Helpless in the grip of cookie lust

When I was a child we used to go out to BC to visit relatives. My Aunt Bessie (father's father's sister) was the most amazing baker. Since my birthday often fell (now it doesn't fall, it's more like a house collapsing, or an avalanche) during the visit, she would bake the cake. I got to choose flavour, and if I'd been a good boy, the shape. One year it was a recognizable Titanic. Another was a DC-3 that had made a belly landing. The best part about visiting her house was the cookie trove, although she loved puzzles, and had all sorts of interesting stuff. I'd love to go there again, but like her, the house isn't there anymore. Even the old holly trees just beside the house are gone. To this day I love the smell of holly.

If there was an El Dorado of cookies, that house was it. Cookie tins of all shapes and sizes, filled with amazing cookies. She had to walk the line between natural generosity and the family idea that sweets were bad for you in excess. I don't know what she did with them all.

Ever since, I've loved cookies. Ones made with, or of chocolate are the best, but really, all are good. They're like a small burst of sunshine in your mouth, especially Linda's cookies. I was pretty good at making them, but we switched to various whole wheat flours or non-wheat flours and I haven't got the knack yet.

The problem with good cookies is that it's easy to eat a lot of them. I suspect my record is right after IMC, when Linda handed me a bag of cookies over the fence, and I inhaled many, pausing only to drink something in between. One of the problems when you're really slow at races is that they run out of food. But I didn't care. These were non-wheat chocolate chip with ginger in them. Susi knows the ones, oh yes. A couple dozen perked her right up after a race.

One of the other problems involved with being able to sniff out a chocolate cookie at 50 paces, is that it becomes really easy to gain weight. Especially when you work in an office that has lots of cookies left over after meetings. I really started really packing on the weight.

Once I got into serious training for Ironman I started dropping the weight. I was getting better at having a couple cookies instead of a bunch. Then someone told me chocolate was a great recovery food. My cookie consumption picked up again. At least I was working them off. Over the last year I've not been working out so seriously, and I've tried to stay cut back on the cookie consumption.

Part of the problem is that I can hear cookies calling to me. They sing to me. In many part cookie harmony. There are entire cookie choruses that plead with me as I walk by. They know I'm a superior cookie connoisseur, and yearn to be eaten by me.

Sad to say, it isn't only cookies. Date square. Did you know the best date square I ever had was in Whitecourt, at a Winks gas station? Yes, even better than Primal Grounds, or Lazy Loaf and Kettle, or Good Earth. They had a little bakery in there, and that baker had the touch. Oh my goodness. There are other things, but lets not tempt fate by mentioning them.

And no, I'm not going to start a 12 step program to stop the cookie lust. I haven't hit bottom yet, and trust I never will.

My ART guy worked on my bammy, the left one. I'd strained it slightly during a run a couple weeks ago trying to run fast, and it's been a bit twingy since. He worked it over and it's much better. My knees are fine.

Ran tonight during a beautiful evening. Still warm, but beginning to cool off. Ran 45 minutes through the neighbourhood, not keeping track of distance, just running various paces between a 10 K race pace and a slow recovery jog. Warmed up with 20 minutes of stretching and stuff, starting the run easy. Walked 10 minutes after and stretched more.