If Chobani started making cat food, I wouldn’t only trust it – I would buy it by the gigantic bulk-store bags. And not only because Benson occasionally snacks on leftover Cho, but because I am brand loyal.  When I find a brand I love across the board [product, marketing, PR, etc] I sign on for life. 

Several weeks ago I was uberexcited when Nick and I were walking through a Dollar General and I came across these Old Colony Apple Sauce Oatmeal Cookies made with Musselman’s Apple Sauce.* 

Musselman’s is my go-to brand for one of my favorite day time snacks – apple sauce.  I keep emergency cups of several flavors at my desk at work for in case of emergency hunger breaks and have been known to rely on Musselman’s Chunky Applesauce for my long run fuel. 

I love the companies products, including all the Lucky Leaf pie filling I’ve had the pleasure to try in the past, and I was very excited back in the day to learn more about the company and how Musselman’s gets the job done when I had the opportunity to travel to Musselman’s facilities with a group of awesome bloggers last fall. 

I’m proud to call myself a Musselman’s Brand Ambassador because of what I experienced on that trip.  Part of it is no doubt because every employee we met while touring the various facilities was beyond your standard friendly and knowledgeable representative companies often put in front of their consumer audience. 

These men and women were also extremely interested in what we had to say – as customers who want a delicious product, as healthy living enthusiasts and moms who care about what we are consuming, as women on the go who are looking for the easier conveniences in the little things, and, something I was obviously excited about, as bloggers creating a relationship with brands.  I love that I’m able to work with such a great company who wants to hear my ideas, concerns, praises, requests, and questions with all the same level of enthusiasm. 

And because I’ve experienced such great things with such a great company, I will no doubt continue to choose Musselman’s when making healthy baking substitutions or choosing picnic snacks from the pantry or market.  I will continue to wear my Ambassador badge proudly, and I will continue to try and convince you to try some, too. Because I love this product and I believe in this company enough to do so. 

One awesome thing that Musselman’s has done for my “class” of Ambassadors lies in the branches of this here tree I helped plant at the Orchard we all visited together.  Okay, truth be told, the entire group of awesome ambassadors had their hand in getting this tree planted together. 

Well, several weeks ago [times like this are prime examples of why I stopped making posting promises] I received an email from my Musselman’s friends with an update of our little tree – including photos!  I found the email really interesting, as it taught me a bit about what happens to the trees during wintertime as they grow.

Getting this email and reflecting on my time in Gettysburg is what inspired my posting about this awesome company, surely.  Hippie Heather thinks the tree’s growth over the past eight months is somehow symbolic to her own growth, too.  I couldn’t not share the update after thinking that over for far too long this weekend.

Here’s our little guy.  I know it doesn’t look like he’s all that big, but in comparing the photos I think you can definitely see the trunk has grown a bit! And you can totally tell it’s taller if you focus on where the branches start moving outward in both pictures, too. It was A LOT closer to the protective gate back in September of last year!

Here’s our tree with his five-year old neighbor.  Our tree is a Gala, one of my favorites!  [My top five list: Pink Lady, Honey Crisp, Gala, Empire, and Cortland.]

Here’s some of the fun facts the email shared about the processes at the Orchard for those of you who may also enjoy a behind the scenes look at apple growing:

In the winter the stem tips or “buds” of the apple trees are dormant making it a good time for pruning. The goal for pruning trees is twofold: for younger trees, it helps encourage a strong, solid framework and on mature trees, pruning helps maintain the shape and encourage fruit production.

Our tree didn’t have it’s first trimming this winter, though. Given the variety of tree and that it was planted in early fall, it’s critical to establish a good root system and feed the tree first. If you start pruning very young trees you promote tree/ limb growth and small trees are not always ready for that to take place.

Our tree should be ready in the summer for some early limb training and the building of the scaffold system with the tree, once it has a strong root system started. It’s hard to imagine that some day that little apple tree will be producing pounds upon pounds of fruit like all the other massive, beautiful trees on this orchard. 

