Happy Birthday Lady Liberty! and other news....

I know I need to write a race report post, but I've been feeling a bit under the weather the past couple of days. I'll get it up soon, promise!

In the meantime, It's Lady Liberty's 125th birthday today! Check out this article from the Detroit News:

Lady Liberty Turns 125

and also check out the webcams from the statue of Liberty brought to you by Earthcam.com . There are Statue of Liberty cams on the main page, or you can also go here to find a few more:

Statue of Liberty webcams

The webcam that they placed in the Torch is particularly interesting to me...did you know that no one has been allowed up in the Torch since 1916? And now anyone from any part of the world is able "visit". I think that's pretty neat!

I'd love to run along New York's waterfront with the Statue of Liberty as the backdrop...I'm a sucker for a good, scenic run!

In other news, it's both National Chocolate Day and National American Beer Day! I know what you're thinking...if it were any better it'd be Christmas! :) Looking for a great way to celebrate? Check out this article  from asweetlife.org that goes into detail about how dark chocolate can be a healthy addition to your diet:

Dark Chocolate Health Benefts

And also check out this site on the healthy benefits of beer (I haven't been through the whole website, but what I did read looked very informative):

http://www.benefitsofbeer.com/

I don't know about you, but I'm going to find me a square of dark chocolate and a bottle of one of my favorite Michigan brews, brought to us by Bell's Brewery: Oberon (the last of the season, I'm sure). All I need is a slice of orange and I'm good to go...Cheers!

Food Friday

I absolutely love cooking and baking (especially baking!) and lately one thing I'm trying to do is cook one new item for dinner every week. My goal  is to find some recipes that I will use regularly and that have some healthier ingredients. "Food Friday" is a blog topic I'd like to continue every week so that I can share my weekly recipe choice with you. Now, I love exercising and being healthy (as I'm sure you assumed after reading the title of my blog), but I'm no nutritionist and definitely love to eat! These will just be some recipes that I made for dinner, that I enjoyed and that I think will help incorporate more of a variety of foods into my own diet. I hope that if you decide to make them that you enjoy them, too!

This week I made a couple of recipes, but the one that really stood out to me was the Maple Ginger Sweet Potatoes with Apples, created by Mary Gardner of Cedar Springs, Illinois. I found this recipe card in a basket of free recipes at one of my local apple orchards. It stood out to me right away and, after many weeks of holding onto it, I've finally made it. It's delicious!

Maple Ginger Sweet Potatoes with Apples

1-1/2 lbs. sweet potatoes, peeled & cut into bite-sized pieces (about 5 cups)

2 medium tart Michigan Apples*, chopped (2 cups)

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1-1/2 tsp. grated fresh ginger

1/2 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup maple syrup or maple-flavor syrup

*suggested varieties: McIntosh, Paula Red or Rome

In a slow cooker, combine all but water and syrup. Mix the syrup with the water and pour over everything in the cooker. Cover and cook on low setting for 3-4 hours or on high for 1-1/2 hours. 

Conventional oven: Cover and bake at 325 degrees

This would be the place to admit that I sometimes change up the recipe a little bit to fit it to what ingredients I have at that particular moment :). The only changes I've made, with this one, however, are I used around 4 cups of sweet potatoes instead of 5 cups and I omitted the salt (I often choose not to put it in... in general, I feel like there's a lot of salt in many foods these days, so I leave it out if I feel it won't mess up the recipe at all). I used McIntosh apples and maple flavored syrup (there usually isn't maple syrup in the house and ironically enough I had bought the maple flavored, which I normally don't do, so it worked out well!). I don't have a slow cooker so I chose to use the oven. Since there wasn't a bake time listed for when using a conventional oven I chose to go with 1-1/2 hours, and actually ended up taking it out around 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes. A good ol' fashioned glass casserole dish worked very well for me and I used aluminium foil as a cover.

For anyone who is a apple and/or sweet potato fan like me I HIGHLY recommend this recipe! It's an absolutely fantastic warm side dish to come inside to after being out in this cold and drafty autumn days. 

Alrighty, off I go to pack for my mini vacation this weekend. I'm hoping Mother Nature will cooperate and the weekend weather forecast will be worthy of running in! (Maybe we'll even get a little sunshine :) *fingers crossed*....)

