Margherita Pizza + Smiles for 9 Miles

For the past hmm....4 weeks, I've been craving margherita pizza.  It's definitely on my top 10 favorite foods in the world.  I recently (recently meaning in the last 6 months) inherited a bread maker, and decided to attempt my hand at homemade pizza crust and 'za.  I figured the night before the 20 miler would be as good of night as any as A) I was doing nothing but chilling and B) I wanted CARBS.  Well, that was an easy decision.

First I set out to make the pizza dough.  Which really consisted of about 5 minutes of my time, and 90 minutes of the bread machines time.  From there I was left with a mountain of dough.  Mental note, next time halve the dough amount and freeze the other half.  I don't have a lick of Italian in me, so my pizza dough tossing skills are nill.  Still it managed to look somewhat pretty chillin' on the 'za pan.

Next up was the cheese (my favorite part,  my digestive system's least favorite part).  Mozzerella ball mmmmm...  Three pieces for the pizza, one for my mouth.  And repeat.

Next we have roma tomatoes that were chop chop chopped up and marinated (marinated?  sure we'll go with that) in with some EVOO (look at me, I'm Rachel Ray! Using EVOO like it's my j-o-b) and a minced clove of garlic.

And even though the recipe didn't call for it, some additional marinara sauce.  I like my pizzas like I like my women...saucy!  Wait....what?!?!?

And into the oven while I salivate from the living room in anticipation for 10-15 minutes.  Out of the oven and holy amazingly fragrant and fabulous basil upon ze top.  And bon appetit!  As you can see, I ended up with some deep dish style crust on accident, hence the note to halve it for the future.  But I love me some crust, so I wasn't too upset with my culinary shortcomings.  Three slices for supper and one for an early breakfast = much-o awesome-o LR fuel-o.

And thus concludes a sneak peek into Jerbear's kitchen.

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Tonight I had an easy 9 miles on the agenda.  All last week we have been eyeing this week's forecast with anticipation.  Could it really be?  60's and 70's?  Don't get your hopes up, as that can be the forecast today, and sleet and snow tomorrow (sad but true).  True to the meteorologist's word, it was gorgeous today albeit insanely windy, but whatevs.

All day long I was staring dreamily out my window at the sunny day working hard at my desk without a moment to even give the weather a second thought.  Yeah, that's it.  But there it was, at 4pm, with an hour in the day remaining, deep seeded hunger pains.  Dun dun duuuuuuun.  I knew I couldn't run 9 miles with nothing in my stomach.  Through painful trial and error I knew I couldn't eat a PB sandwich because that would cause paaaain.  And my cupboard is painfully bare as I get paid the last day of each month, and we are closely approaching that date hence we're on the Jerbear "diet" if you will. :p

I thought about all of the things I could throw on top of some toast.  Jelly?  Probably would piss the tummy off.  Plain toast?  Eh.  Cinnamon and sugar?  Hmm....maybe.  I had one slice.  No instantaneous stomach pain.  I had another.  Still good.  I gave my tummy a good 15-20 to give me a head's up that I had made a very big mistake and when it didn't, I took off (in my very cute, very girly new pink running shirt, whoot whoot!).

I could not have asked for a more beautiful day for a run.  The temp was perfect.  The insane winds weren't even noticeable because it was so warm out.  Families were out biking, walking, smiling.  I literally had a smile plastered on my face for the entire 9 miles.  And they seemed to fly by.  Other than some slight pain in my left calve from a charlie horse cramp early Saturday morning (uh yeouch!) the run was completely effortless and awesome.

I did the 9 miles in 1:24:13 for a pace of 9:22.