Why did the chicken cross the road?

I'm at this point at which I still feel a strong pull to run every single day. I've spent the last four months with the nagging voice in my head telling me that I should be outside on my feet. It doesn't go away overnight. The feeling was strong this evening, but I stuck to my plan to come home and begin a little November project.

There's a television show I've been watching on JLTV called Feed Me Bubbe and I've decided to make some of her recipes. I read a really good blog that today asked if readers wanted to teach themselves something in the month of November.

So I got started early. Anyone here surprised by that?

I made Bubbe's Kasha Varnishkes because that's something I wanted to make right when I saw her make it. I can watch food shows on television and not be bothered one bit with the idea that I should make the recipe I see. But this was interesting because it called for Kasha, which is buckwheat groats. A new grain to try out - that was intriguing.

Not sure where to buy this little delicacy, I asked a friend of mine at work where I could buy Kasha. He said it was hard to find here, so they buy it down in Kansas City. He said next time they go, he would bring me a box. But do you know what happened the next day? He brought me a box.

That was more than two months ago, so with the new challenge and a short trip to the store for bowtie pasta, I whipped up Kasha Varnishkes and a roasted chicken.

The chicken is a whole 'nother story. If you know me, you know I have a thing against chicken. Corporate chicken is what I call it. Tortured animals with nasty carcasses...I'll stop. I don't go into it all because that's sort of rude and because if you really want to know, you can look it up yourself. So chicken is not a dish I will eat unless I know where the chicken came from or if I am a guest at someone's home, right? Another guy at work offered chickens for sale this year from his brother's farm. I decided to follow a second recipe from Bubbe called, if you can believe it, roast chicken.

I saw this show, too. She used a sharp knife to take off some pinfeathers. OK, gross. I do like for my food to come from a farm nearby if I can help it, but I am a typical 21st century North American girl and I do NOT want to get to know my food on such a personal level. I still want it to look like the grocery store invented it.

I was about to pour boiling water over the chicken (don't ask me, I was just following the recipe) when I sort of screamed and jumped away from the sink. The neck was still attached. I'll be darned if I didn't think some pretty awful thoughts of my co-worker and his brother just then. I got my kitchen shears and sort of hacked away at the darn thing all the while making girlie EWWW noises. Disgusting! Making it worse was the stuff hanging out of the neck - I swear to you the bird's head was ripped off rather than chopped.

Edited to add: I was using the dull kitchen shears to disconnect the neck from the blasted animal. I have a pair of sharp ones that are set aside for emergencies such as this, but did I use them? No. Instead I just sawed and hacked my way through. Stubborn much?

I could just spit. Stupid freaking chicken. I hate chicken. I'd like to say I'm over it. Sort of. Now I think I will just cross off everything on my bucket list. I've seen it all.

She's super tiny, isn't she? 

The chicken recipe called for allspice under the skin, which smelled good while it was cooking, but I didn't get any taste from it. This stupid chicken was the smallest thing I've ever seen. EVER. I think with the legs out like that, it looks like it's trying to escape from the slaughter.

Below is the dish with the groats and bowtie pasta. I have never made it before or eaten it before. Also, her recipe was a little more confusing than I thought it was going to be. I saw her make it and I had it printed out in front of me, but I think I was trying to make it take less time, so I didn't follow step by step. It's the sort of dish that calls for the cook doing 2-3 things at once. But the recipe was written to have you do one thing at a time, which would have taken longer. Also, I didn't saute the onion and I used canned mushrooms instead of fresh because I wasn't sure I wanted to spend the money on fresh for something I've never done before.

This recipe needs a covered, oven-safe pan

This dish was really dry. It was so dry that I added some of the drippings from the chicken (more than I care to admit, but can you say "tasty" for me?). I have no idea if this dish is meant to be dry, but other than the oil for the onion & mushroom saute, I didn't change anything. In the end, it needed more chicken drippings than the amount of oil called for. I would make this again because I think it's yummy, but I wouldn't serve it to guests.

Next up I will make her kugel. I bought the noodles tonight, but I have until the end of November...

Lastly, for those of you who remember that my cell phone takes truly bad photos, this is my cell phone at work. My camera is under the weather (when I can find it), so I just used my phone. This is the result. Looks tasty, eh? I guess I won't win any foodie awards!

Here's the IMT DES MOINES MARATHON recap! http://ow.ly/72O0R

Or just read it below:

Last weekend, I ran the IMT Des Moines Marathon and I wanted to wait before I did a recap of the event. In the meantime, I read someone else’s recap of the event that evening and it occurred to me that he wrote it much as I once would have: stride, pace, pain, mileage, etc.

But this race!!!

This race was meant to be different. There was a lot of hand-wringing on my part as you all know [sheepish]. My goals were different than I had set for any other race.

