Gourmet Runner

Living 25 minutes from the nearest Starbucks is both a blessing and a curse. A curse because hubs and I have to make up reasons to head to that part of town for a Frappuccino fix. (What? Sometimes I need lettuce from the furthest possible supermarket. Starbucks just  happens  to be in the vicinity!) And a blessing, of course, because I save a boatload by not having access every day.  And then I discovered these bad boys.  Thank you, Starbucks, for saving me gas money by letting me store your delicious frozen coffee creations in my own freezer. I can't believe I'm saying this, but these ice-creams beat the pants off the actual Frappuccinos. And yes, you read that right: peppermint mocha ice-cream. It's like mint chocolate chip ice cream and your morning coffee had a baby. A delicious, sweet, cold baby. That's weird, actually. Scratch that baby thing.  I wanted to try this thing where I didn't eat ice-cream directly from the container with a giant spoon. And a...

Just for the record...17 miles is freakin' long. It was literally the longest run of my life! I really needed a successful long run to get my heart back into marathon training. The high heat and humidity around here lately mean that most of my runs are slow, interrupted by walking breaks, and usually get cut short a little. So when I saw I had a 17 miler on the schedule, I decided to use a guest pass at a local gym to get the run inside. 17 miles = 2 hours, 45 minutes (9:42 pace) Yes, I spent nearly 3 hours on a treadmill facing the wall. And guess what? I LOVED IT! The gym has cardio machines with TVs, so I watched some news, lots of E! and an episode of Chopped to make the time go by faster. The best part of all? When I stopped to finish, and the treadmill said 7 miles (I ran the first 10 and went for water) and the guy next to me said, "Wow, I've never seen a girl run 7 miles on a treadmill before." You have NO IDEA how satisfying it was to say, "Actually, I...