The Fever and 2 new recipes

The Fever

I wish I could say this wasn't true, but since I've gone back to HGS I've probably not ran but 5 times.  So, with the 3 days off this week (5 day weekend) I decided that I really needed to make plans to.  Especially since I have a 1/2 Marathon in 2 months. ***I'm not worried about the 1/2 at this point, as long as I get on the ball now.  I can work up to the 6 or 7 mile point pretty quickly and then adrenaline will take me a long way.***

Yesterday I wrote Casey Phelps and made plans to meet her for a run today.  Just being in my car and on my way got me excited and made me feel better right away. 

Casey is great to run with, especially if you think that you aren't going to do very well.  She doesn't care how fast, just getting the distance. "Forward is a pace," Casey says.  One of my favorite things to tell myself while I'm running (although I can't say that I don't care about pace - I just don't get upset about it).

Todays run was awesome.  I went .78 miles before needing to stop.  We went 1.22 before we turned around.  Most of the way back was uphill, so there was more walking.  But even with the walking I averaged 12:56 per mile.  That totally makes me happy.  I was really expecting it to be upper 13:00 or even in the 14:00 minute increment.  

I'm ready to officially get back out there.  It felt so good to do somethig so healthy.  I came home and made out my grocery list of successful foods for the week.  I'm totally set up for success.  I'm very excited.

 Recipes

Tonight I tried 2 very similiar recipes.  Devil's Food & Pumpkin Cupcakes and Angel Food & Pumpkin Cupcakes.

Each one of them is just a box of the cake mix and one can of pumpkin.  Mixing the Devil's Food with the pumpkin was kind of tuff....the angel food was much easier. 

Pre-heat the oven at 400 degrees.  I was able to get 30 cupcakes out of the Devil's Food cupcakes and 33 out of the Angel Food cupcakes. 

I baked the Devil's Food Cupcakes for 18 minutes and the Angel Food Cupcakes for 10 minutes. 

They tasted delicious.  I think I'm going to get the WW cream filling recipe to make whoopie pies to go with both of them.  I was nervous about the Angel Food Cupcakes having too much of a pumpkin taste (you can't taste the pumpkin in the Devil's Food at all).  But then I thought my concern was funny cause I LOVE pumpkin bread.  The Angel Food Cupcakes are very sweet, but not too pumpkiny  ;o)