Caramel Apple Oatmeal Cookies and a "Long" Run

Welcome back to Monday, folks. Hope you all had a nice enjoyable weekend.

In between attending two parties and checking off items on the NurseryWatch list this weekend, I kept up on race recaps posted by cool people like Ali (who ran her first marathon), Megan (who did a "Panda Meander" 5k, how cute!) and Paula (who raced a 15k and set an instant PR).

I love racing, but when you're pregnant and can't really race anymore, reading other peoples' recaps is the next best thing. Just reading about lining up in a start corral or busting through a water station or feeling the pain of mile 18 gets me all goosebumpy and excited.

Thank you, weekend racers, for letting this pregnant lady live vicariously through you.

I did actually get out and run over the weekend, though. While Kevin did a (PR-setting!) 13.1 mile training run for Chicago yesterday morning, I tromped along the park path to tally up four miles.

I did four miles in 42:21, for a pace of 10:34. It's the longest run I've done since the Crim; although it was slow, ~~I've learned~~ I'm slowly learning to just take what I can get right now.

That run put me at 10 miles for the week, another personal post-Crim weekly high. Let's hope it lasts!

I really needed that run, too, as I spent the majority of the weekend stuffing my face.

Pizza at my nephew's birthday party on Friday night.
Lunch with Kevin at a local Italian restaurant on Saturday afternoon.
Chili, bread, fruit, and cheesecake at a work friend's get together Saturday night.

~~A few~~ countless handfuls of peanut butter M&M's. I really wish my peanut butter hating days would return.

Oh yeah, and then these cookies happened.

Caramel Apple Oatmeal Cookies

You see, I've been a sweets-fiend lately, and I wanted to make something to further celebrate fall to take to said co-worker's place on Saturday.

So I fiddled around my kitchen cabinets, rounding up ingredients to see what could possibly come together without me having to waddle my arse to the grocery story.

I ended up using this cookie recipe from Taste of Home, with the following modifications:

cut butter back to 3/4 cup (which resulted in a fluffier, more cake-like cookie for me)
used a heaping 1/2 cup of fresh grated apple instead of dried
added 1/8 teaspoon of ground gloves for extra fall flava flav

While they cooled, I thought about ways to make the cookies get a little more jiggy with it (thanks, Will Smith - I'll forever love the term "jiggy" because of you), and then I remembered I had some leftover caramel apple dip - the kind you buy in the produce section for dipping fruit - in the fridge

So I heated it up in the microwave for 45 seconds, stirring every 10, and then plopped it on top of the cookies, frosting-style before adding a sprinkle of walnuts to the whole shebang.

And there you have it.

Little bite-sized pieces of fall for your taste buds.

And you know, since there's fruit and oatmeal in them, it's perfectly okay to eat them for breakfast.

Tell me about your weekend - did you:
-Bake anything amazing I should know about?
-Compete in a race or complete a training run?
-Get jiggy with it like Will Smith?