OK, so I guess it’s not really free. You pay $15 for the tour, but it’s well worth it. I’ve actually done it twice — once last summer and again today. My mom has been begging to go since I told her about it last year, and today was the day.

The approximately hour and a half long tour takes you through the origins of coffee, the different varietals, what “cupping” is and how Intelligentsia goes about sourcing and producing their coffees. But the best part of the tour is the roasting demonstration, where one of the five Intelligentsia roasters shows you how it’s done by actually roasting a batch of coffee right there in front of you. Approximately 200 pounds of “green” (aka: unroasted) coffee beans are dumped into a restored 1950s roasting machine, and the entire process is done and monitored by hand. How cool is that? And at the end of the tour, you get to bring home half a pound of the coffee that was roasted while you watched. Doesn’t get much fresher than that.

It’s experiences like this that make Intelligentsia one of my favorite brands. The knowledge, passion and care they put into their products really shows — helping to build a tribe of loyal coffee-drinking consumers in Chicago and beyond (like me!). In fact, this isn’t the first time I’ve written about how much I love Intelligentsia. See my post about the Millennium Park shop here.

And now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for another cup.

Pumpkin is a tricky flavor. I have an aversion to things that are overly spiced, and the concept of “Pumpkin Spiced” anything — as most pumpkin-flavored things seem to be — makes me cringe (Starbucks, I’m talking to you). Most of it stems from a medieval oral surgery I had when I was in 7th grade, where a “bandage” of what could best be described as a clove-spiked clay was patched over various spots of my mouth and left there for two weeks until I was healed. I’ll spare you further details, but I’ve had an adverse reaction to anything clove ever since.

That being said, I prefer to make pumpkin-flavored items at home where I can control what spices go into the recipe. So yesterday I took a pumpkin muffin recipe I found online and tweaked it a bit by adding my own spices, as well as some whole wheat flour and wheat germ. Calling them healthy may be a stretch, but hey, I tried.

Healthier Pumpkin Muffins with Chocolate Chips

• 1 cup AP flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup wheat germ
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup canned pumpkin (not one CAN…one CUP)
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup skim milk
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly oil muffin cups with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
2. Whisk together the flours, wheat germ, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a large bowl. Combine the pumpkin, eggs, brown sugar, oil, milk, and vanilla in a medium bowl and stir until well combined. Pour the dry ingredients over the wet ingredients and stir until just moistened. Stir in the chocolate chips.
3. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups. Bake 20-23 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool muffins on a wire rack.

Happy fall!

Finally got back to the Lakefront Path — for the first time since the half marathon nearly two weeks ago. While I still want to maintain distance in the “off season,” I also want to work on speed a bit. So today I did .5 miles at medium pace, followed by .25 miles at a fast pace. I repeated this for 3 miles.

Minus the fact that my heart rate monitor buzzed to tell me my heart rate was too high every time I got midway through the fast paced portions, I felt pretty decent. Until the end when I totally blew up and ran out of steam. I’d like to say this is due to the fact that I haven’t run in nearly two weeks, but what’s mostly to blame is that I’m not fast. Mainly because I hate speed work. Hence the reason why I’m working on it.

Regardless, I’m back out there after a short hiatus. And it feels good.

Rewind to Friday — my first practice (yes, my first — I realize this is a “no duh, what did you expect?” kind of statement). I actually enjoyed this part. Dave and I went over to Montrose Beach to meet up with a few other Half Acre teammates. I learned how to dismount and run barriers. I even weaved through trees, rode hills, and practiced remounts. Minus a bruised ass and blistered hands, I had fun.I was still nervous about Sunday’s race, but practicing eased my nerves a little.

Come Sunday (race day), I was nervous but tried my hardest to just chalk it up for what it was. I knew I wasn’t going to do well. I rode the course twice for practice, and took note of the more sketchy spots. I paid attention to the other racers to see how they tackled those spots, and when I saw that they were having trouble too, I felt a little better about it. I took one more practice run, and that was all I could do — I wasn’t going to learn bike handling skills in 5 minutes.

There were 50 cat 4 women registered. I started towards the back for obvious reasons, and big surprise — that’s where I stayed. All the things I practiced basically went out the window once the race started. I’m not even sure how many times I fell, but it was a lot. I dropped my chain pretty much right off the bat, but my body took more hits than my bike did. I’m not sure I’ve ever willingly participated in something that put my body through so much abuse. Once the fastest girl lapped me, I pulled off the course and gave up. I really wanted to finish, but I didn’t feel like it was fair to the other girls if I stayed on the course and got in their way. That probably would have just frustrated me more, anyhow.

