Recipes: Rhubarb Cardamom Muffins and Kale Chips

I got my first CSA box of the summer, and of course there was a nice bunch of rhubarb.  The farmer gave me a recipe for rhubarb muffins, which I tweaked a little bit, and the results were delicious!

Rhubarb Cardamom Muffins

2 1/2 cups flour (I used half almond meal and half all-purpose flour)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1 1/4 cup sour milk (add 1 tablespoon of vinegar to milk)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup margarine or oil (I used coconut oil)
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups finely diced rhubarb
I also added 1 tsp of cardamom to the muffin batter

Topping
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
I added another 1/2 tsp cardamom to the topping

Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl, then stir in rhubarb
Beat wet ingredients
Add wet to dry and stir until just mixed
Pour batter into muffin tins (I greased mine with coconut oil)
Bake for 20-25 minutes

I actually used a mini muffin tin and it took about 12 minutes.

YUM!

There was also quite a nice bunch of kale in the box this week.  I don't think I have ever eaten kale, or at least I have not prepared it myself.  I decided to try making kale chips, which I have seen all over Pinterest and was super easy:

Kale Chips

1 bunch kale
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tsp sea salt

Wash the kale thoroughly and rip it into small pieces.  Rub olive oil all over the kale and sprinkle with sea salt.  Spread on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.  Eat the whole batch in five minutes (offer to your kids but they will probably refuse to try it).  Then go floss your teeth.

I guess these were pretty good, but I'm not raving about them like the rhubarb muffins.  Kale has a pretty strong taste but the crunchy chips were not bad.  Next time I might try with a bunch of garlic to mask the kale flavor give them a little more flavor :)

8 Mile Road

Well, I now have the first two "long runs" of half marathon training under my belt (7 and 8 miles).  My schedule has been pretty crazy so I have had to juggle the days around and everything hasn't been going exactly as planned, but I have still been getting *most* of my runs in during the week.  7 miles felt great, but my 8 miles this past weekend felt tough.  I think it has a lot to do with the 83% humidity on Saturday, but my pace was slower than normal for that run (over 12 minutes/mile for everything after the first two miles and the last mile where I couldn't wait to be done).
 

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Max HR
1	11:30.0	1	11:30	129	151
2	11:40.6	1	11:41	142	153
3	12:38.1	1	12:38	148	153
4	12:33.9	1	12:34	149	158
5	12:25.5	1	12:26	156	162
6	12:12.9	1	12:13	159	164
7	12:41.7	1	12:42	162	170
8	11:40.4	1	11:42	164	173
Summary	37:23.1	8	12:11	151	173

For the 9 miler coming up this weekend, I am going to pay extra attention to my nutrition and water intake the days leading up to the run, and I am going to rest my legs or do an easy run the day before (instead of doing tough intervals the day before my long run like I did this past weekend).  I have also found that having some fuel (this is what I have been using) right before any run over 5 miles really helps get me finish strong.  The past few weekends I have had a lot going on so it has been hard to find time to fit in my long run, but this weekend coming up I don't have any plans so I am going to really make sure the conditions are ideal to run 9 miles!  As long as the weather cooperates!

In other news, this girl turns 3 tomorrow:

Albertville Friendly City Days 5k

My running BFF Jackie and I ran a nice 5k on Saturday, pushing our kids in jogging strollers!  I was really proud of us for actually doing it.  Getting anywhere on time with little ones is so stressful, not to mention the stress of preparing for a race.  But we made it to the start line just in time, and finished in around 35 minutes, according to our Garmins.  (Side note, I just checked the race results and it has my "official" time listed as 33:52 and Jackie's as 34:59, which is way off because we pretty much crossed the finish line together).  As you can tell this was a small-town race LOL!  There were 280 finishers.  Here we are at the start of the race:

I love seeing the difference from last year!

The race started and finished at the middle school; Austin ran around that track like a crazy person:

After the race, we went over to the carnival and went on a few rides with the girls.  They loved the big slide.

On Sunday, I just ran 5 miles for a "long run".  I started my 12 week training plan this week for the half marathon, so my first official long run of training will be 7 miles on Sunday.  Unfortunately, my summer MBA classes also started this week so I have a lot to do between that and running five days a week.  So far, so good!

Half Marathon Training!

My first half marathon is officially 12 weeks from Saturday, so it's time to start my faithful training.  I'm hoping this blog will keep me accountable!  My weekly training schedule will look something like this:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 25 minutes intervals (4 minutes in HR zone 3 and 1 minute recovery in HR zone 1, repeat 5 times)
Wednesday: Repeat Tuesday intervals + strength train (most of the time I will be doing Anna's group race training at Lifetime)
Thursday: Base building 30-60 minutes (same pace as Sunday long runs)
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 18-24 minutes "peak" intervals (2 minutes in HR zone 4 and 1 minute recovery in HR zone 1, repeat 6-8 times)
Sunday: Long Run (HR zones 1 and 2, basically I will just be running these at a slow, comfortable pace)

Before my intervals I will do a 10 minute progressive warm-up and some stretching!  The distances for my long runs will hopefully look like this:

Week 1: 7 miles
Week 2: 8 miles
Week 3: 9 miles
Week 4: 6 miles
Week 5: 8 miles
Week 6: 10 miles
Week 7: 6 miles
Week 8: 11 miles
Week 9: 12 miles
Week 10: 6 miles
Week 11: 8 miles
Week 12: Half Marathon!

I pretty much made up this schedule just for me, but it's loosely based on Hal Higdon's training plans, and the heart rate training intervals are from my trainer Anna.  My longest run to date is just over 7 miles so I'm excited to build up to that half marathon distance over the summer!  This weekend I think I'm going to run a 5k race by my house with some friends and my girls in the jogging stroller!  Here they are in their stroller spectating last year at my very first race, the Maple Grove 5k: