Cool Runnings & Cheesecake Strawberries

I feel like such a slacker that I haven't posted for so long. I don't know how all my readers survived!

The business of summer can sometimes though my training into a tailspin and this year was no exception. When you consider that there was a two week vacation thrown in there, one week in Alaska followed by a week in Anaheim California, that's actually quite a feat. For this installment I thought I'd give you a brief recap of some really cool runs that I took on said vacation.

First of all, let me just say that Alaska is by far the best place I've ever run. The mornings were nice and cool, the scenery was outstanding, and even just running around my sisters' neighborhood in Anchorage I found little pockets of relative wilderness. The highlight run of the trip was when we left the big city for a couple of days and went to a small town called Anchor Point on the southern shore of the Kenai Peninsula. I got up early and went off to the beach. I had the beach entirely to myself except for the dozens of bald eagles hanging out with me. It was one of those runs that remind me why I'm a runner.

The low-light run of the trip was waking up on Saturday morning for my 15 mile run and finding a downpour outside. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, my sisters have a treadmill. Anything more than about 6 miles on a treadmill is brutal, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

California was just as advertised, warm and sunny. That's great for getting a tan by the pool but it was a little hot for my running taste. Our hotel was about a mile away from Disneyland so there was not much open space. I already told you the lowlight, which was just a blanket "too hot". There were a couple of highlights. The first was having a rabbit bound passed literally inches away from my legs. Maybe he was running away from Breer Fox. The other highlight was running around Downtown Disney before anything opened. Gotta love the magic of Disney!

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Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries

Ingredients:

About 20 strawberries (a little over one carton)
8 oz pkg softened cream cheese
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 sleeve of graham crackers
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (optional)

Directions:

Wash the strawberries and core them. Get as deep as you can without breaking through the bottom. Beat the cream cheese. Add powdered sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth. Fill strawberries to just above the brim with cream cheese blend. Crush 3 graham crackers. Sprinkle with graham cracker crumbs or just dip the top in the crumbs.

Optional:

Melt about 1/2 cup of chocolate chips. Place in zip lock. Snip tip off and drizzle. In the immortal words of Boots the Monkey, "Yum, yum, yum, yum. Delisioso!"

Thanks to my friend, Wes Malquist, for the recipe and picture.