Pancake / Long Run Saturday!

Excellent pancake breakfast this morning. Rose at about 7:30, did all the dishes, cleaned the kitchen and made batter, made up some banana pancakes. Will share the recipe below. About 8:30, woke up my wife to come eat, changed the baby and put her in her new high chair at the table. The new high chair is really neat and adjustable so we should get lots of use out of it. I have made it a ritual to take at least one picture of the child at the table a day, usually when we sit down to dinner in the evening. It is incredible how much she has grown in three months.

The recipe I use comes from All Recipes, but I tweak it a bit and add chocolate chunks, too.

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten (I use duck eggs, strongly recommend them.)
 1 cup milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup Chocolate Chunks or Chips

Mash bananas in electric mixer, then add in egg. Beat until blended, and then add other liquid ingredients. Combine dry ingredients separately and then combine while mixing. I usually beat them at a moderate speed for several minutes to whip more air in, too. Then cook on a medium-hot non-stick skillet and flip when bubbles show through the pancakes.

They come out awesome, and wow even my friends who hate pancakes. The bananas make them extra fluffy. I usually serve with bacon or corned beef hash (and veggie sausage for myself.)

Running-wise this week was a bust. Things were rough at work and with the plethora of other commitments I didn't get out at all. I'm planning a long run today, but I'll still only end up with 30 or so miles for the week, so I'm not fond of that. But I have learned that it is better to take some down time when you feel beat up, rather than push on and get injured. That was how I ended up with extensor tendonitis last spring and had to back out of my spring marathon.

I don't mind taking the time off in the sense that I know I won't be pushing harder than I should, and I remain confidence in the base I've built up this cycle. I am somewhat upset about the weather, though. It was really nice this week (60 degrees, even if it was raining.) We're in for more snow tomorrow and Monday, and today the temp is going to top out at 47. So we're having one last blast of Winter before "real" Spring (I call this "Swamp Yankee Spring".)

Next week is Eastern States on Saturday. With Good Friday falling the day before we may end up doing our breakfast then, or possibly Sunday. I'll be making my way up to Eastern States quite early on the 26th to get to the parking lot near the Ashworth (to catch the shuttle to the start.) Hoping for a nice sunny day. Nothing beats the New Hampshire sea coast on a day like that. I'll be writing a race report after I come back, so look for that in the next couple of weeks.

My wife has also expressed an interest in writing a guest post about her experience with PPD/PPA. I've blogged about it a bit before (although mostly mentioned in passing and not in-depth) here, here, and here. You may see that in the coming weeks. My post for this coming week was intended to be about the return of Spring, but because of the impending Snowpocalypse I may, in fact, post pone it.

Hope your weekend is well, and that you run strong and have some quality time with your loved ones.