is Club Night for the Calgary Road Runners, so I'm going to go join up with my running buddies for a run, followed by some beverages at the pub.

Oh yeah, and I'm starting to put together a training plan that will hopefully see me go the distance. It's time, folks...