*And, yes; those cookies were a great snack. Especially when I spread peanut butter between two of them and made mini sandwiches.

I was more nervous for this race than any sort of “official” race I’d run to date. After much hemming and hawing, I decided this had something to do with self-imposed pressure.  My mind was down with playing games all weekend long, especially on Sunday morning as I was preparing for my 3.1 miles. 

I had made a fairly short and sweet playlist for the Blend 5K.  I chose songs that I knew would keep me moving even if I didn’t want to be moving. 

I tend to hold on to lyrics and use them to fuel me through the rough patches. Young the Giant’s “My Body” was a must on this playlist. I restarted it at least four times during my run.

I ran a simple out and back course in a neighborhood I was familiar with, having run in it a time or two before. It’s flat, like woah, and near the water, which is often a welcomed running scene.  I walked for about a quarter mile to warm up before starting my playlist and setting off along my route.

I started out WAY too fast here.  I was running sub 9 for the first half mile before I realized I wasn’t doing myself any favors. I tried to tell myself that I could run smart from this point forward, but I was having a hard time finding the pace I needed and wanted to run at consistently. 

Not too long after my first mile, a car and I played chicken trying to get one another to go first, as it was backing out of it’s driveway, and I was waiting to cross.  I stopped jogging in place, eventually, and paused my watch.  It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but the uber-quick rest was a taste of something I wanted more of – and eventually I was stopping after every few minutes of running to walk for a bit before starting the cycle again. 

Not a big deal, I know.  I started to get really in my head about the whole thing and was being down on myself about a less than stellar performance when I realized I had the opportunity to turn this poor “race” into a strong speed training run. 

I continued running 3.1 miles, but I stopped my feet, and my watch, to stretch, adjust, and recover after pushing myself for several minutes of hard running.  After changing my mindset and declaring it a speed workout, I kept up with that sub 9 pace, bringing me in under my goal of 30 minutes.  It just wasn’t a true 5K PR because it was 30 minutes of speedy running with recovery seconds in between.

The kicker of course, is that speed workouts like my Blend 5K experience are the exact training methods that are going to help prepare me to run a SMART sub 30 5K this July.  I think that means I won this practice race. But- no!, seriously; all of you who ran it with us won this race, too.  That’s the best thing about this community: once we hit the top, there’s no stopping us…

Well, onto 15K Training: Let’s discuss!

I ran a great four mile, slow and steady, run about town on Monday.  I left me feeling really confident about being able to finish my race next weekend.  My current goal for the race is to PR.  My current 15K time is 1:51:37.  I will be ecstatic with any time, of course, but I’d preparing mentally for sub 1:50. [When I started training for this 15K, I was thinking about training for 1:36. That seems RIDICULOUS right now.]

I’ve been toying with the idea of running sans Garmin the past few weeks.  As I told her in the comments, when I saw that Meghann posted about a Garmin-free run last week, I knew I must fit one in my schedule soon.  I’m looking forward to running without being slave to the pace-space on my wrist.  I am anticipating a mind-game free run this week!

I’m also making sure to take one full rest day this weekend before my last pre-race long run on Sunday morning.  I made sure to write “Yoga for at least 20 minutes!” in my day planner for Thursday.  It’s one of my goals for this week to do one of the “Yoga for Runners” podcasts I recently downloaded from ITunes [for FREE!!] to add a little something new to my weekly workouts.

And oh my word – I have already preplanned and drafted my training plan for post 15K.  I’ve made some decisions I’m very excited about and will most likely be sharing soon.  Don’t want to over kill on the running talk in one night. Hmmmm. Never thought I’d be the kind of girl to say that.

I was especially intrigued because of research showing that cherries and cherry juice have anti-inflammatory properties.  I’ve read about the benefits of drinking cherry juice after a hard workout to help ease muscle soreness and wanted to test the claims myself after some long runs and speed workouts.

Be sure to head on over to the THS Facebook Page to learn more and enter to win some for yourself!