Bon Apétit!

O Canada!

Mother Nature is wreaking havoc on Michigan right now and has been for most of the day. Feeling under the weather myself, I decided it would be wise to skip my run and let my body rest (I want to be healthy for this weekend!) The alternative? Curling up on the couch with a good read, of course! My good read happened to be on the internet. As I was reading through this past weekend's marathon reports I found one that was particularly interesting. I decided to forgo my original blog plan to share this great story with you. Hope you find it as amazing as I did!

There was a lot of activity at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon this weekend. Kenneth Mungara won this event for the fourth consecutive year; two Canadian runners, Reid Coolsaet and Eric Gillis, qualified for the 2012 Olympics in London; and a world record was set...Don't bother heading to their race results webpage because that's not the type of record I'm referring too. Confused? Just bear with me :)


He's been all over the media, from the BBC to the Kansas City Star...and even Business Insider. "Who?" you might be asking. Well, the gentleman I'm speaking of is Fauja Singh.

(photo via the edmontonjournal.com)

At 100 years young (yes, that's right, 100) his is the first centenarian and oldest man in the world to complete a full-distance marathon. His time? A mere 8 hours, 11 minutes and 5.9 seconds (and might I add that he beat his personal goal time of about 9 hours; by the way, don't let the time on the race clock fool you in the photo--that's the gun time, not his chip time :) ). To top that off, he set some other world records a few days before the marathon. At an invitational named in his honor, Singh set (and in some cases established) world records in his age group for 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters, 800 meters, 1500 meters, the mile, 3000 meters, and 5000 meters. That's EIGHT MORE world records. Pretty great!


Here are some links leading to some articles that tell his awesome story:
1.) Singh's Wikipedia Page is very interesting
2.) This Toronto Star article  was written about him before the race but is still a good read
3.) CBC posted a very nice article on Singh via the Associated Press: 100-year-old marathoner sets record in Toronto
4.) NPR has posted a cool 40 second video of Singh crossing the finish line (it's at the end of the article)
5.) And last but not least, Singh's Official Time as posted on the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon website (he placed 3,845th).


I am quite inspired by Fauja Singh and it's definitely given me more motivation as I recover from this injury. If I work hard and be patient then good things will happen! Just stay positive!

Inaugural Post!

Hello everyone and welcome to my new blog! Where do I begin? Maybe I should introduce myself.

Hello, my name is Megan, and I'm a running addict.

This passion began in college with my desire to find some activity that could pick up where my high school sports left off. That soon lead my first road race since my high school cross country days (I should insert here that CC was merely something to keep me in shape during softball's off season) and has developed into an almost full time hobby. Running is a huge part of my life. It's followed me through half of high school, all through college and is still with me as I turn the page in a new chapter of my life. In fact, it is more than a hobby: running has been with me through good and bad, thick and thin. It has "grown-up" with me and has helped define who I am as a person.

With this in mind I've started this new blog...well, to be completely honest, it's both my passion for running AND my passion for recovering that have inspired me to stake out this little corner of the world wide web.

Back in June I sustained my first "real" running injury. Yes, we all have those "aches and pains" that come with hitting the pavement everyday, but this was entirely different. Back towards the end of June I was doing some back road running (sand, gravel, big rocks, etc. come included with this route) and found that I had tweaked something in my knee. To make along story short (maybe I"ll tell the long story some day) I'm finally getting back to a regular running routine. I'm definitely sad that I'm missing out on this year's marathon season (it was a year ago today that I was running the Detroit Free Press Marathon--my very first marathon and one of the best experiences of my life), but so, so glad that I'm on track to being able to run regularly again.

So this blog is a way for me to share my love for running and a way for me to stay focused and positive (and patient!) as I continue my road to recovery.

And with that I'll jump right in:

My first long distance race since getting injured will be the Great Turtle Half Marathon on Mackinac Island that is taking place October 22. I'm very excited to be back on the half marathon "scene" and to be able to take part in another passion of mine: traveling and exploring this great state that I live in, Michigan (hence my blog name "Wondering Runner"...corny? maybe; accurate? absolutely). More details to come!

Thanks again for checking out my blog and I hope you'll stop in again!


Today's Run:
Distance: 8 miles
Conditions: Sunny, 54 degrees, wind from the west at 22mph