On Saturday afternoon, after a walk into town, I made a cheesecake. I bought the Pip and Nut cookbook a while back, and it had caught my eye (peanut butter and raspberry cheesecake- basically a pb&j dessert) and as we were going to Andy’s parents for tea on Sunday it seemed perfect for that.
You made the base first (not by crushing biscuits, but by making a sort of biscuit mixture from scratch and baking it), and then came the filling- loads of cream cheese, eggs, a bit of vanilla and sugar all whipped up. Then a few tbs peanut butter was swirled in.
Finally raspberries were mixed in before it was poured onto the base and then baked.
It went a beautiful pink colour from the raspberries. At this point, as I poured it over the base, I realised that there was so much cheesecake mixture that it would overflow, so I had to get out another tin and cook just the filling in that. We ended up with two cheesecakes but one had no base (as I did not have the time to make another base and let it cool). I didn’t take a photo of the finished cheesecake (poor show I know, but I am sure you have all seen a cheesecake before..), but there wasn’t much left after Sunday tea anyway! It was a good recipe but next time I would make less topping because of the size of my pan.
On Sunday morning I had a lie in (I didn’t set my alarm) and then headed out on a long run at around 9am. It was meant to rain, but thankfully it stayed fairly dry, with a few bits of drizzle every now and then. I couldn’t decide how far to go or which route to go, so in the end I did an out and back in the direction of Panshanger parkrun, although I didn’t quite get all the way there. I wanted to do 8-10 miles, as next weekend I have another half marathon. It is confusing- am I recovering from the half marathon, training for the next one or tapering for it? I’m not sure how many miles I would usually do the week before- it depends on the goal for the race really. The one next week is the Welwyn one, where I fell over last year and really cut up my hands, bruised my hip and hurt my back, so my main aim is to finish without needing to see the paramedics after! On Sunday after a couple of miles I was just feeling tired, but I think it was a bit more psychological, and so I took a few photos and distracted myself, and before I knew it I was at the half way point and could turn around. (I had another break then where I messaged Andy so he knew my ETA). As I got home my watch said 8.92 miles, so I went up and down the road to make it up to the full 9- I am not normally bothered by this apart from when it is really close to the next full mile.
A few weeks ago we had picked up some chocolate twists (basically like pain au chocolat) in Waitrose, as they were reduced, so before I had left I had got them out of the freezer. I had a shower while Andy heated up the oven, and then we had a lovely breakfast- I had a bit of granola with berries too. By that point it was raining quite hard, so our original plans of walking into town vanished, so I did some baking for work (more of those almond/jam things from the Hygge cookbook).
Our decorating / finishing touches are still going on- I bought this print (from Etsy) in the Christmas holidays, but we only just got some masonry nails so it is finally up and I love it!
After thinking about the Welwyn half this week, I half remembered my plan to do slightly less races this year. I think I have managed to resist a few (lots from my club did the Fred Hughes 10, and an Essendon 10k), but I still have a few:
The Welwyn half marathon is next weekend- plan to finish in one piece. Two weeks later I am doing the Lee Valley half marathon with my dad. We are hoping for around 2.10 as long as it isn’t too hot.
I have then got the Wings for Life race in May- no idea how far I will manage to run for that (it’s where you all start, and then a bit later a catcher car starts to drive, and when it passes you, you drop out), but maybe around 8 miles I think.
This week I signed up to the London 10 Mile– It’s 10 miles on the 4th of June in Richmond park. There is also a family fun run and a picnic in the park after. Some of the profits go to parkrun, which is amazing. I have been given a place in the race which is great, so I am going to give some money to my local parkrun instead of paying for it.
Which races do you have coming up? Do you tend to do the same ones each year? Are you a cheesecake fan? It’s not my favourite dessert, but a really good one (hello Cheesecake Factory) can sway me.
