Hamburger Helper

First off, happy 6 month birthday to the happiest baby on earth...Rachel!

"...I don't know why they call it Hamburger Helper...it tastes just fine by itself to me Clark." - Cousin Eddie in Vacation

Alright, as a symbol of just how domesticated I've gotten in my old, married age... one of my favorite things to is pick out Hamburger Helper flavors at the grocery store. I mean, seriously, how many different ways are there to prepare meals using 1 lb of hamburger meat? Apparently quite a few. Since I can never narrow it down to just 1 flavor, today I came home with "Bacon Cheeseburger" and "Cheesy Ranch Burger." We went with the Ranch Burger tonight and it did not disappoint! Unexpected bonus today because HH has on sale for $1 per box. Really, pay about a buck fitty on a pound of meat and a buck on the HH, feed the family and you still have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Plus Luke eats the stuff like nobody's business. Where's the downside? I'll be back at Ingles tomorrow to take further advantage of the $1/box deal. Until then, on to running...

Did a nice easy run yesterday starting at 5:55 am. Completed 5.09 @ 9:29 pace. These early morning runs keep getting darker and darker. Wouldn't it be nice to have the long days of summer with the cooler weather of winter?

Got out a little late today for 3.05 miles @ 8:28 pace. That is the fastest I've run in a while and it felt nice. It was tougher on my legs than I thought it would be. Must be something to the whole fast twitch/slow twitch muscle fiber theory. I seem to always get side stitches when I fall in the 8:30 range. That didn't happen today, it was just my legs felt like rubber. Nearly a year ago I ran the Spinx Runfest Half-Mary at 8:40 pace. I REALLY need to work on speed to get back to that level of fitness. Of course, at the time I was training for St. Jude so the half was ONLY a 13 miler in my training plan. My gameplan starting now is to try to pick up the pace a little for my weekday runs and save the slow plodding runs for the weekend. What a novel idea, how come no one else though of that. Oh yeah, that's basically the crux of every training plan known to runners.