Vegan Pumpkin Muffins

With the weather getting cooler I find myself baking more often. Although I am not 100% vegan I love to bake vegan. Why use all the milk, butter, eggs and refined sugars when you don't have to? I have a wonderful book "Vegan with a Vengeance" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz that has some of the best EVER vegan recipes. This book has something for everyone ranging from Tempeh Reuben sandwiches to Fauxstess (like hostess) cupcakes.

These pumpkin muffins come from this book and they are awesome! My kids had them for breakfast, asked if I'd put one in their lunches and later had them for an afternoon snack. Needless to say, the batch didn't last long in our house!

The Best Pumpkin Muffins

13/4 cups all-purp flour
11/4 cups sugar
1 tblspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground/grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup veg oil
2 tablespoon molasses

Preheat oven to 400. Lightly grease muffin tin.
Sift together dry ingred's.
In a separate bowl combine wet ingred's.
Pour the wet into the dry and mix.
Fill muffin cups 3/4 full and bake 18-20mins

You could also add a cup of cranberries or chopped walnuts.

I altered the recipe slightly by using equal parts white and brown sugar, light soy milk and canola oil instead of veg oil.

These muffins come out very light and moist and your house will smell amazing!

Thirsty Thursday

Yesterday, even though Matt was home and I could of ran outside I opted to hit the mill instead. The weather was in the 40's and raining. Is it October or December? I'm confused. I headed to the gym to do my second work out from "The Book" and get a little weights in before picking up the big kids from school.





The schedule called for 1mi warm up. 3mi at 9:56. 1mi cool down. Not bad. Unfortunately, I wrote this off as too easy and only had two cups of coffee and a pumpkin muffin for fuel. I ate at 8am. I ran at 1pm. Terrible, I know. Notice I didn't mention water.





The treadmills are a little wacky and I'm pretty sure they need to be re calibrated. I started off on a treadmill set at 12min pace. However, I crossed the proverbial "finish" line with the clock reading 10min. That was supposed to be my warm-up mile. My "pace" miles were supposed to be at 9:56. I decided to jump on a different mill since obviously that one had issues. The next mill had me at 10:00min pace at 6.0 but at 5.9 it read 9:22 pace. That's a HUGE difference. I opted to keep it at 6.0. I'm not sure if it was the stopping and starting with switching mills or the two cups of joe but my heart rate was thru the roof! I let myself walk .10 to let my rate slow down but by the end of mile 2 it was way up again. I'm all about pushing to 80-90% max but I was feeling bad and I know enough to listen to my body. I allowed myself another .10 walk at the end of mile 3. By this time I had also slugged down my water bottle and would of stolen the bottle of the chick next to me if it wasn't flu season! At this point I was just ready to get it over with and since I figured my pace was off anyway I cranked it up a bit and finished the 4th mi with as much dignity as possible. I was breathing like an asthmatic and my feet hitting the treadmill sounded like a heard of buffalo. I ran the 5th mi at this mills 11:30 pace, which was much more comfortable. Total time on the mill was about 50min. That tells me just how off the treadmills were and no wonder it felt so hard.





I jumped off the mill and headed to the water fountain to fill-up my water bottle. Then I took my sweaty, red-faced self over to the free weight floor to pump a little iron. I started off with alternating sets of bosu dead-lifts with the 40lb bar and lunges off the bosu. After my hamstrings were significantly punished I grabbed the bosu and headed over to the bench press. I continued with alternating sets but this time with a set of bench press followed by a set of bosu push ups. 4 sets of 10 each. I finished with obliques on the ab bench, a quick stretch and then off to get the kiddos.





This work-out was a reminder of just how bad I need to fix my Garmin or invest in a new one. Also, a reminder to fuel better!!

Run Less, Run Faster. Or die trying!

I finally ordered this book that my friends have been telling me about. I won't actually have it for about a week but since my friend Jen started her training program from the book today she sent me hers to follow. That way we can be long distance training partners. I still don't have any races on my calendar. I figure there's probably a few 5k's in the area in the upcoming months so if I'm ready maybe I'll get to run a few. It's a lot less pressure just training for life!

Total time on the mill-67 mins

Total distance-5.25 miles

1 mile warm up at 10 min pace

Schedule called for repeats. 8x400 with 400 recovery

My pace for the 400's varied between 8:49 and 9:22 (by the 6th repeat I was ready to quit, but I didn't)

.25 mile cool down

I stretched for about 5min. I still had to get the kids home, fed, washed and put to bed.

Overall I really liked this work-out, especially the 400's recovery! It was difficult but not undo able. It felt good to push myself yet still feel strong at the finish.

3.1 miles of yuck!

Today was my second run of the week. For the past few weeks I've been running three times a week with one day of hills, one of speed work on the mill and one "longer" run. I lift weights twice a week and try to get at least an hour of cardio in too.

This week I've been feeling like I'm coming down with something. My legs were really achy after my run on Monday. Tuesday I bench pressed followed by bosu push-ups and then finished up with squats and dead lifts on the bosu. Today my chest is STILL sore. I typically recover really fast so the nagging soreness is definitely a sign of me not feeling well. I decided to take yesterday off. Today I planned on doing speed work. I warmed up for a mile and as soon as I started to speed it up a bit I felt really crappy. I decided to let myself walk when I needed to but to increase my speed after each break. I was really thirsty the entire time and since I didn't have my ipod to distract me all I could think about was my water bottle. I was thankful that I only planned on 3.1 miles of this torture.

"Hills are speed work in disguise."-Frank Shorter

With Matt's crazy schedule getting work-outs in is pretty challenging. I only had about 45min to get a run in. I really didn't want to have to hit the treadmill again so I decided to drive over to Prince Frederick Parkway. The weather was overcast and in the high 60's. I planned to run my normal hilly 1.5 mile route with a few repeats on the steepest of the three hills. The hill is about .5mi long. I ran for a total of 30min. As expected the repeats seemed to get harder each time and I took a little extra recovery after each one. Even my "recovery" spot is an incline. I jogged easy the last .5mi of the route that takes me back to my car but since this last portion is a huge hill it was ecspecially challenging after doing the repeats. I cooled down and stretched in the parking lot before heading home.