She ran, she ran 8k away.....

Today was the St. Patrick's Day 8k in Washington, DC. It was gray, misty, and a bit chilly. But, there was a large crowd out -- over 5000 runners and walkers. Met up with ML - who has joined me in many a race - and T - who has been doing some long runs with me. The minuses - the course back-tracked on itself a couple of times. They didn't have miles or kilometers marked off, so it was hard to gauge my pace. I just ran as hard as I could, for as long as I could. There was no one to tell me where the water was. I was on the other side of the road when I realized there was water -- finally and it was one of those courses were you could see the finish line, but then the course veers away and then comes back. Lastly, the water - there was no one handing water out at the end of the course -- you had to walk a distance and cut through the crowd of people waiting for their runner to finish. The plus side -- I finished the 8k in 47:35 net and 49:30 clock time. My 5k was 30:02 which was also faster than the New Year's Day 5k I did. The question is .... will this bode well for the Cherry Blossom 10-miler?

Texas Flashback

In November, I visited my friend J. and her husband B. in Austin, Tx. It's always a fun time at Casa Corman. My excuse for visiting was to run the San Antonio Rock and Roll Half Marathon with J. and her friends. The second reason I wanted to visit (the first being visiting with J. & B.) is the food. Whenever I go to Austin, they take me on a culinary feast!
This time, there was one place I really wanted to go: Flip Happy Crepes. It's a crepeier (is that even a word?) that serves its delicious creations out of an airstream trailer.
It was a sunny and windy Saturday morning when we went to Flip Happy and according to J. & B. we were lucky because there were only 4 or 5 people in line ahead of us. We ordered our crepes -- for me - the roasted chicken, carmalized onion and goat chesse and of course, a sweet crepe, that was nutella and banana (never mess with with the perfect crepe combo). J&B got a sweet crepe -- the Lemon and two special savory crepes of the day. To put it bluntly -- they were yummy! Worth sitting in the sunny, but cold and windy outdoor seating area that had folding chairs and tables. We did retreat to J.'s car when it got a bit too cold, though.


Overall, despite the cold, I think J, B and I had a great time!

Arugula, Kale and Chard, Oh My!

The Farmer's Market has had a lot of greens these last couple of weeks. I bought and used Arugula for the first time. I made salads with shaved parm cheese or chevere, cooked it up like stir-fry. I made a gratin out of the chard and also used it as a filling in a quiche, where I also made the piecrust! Lastly, the kale was used in a Mushroom, Barley and Kale soup recipe that I saw in the NYTs.

This has been very good for me overall. I've enjoyed using foods that I have never really eaten before, let alone cooked before. I'm trying to use and cook food that I only buy at the Farmer's market. So, to that end, I've bought some yeast and this weekend will try my hand at baking bread again.
I'm wondering if I should try joining a CSA -- it is kind of like the organic veggie box I use to get working at KQED -- except back then, I wasn't as adventurous food-wise, as I am now.