The Icebreaker Indoor Marathon consists of several events. A 5K on Friday, 2 half marathons and a marathon relay on Saturday, and a full marathon on Sunday.

 

As the weekend approached, I started to get nervous.  There was a lot of hype.  I felt some pressure.  Would all the hours of hard work pay off? Would people be disappointed? Would expectations be met?

 

I am happy to report, I successfully made and delivered 60 dozen Running in the USA cookies to the Pettit National Ice Center, for the Icebreaker participants, and they were a big hit.

 

I love baking. I love sharing something that makes people happy. Thanks, everyone, for your nice compliments about my cookies!

 

The recipe can be found at: Cream Cheese Cut Out Cookies

 

One batch makes about 6 to 7 dozen.  I bag up 6 dozen for the event, and the rest are for 'quality control', handled by myself, family, and sometimes, my training partner. Quality control is the only part of the process where I let anyone help.

 

Each batch takes about 3 1/2 hours, over about a 2 day period.  It takes about 30 min to make the dough, which has to chill for about 6 hours.  Rolling out, baking and frosting them takes about 3 hours. Last, I freeze them overnight before bagging them up.

 

They freeze great, and actually freezing sets the frosting so that they don't stick together as much.  And for some reason, they seem to taste better after they have been frozen.  Leftover cookies can also be refrozen.

 

Frosting the maps takes a bit of strategy. I start with a little dab in New England, then a tiny dab for Florida. Then a big pile gets plunked down in the great plains and plowed to the east, then Texas and finally the west coast. Florida is definitely the trickiest part, requiring a delicate touch that I haven't quite mastered yet.

 

Frosting the shoes is pretty straight forward - a simply out and back gets most of the job done.  I little wrist action is needed for the top of the shoe where the laces go.

 

After baking every day for nearly 2 weeks, I have it down to a complete science, though by the time next year's Icebreaker comes around, I will be quite rusty in my technique.

 

Fortunately, there will be a Heatbreaker Half Marathon  on July 28th at the Pettit, allowing me to keep my cookie making skills tuned up.

Thanks for going through all of that effort Mary, they were very very good!

I had a blast running the marathon (me the guy in the pink 80s outfit) even though I was working through an injury, I had so much fun!

-John