I didn’t feel well the week before the race, but I suspect that sort of helped to make me happy with my

decision to have fun and not run the half marathon for my finish time. I’m not feeling inspired right now to be entertaining or witty (as clearly I usually am), so I’ll just run down some bullet points:

• It was the best race I've ever run!
• I had fun. My overall pace was 11:56, but I don’t know how fast I ran because my running partner, Tami, and I ran four minutes and walked one minute. Also, I was wearing someone else's Garmin and it was set to different measurements than I use on mine. This was probably a blessing in disguise because I couldn't continually check my pace. 
• Got there early without a rush.
• Ran back to my car to get my cell phone. Warm-up! 
• Met up with friends from my running club.
• Saw the Grim Reaper at the start, hugged him later near the finish line.
• Mugged for the photographers a couple times rather than having all my photos look as though I'm trying to wreck myself.
• Forgot my gloves at the start line, so I picked up a dark blue pair from the street right in front of the State Capitol and wore them almost the whole time.  [I have no shame] They’re Roosevelt Rough Riders blue, so I’ll wear them to the football game this Friday!
• My Garmin watch wouldn't latch onto a satellite, so I wore my friend Cindy’s watch. She’s just the most amazing person to have around on race day. We hoped to match strides with the winners of the full marathon as they lapped us, but we’re pretty sure they took three or four steps to half of one of ours. It was a sort of blur.
• Eight records were set on the day including a 5K in 15:05, which is a 3.1 miles in 15 minutes and 5 seconds. Amazing! That's 4 minutes and 51 seconds per mile. Can you imagine? 
• Crossed the finish line after seeing Cindy and my friend Ann, who rode around the course route on her bicycle. I got hugs and a banana. Both very helpful for energy.
• Enjoyed a band called The Snacks at the finish line. Wow! They were slightly insane and completely enjoyable.
• ATE FOOD! I managed to eat BBQ and other snacks including beer. It never bothered my stomach because I didn't run myself to death in this race.
• Laughed. I laughed quite a bit. Remarkable: I'd like to replicate that for every race. 
• Stayed almost until the last participant crossed the finish line. I’d like to say I stayed for the entire thing, but I conked out. It was after 3pm and although the course was supposed to close after seven hours, they stood around and waited - and THAT is why the IMT Des Moines Marathon is such an amazing event in my humble but accurate opinion.
• After the race, I didn't cry, I didn’t feel like crying and I had fun. Also, sore? I was not.
• I don't have photos yet, but I will post a couple when I get them. 

This year’s race was easily the best race I've had even though my finish time was the least impressive of any run I've ever participated in. I may have to rethink the ‘run faster’ approach. While I didn't give it my all, I'm happy. I think giving it my all may be limited to 5k races in the future. I'll keep you posted. [smirk]

Now to begin winter running. Fun? no. Challenging? yes.

Another marathon motto 2011

Every year I've come up with a motto for my marathon events. But last month, when I did the Air Force Marathon, I didn't have a motto.

Bad move!

Apparently, I'm motivated by mysterious forces that include superstitions, logistical planning that would impress the U.S. Army and a strong, motivating motto.

OK, I'm not all that superstitious. I think. Don't put shoes on the bed. That's probably the one thing that sends shivers up my spine. I believe shoes on the bed brings death in the family. So just don't. My grandmother wouldn't approve.

Of course, she may have used that one because shoes are dirty and she was a very good housekeeper.

So I talked about my experience with the Air Force Marathon and how although my time wasn't bad at all, I sort of felt a bit like a failure, which is putting it too strongly. Let's say I was disappointed. I didn't know why I felt so disappointed.

Now I'm pinning it all on the lack of a motto. The motto is what I compare the run against. For the marathon last month, I didn't even have a time goal! I just figured I'd do as well or better than last year's 2:12:44 half in Des Moines. But that didn't happen and without a back up, what was I to do?

I stood at the finish line crying and feeling disoriented and I certainly know for absolutely certain certainteed for sure that I don't want that happening again, so I have decided that my motto for this weekend is:

Enjoy it all. 

This means slow down the pace, look at the volunteers (more on this below), drink water slowly, chat with running partner, laugh, listen to the music, read the signs, look at the autumn colors and drink in how really lovely the city of Des Moines is.

My hope for this event is to feel REALLY DARN GOOD at the finish line. Not just not crying, but wanting to stay and see other runners come in, encourage my friends who are in the event and running the full 26.2 miles and even staying and feeling good when my niece comes downtown to run the kid's race that afternoon. If I do cry, maybe it's just because running 13.1 miles isn't that easy. If that's the case, I guess I can handle that.

I'll let you know because I know you're all just dying to hear about the train wreck at the end. HA!

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Last month after the Air Force marathon, I volunteered at a 10-mile race here in town. I was a course marshal, which sounds fancy, but it just means I had an orange safety vest and a flag to keep runners from going up the wrong street. As to that, what in the world was I thinking in elementary school when I wanted to be a crosswalk monitor?

So there I stood in the crosswalk looking at runners who were just in mile 2, so they were still happy and fresh. And they didn't look at me! I always wondered why someone would just stand there and not cheer the runners on or say something as we pass, but now I know. It's hard to stand there feeling a little dorky saying things to people you don't know. I like to say thanks to the volunteers anyway, but now I want to pay more attention to the folks who are out there.

OK, I'm out of here for now. I've stated the motto to the universe. I'll go to the expo tomorrow and have a blast.

Here's my latest post on the marathon, which is this weekend:

http://caronr4rproject.blogspot.com/2011/10/race-day-is-almost-here.html

My plan for a better half marathon

Here's the link to the other blog. I'll be back when my running project has ended next month! http://caronr4rproject.blogspot.com/2011/09/how-im-planning-out-plan-to-plan-less.html

Air Force Marathon

Here's what happened last Saturday: http://caronr4rproject.blogspot.com/2011/09/air-force-half-marathon.html 

The day I became a runner

Here's my latest blog post for my summer training. Something really big happened last Saturday. Read about it here.

Or, if that doesn't work, copy and paste this URL into your browser.

http://caronr4rproject.blogspot.com/2011/09/day-i-became-runner.html