Friday love: It’s a heat wave

Pre-workout eats: Cinnamon-raisin English muffin with cinnamon sugar

Workout: Ran 6.21 miles; average pace, 9:13.

31 degrees. 31 degrees!

That was the temperature – outside – when I departed for my run this morning. It was a solid 20 degrees warmer than my two other runs this week. It was like the gods were telling me to not sleep in just because Mark had a two-hour delay (he’s a teacher) and to go out and run. Of course, I could have done without the fresh inch or two of snow but how could I complain when it was 31 DEGREES!

Thank you, universe, for finally giving me some Friday love. And now for mine …

Food. Lemon-Poppyseed Pancakes. Say it with me. On the count of 1 … 2 … 3 … YUM. I saw an idea for the pancakes yesterday when I was fumbling around on the Internet. The dish called for a from-scratch pancake, lemon extract and poppyseeds. Seeing as I don’t make from from-scratch pancakes when it’s just for one, I decided to add lemon extract and poppyseeds to some “add water only” pancake mix (I use Fiber One). I put in maybe 1/8 teaspoon extract and 1/2 teaspoon seeds. I’d probably add a little bit of more in the future but with warm syrup, it was awesome. It might have been turbo awesome if I tried the lemon yogurt the original site suggested.

If you wanna do it for reals, here is a recipe I found:

Lemon-Poppyseed Pancakes

Serves 4

1 cup buttermilk
4 eggs separated
1 cup flour
dash salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
zest and juice from 1 lemon
1/2 tablespoon poppyseeds

Beat together buttermilk and egg yolks until well-blended. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.

Combine the flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda into the milk-yolk mixture. Fold the beaten egg whites into the batter, along with the lemon zest and juice, and the poppyseeds. The egg whites should be blended, but somewhat distinct from the rest of the batter.

On a nonstick griddle, or large pan, lightly greased with butter or oil if necessary and heated to medium, add the batter by 1/2 cup ladlefuls. Cook until lightly brown on the bottom, and bubbles begin to rise to the top, about 3 minutes. Turn over and cook until brown on the second side.

Pancakes can remain in a warm oven until ready to serve, but then should be eaten immediately. Sprinkle pancakes with additional poppyseeds if you like, and serve with pure maple syrup.

Fitness. The other day I told you about my boulevard. The fancy street with its fancy houses where I can run on the road, do mile loops and feel fairly safe during inclement weather. Well, I discovered something better. A little bonus. There’s a city park adjacent to this fancy boulevard that has a walking path – about a half-mile. As it turns out, the city parks department does an amazing job of clearing the path for citizens. I can run from my place to the end of the fancy boulevard (1 mile), loop the park (.5 mile), loop the boulevard (1 mile), loop the park (.5) and repeat until I reach my distance goal and then run 1 mile home. Seriously awesome. The park helps break the monotony of the street, and I feel a bit safer because the path is 100 percent clear of snow, ice and moving vehicles.

Life. I’m trying to think of something super exciting from the week to make me love life but it’s hard to nail down just one winner. Was it Mark turning on “Property Virgins” last night even though I told him that he could watch what he wanted? Was it the resolution to our issues with the apartment/duplex? Was it scoring some fantastic cookbooks at the work charity sale?

Or, or, was it the planning of this weekend’s anniversary celebration?

I just don’t know. Wishing everyone a fun and safe weekend!