Who knew maple syrup is good for you!

Day 3 is never quite as much fun as Day 1.  At least I started the day off with a good helping of oats - prepared a big batch of steel-cut oats in the pressure cooker  so all I had to do was measure out 1 cup, add about a half cup light vanilla soy and a tablespoon of maple syrup.  I never knew that maple syrup is positively  good for you until I saw a reference to some recent research in an article a few days ago.

In a new study conducted by the University of Rhode Island, Dr. Navindra Seeram discovered that pure Canadian maple syrup contains more than 20 compounds linked to human health. Several of these antioxidant compounds are reported to contain anti-cancer, anti-bacterial and anti-diabetic properties.

So goodbye to the articificial sweetener which I've enjoyed with breakfast until yesterday.  Maple syrup it will be from now on.

Getting back into both a workout program and back into running have turned out to be quite challenging.  My abs are sore (from some situps and related exercises), my shoulders are aching (lat pulldowns) and my calves remain borderline at best (run-walk) despite regular foam rolling.  Physically I am probably in the worst shape right now than I have been in nearly 10 years. There's a lot of work to be done. 

Even so, my thoughts have turned to running another marathon, likely the Mohawk-Hudson in upper NY State in October.  It will be a long journey from where I am now to being able to comfortably finish a 26.2 mile race, never mind trying to race it.  To get the process going I will follow Sally Edwards' half-marathon training plan in her new book 'Be a Better Runner'.  I have always been intrigued with the relationship between training/racing and heart rate training zones.  Edwards' plan makes extensive use of heart rate data to figure out how easy or hard one's running efforts should be.  So from this afternoon I will be strapping on the Polar HR Monitor to establish some benchmarks.