Sunday lunch

148 days until the Boston Marathon

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On Sundays I like to cook a "Sunday lunch" - I think it's kind of a British tradition. In the fall and winter, I also meet some friends from our town's informal running club at a nearby woodland park on Sunday mornings, and we do a 6 mile run through the woods.

I sometimes combine both by setting up something to cook before I leave, running, and then coming back for lunch.

This week I cooked an English pot roast. I follow the simple directions from my wife's old Delia Smith cookbook. The cover paper on this cookbook is ripped, and some of the pages are stained with food spills, but the recipes work. Basically, you brown the beef, brown the vegetables, add some stock, and bake at a low temperature for three hours.

Ahh... but when it's done, the house smells like something good is cooking, the meat is tender, and the vegetables soft. I make mashed potatoes to go with it, and serve it all with the stock and juices from the roast.

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I had a good week of running: 8 miles on the track on Monday; 2 hours of full-court basketball on Tuesday (I count this as cross-training); 10.4 miles (two town loops) on Thursday, 5 miles with some Yassos (800 meter fast intervals) on Saturday, and my woodland run on Sunday (12 miles, with the run to and from the park). So, 35 miles for the week.

I haven't quite started my training for the Boston Marathon. I'm slightly reluctant to begin a schedule yet - it comes to dominate my life and instill guilt. But I'll likely start a New York Road Runner's marathon plan (from the Running Well section of the New York Times online) soon.