PRs (Personal Record & Pumpkin Roll)

The traditional thing for runners to do on Thanksgiving morning is to do a turkey trot. Detroit has a really nice one that I've never done. I had looked into it this year but missed the sign up deadline.

So I decided to have my own little turkey trot and since it was raining outside I decided to do it on my treadmill in the basement. (Okay, I realize that it is sounding less and less like a turkey trot. Oh well.) I had been thinking of doing a 10K in the real race so that's what I decided to on the treadmill.

While I was at it, I decided to go for a personal record. I've only run two 10Ks before, but I've done 6 miles or more dozens of times while training for other things. My previous PR was about 54 minutes (I forgot the seconds). Yesterday I set the speed at 7 miles an hour and went after it. I was watching Man v. Food of course.

I was doing fine until mile 4. I seriously considered stopping at 5 miles but kept trucking along. I was nearly dead by the time it hit 6.2 miles. It wasn't pretty, but I set a new PR by about a minute.

I stumbled around the basement a few times in a feeble attempt at a cool down. The recovery shake helped and then there was the ice bath. I don't know if it helped, but it was cold.

I walked a little gingerly the rest of the day but felt good knowing that I had preemptively countered a small portion of the calories that ate later in the day. A very small portion.

**********

In honor of Thanksgiving, I am posting one of my favorite pumpkin recipes. It tastes great and looks cool.

Pumpkin Roll

Cake:
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup pumpkin
1 tsp lemon juice
¾ cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
½ tsp nutmeg


Filling:
1 cup powdered sugar
8 oz cream cheese at room temperature
4 Tbs butter
½ tsp vanilla

Beat eggs for 5 minutes. Add sugar. Stir in pumpkin and lemon juice and set aside. In separate bowl, stir together dry cake ingredients. Mix wet and dry ingredients and spread into greased and heavily floured 11X16 baking pan (1/2 flat baking sheet. Make sure it has sides. Tip: lay wax paper in bottom). Top with 1 cup walnuts (optional). Bake at 370 degrees for 15 minutes. Put lots of powdered sugar on a clean towel. Take cake from oven and immediately turn on to towel. Roll up and let cool for one hour.

Combine filling ingredients and beat until smooth. Unroll cake and spread filling evenly over top. Roll up and let chill for several hours. Cut into ¾ - 1 inch slices.