Cupcake a Week: Purple & Green

Here's a batch of special "purple & green" cupcakes I made this week for our Team in Training marathon send off party. Our runners are heading to the Chicago Marathon this weekend, and the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco next weekend! I think after 5 months of training at 4:00AM on Saturday mornings in the brutal heat of Mobile, running 12, 14, 16 and even 20 miles calls for a celebration...and cupcakes were definitely present at the party!

And of course they were all decked out in some purple & green cupcake toppers!

For those of you that are new to my blog, you may not know about Team in Training or my involvement as a marathon coach. But it is truly one of the greatest organizations I have ever been a part of that raises money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society while at the same time training for a half marathon or marathon! It's definitely a challenge both mentally and physically but the rewards are so worth it to know that you are helping to make a difference in the lives of those suffering from blood cancers!

It seems like only yesterday we were kicking off the training season with the Nike Preview Party and now it is almost race day. I'm so excited to be the proud coach to cheer all 34 participants across the finish lines of the upcoming races!

So this weekend I'll be in Chicago coaching the marathon on 10/10/10...how cool is that! Then next weekend I'll be in San Fran running the Nike Women's Half Marathon and cheering our participants to the finish! You can be sure while I'm traveling through these two cities cupcakes will be on my mind. I'm on the hunt to find the best local cupcake shops so I can share them with you!

Here's a sneak peak inside the goody bags I gave all our participants last night to prepare them for their race weekend:

(For those of you that are marathoners you probably know the importance of this stuff...for those of you that aren't I don't mean to bore you with this runners jargon)

- a pack of tissue (you never know when the portolets will run out of toilet paper on the marathon course)
- a Ghiradelli chocolate (after all they will be handing these out along the race course in San Fran)
- jolly ranchers (for something different to suck on after you have reached your limit of GUs for some extra fuel to get you through the race)
- a pony tail holder (always good to have a back up)
- halloween bandaids (incase of blisters after 13.1 or 26.2 miles)
- Fall Mix (the best candy combo ever)

Can't wait to report back next week with marathon and cupcake updates!