I’m disappointed and embarrassed that I didn’t do better, but as I said before, what did I expect? I’ve watched tons of races in the past  and always knew it was hard, but it ended up being much harder than I expected. And to top it off, I got a migraine on the way home.

So, I tried. I wish I could say that I had fun, but I didn’t — and I’m definitely paying for it today. Looks like my role is best spent on the sidelines. I’m a much better heckler, anyway.

Towards the end of training I started to feel like I was being forced to run, which I didn’t like. It wasn’t fun anymore. I stuck with it of course, but now that the race is over I’m enjoying the “freedom” of not having to run. I’m sure it’ll come back eventually, but it hasn’t happened yet. In the meantime I’ve been doing other things — more weightlifting, step mill, elliptical and cycling.

I’ll be back soon, but for now my legs and I are enjoying some well-deserved time off.

Don’t know what cyclocross is? Here’s a video “tutorial” of sorts:

2009 Chicago Cyclocross Cup from Heather Jurewicz on Vimeo.

Needless to say, I’m nervous. This is gonna be stupid.

I finished the Chicago Half Marathon in 2 hours 14 minutes. Not fast by any means, but not too shabby for a person who, up until a few months ago, had only run a few 5ks and nothing more. Speed was never my goal, anyway. It was more about running for long distances without needing to rest (so endurance, I guess).  I only stopped once during the race (at mile 10 for a quick stretch and some Gatorade), and I let my fuel belt do the job the rest of the time.

I was feeling pretty good and cruising “in the zone” until somewhere between mile 10 and 11. I guess that’s when my legs started to get tired and I was more aware of what I was doing. That’s also when the pack started to thin considerably (not sure why) and it was harder to consistently pace behind someone else. According to my Garmin, I held a consistent 10-10:10 pace up until mile 10, when I started to slip into the 10:30/11 range. And while I wanted to walk, I didn’t. Mentally I knew I didn’t really need to. So I kept going. Somewhere around mile 12.5 I saw Dave, which helped push me through the rest of the way.

Now that training’s over, I want to focus more on speed and shorter distances (6-8 miles). I still plan on running (don’t want to lose what I’ve gained thus far) — hopefully outside until the weather becomes unrunable.

If I do it again (which I probably will), I’d love to get a time closer to the 2 hour mark. Hopefully concentrating on speed in the off-season will help improve my times.

Thanks to everyone who helped and supported me during my training. It means a lot.

I like meat. I grew up eating it and I still do. That being said, I don’t eat much red meat anymore, but I guess I still like having the option to eat it if I so choose.

However, the idea of being vegetarian is appealing to me. After watching movies like Food, Inc. and reading books like Food Matters, I know it’s a healthier, more earth-friendly option. But when it comes down to it, I’m not sure I could eliminate meat from my diet. Not completely, anyway.

A year ago or so, after I read Food Matters, I tried the Mark Bittman approach — being “vegan” throughout the day and having a portion of meat with dinner. I put vegan in quotes because the Bittman approach is loosely vegan, meaning you can do things like put a little half and half in your morning coffee, etc. I stuck with it for about two weeks. The first week was pretty easy as long as I planned breakfasts and lunches in advance. However, after that first week, I began to lose my grasp on the whole thing. It’s harder than it seems. There’s only so many grain + bean + veggie salad combos a person can tolerate. Plus, I don’t particularly like soy milk, which basically renders lattes off limits. Ouch.

Instead, I’ve been paying a lot of attention to what’s really in food and have taken to making a lot of things from scratch. The fewer ingredients, the better, and more often than not I’ll choose an item based on it’s ingredients rather than it’s calorie/fat content. This approach has worked well for me.

I think my biggest barrier (and it’s a pretty big one) to becoming veg is that I actually like meat. Most of my vegetarian friends claim they  never liked it prior to making the transition, which I’d imagine makes the whole thing much easier. And as much as I enjoy tofu, black bean burgers and soy chicken patties, they don’t even come close to the real thing. I can picture it in my head now — I’m sitting amongst a group of friends chowing down on delicious BBQ while I’m crying in the corner because I’m forced to eat BBQ sauce on a bun. It’s not pretty.

For those of you who are meat-free, I give you credit. It’s a lifestyle choice that takes a lot of dedication…dedication that I really don’t think I have. And I guess that’s why I’m envious. Because it’s a lifestyle choice that I know I just can’t live with. To all the vegetarians out there — are you completely offended by meat, or are you like me and deep down you really love it but know you shouldn’t have it? And for those of you who aren’t veg, have you considered it?

And that’s a good feeling.