November Reads (Friends we are so close!! We're gonna make it!!)

Happy holidays friends! Hope you are doing well!

So help me, I am going to finish out these 2022 book posts if it kills me. Which given that we're now down to one to go with a solid week-plus left in the year, I think we'll probably manage to avoid.

Not a ton of reading in November but there were at least a couple of winners! As always, feel free to share any favorites you've read this year (or before this year) in the comments. :)

In case you missed it:

January 2022 Reads
February 2022 Reads
March 2022 Reads

April 2022 Reads

May 2022 Reads

June 2022 Reads

July 2022 Reads

August 2022 Reads

September 2022 Reads

October 2022 Reads

 

(73) The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain (1934, 170 pages) (crime drama, classic). Paper book. Another classic by a master of the genre. Set in the early 20th century in rural California, a drifter and the disenchanted wife of a Greek diner owner begin an affair and conspire to murder “the Greek.” Alas they may have both bitten off more than they bargained for. A dramatic tragedy in the most Greek (no pun intended) sense of the word. No mystery here, just hard-boiled crime drama.

Stacking Solid Weeks (& avoiding overtraining...)

Christmas Relays Team 246 (minus one)!

Happy holiday season, friends! I hope you are doing well and getting some time for rest and relaxation.

I'd still count this most recent week as "solid," but will *also* admit that I probably got a bit overexciting when my calf stopped seizing up and overdid the miles. (Jumping from a month+ at ~10 miles/week or so to 28.5 is something my 31-year-old self could get away with; my 41-year-old self, on the other hand, maybe not so much.) Plus there was "racing" two events in two weeks when my body is very, very, VERY much not in racing shape. I'm still feeling healthy and injury-free (🙌), but my body and mind have been absolutely ***exhausted*** this week, I've slept over nine hours on several consecutive nights, and my numbers in the gym (even upper body stuff) have completely fallen off a cliff.

My strength coach has informed me that this proooooobably indicates a mild case of overtraining (or what the fitness pros refer to as "nonfunctional overreaching") these past two weeks, to the extent that it's causing central nervous system fatigue (hence why all my lifting has been poopy and not just leg stuff). This is not a huge deal but apparently it does indicate that I haven't been fully recovering from what I've been putting my body through, even though I've been getting plenty of sleep and food.

But hey, it's the holidays, so great timing I guess??? We are heading out to Spokane this week so I'll definitely have time to get plenty of sleep and a break from work & the grind of daily life.

 ~*~*~ Week of 12/12-12/18 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 22.5 miles

* 15.2 easy
* 2.8 speed
* 4.5 race

October Reads

A few solid reads from October for ya!

In case you missed it:

January 2022 Reads
February 2022 Reads
March 2022 Reads

April 2022 Reads

May 2022 Reads

June 2022 Reads

July 2022 Reads

August 2022 Reads

September 2022 Reads

 

(68) All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers (2022, 320 pages) (crime mystery thriller). Audiobook. This one brought to you by the host of the popular true crime podcast Crime Junkie. Margot Davis has always been haunted by the sensational and unsolved murder of her childhood friend and neighbor, January Jacobs. Twenty years later, grown-up journalist Margot has returned to the small town where it happened to care for her deteriorating uncle. When another little girl from a nearby town goes missing under eerily similar circumstances, Margot can’t help but investigate, and in doing so may uncover more than she’s bargained for about her hometown and old neighbors. A reasonably clever & entertaining read, though the ending felt unfulfilling and sort of off.

September Reads

Rounding the corner, folks! Are we gonna make it by the end of the year??? I know the suspense must be killing you!

In case you missed it:

January 2022 Reads
February 2022 Reads
March 2022 Reads

April 2022 Reads

May 2022 Reads

June 2022 Reads

July 2022 Reads

August 2022 Reads

(58) The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James (2022, 341 pages) (mystery/crime/thriller). Audiobook. Crime blogger Shea Collins manages to land an interview with Beth Greer, suspected but never convicted of two famous murders forty years ago. As one interview with Beth at her home turn into several more, Shea starts to since that something is wrong here in ways that go beyond Beth's being a murder suspect. A perfectly entertaining modern crime read.

On the Upswing, Fingers Crossed!

Where did we leave off friends? Ah yes, with dipping my toe back into pain-free running with a 12-mile week between 11/28 and 12/4!

Still taking things pretty easy and being cautious with my various finicky body parts, but dare I say it was a pretty solid week for the first time in a looooong time:

 ~*~*~ Week of 12/5-12/11 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 28.6 miles

* 23 easy
* 2 speed
* 3.6 race

Carbon Plate Shoes I Have Known: Altra Vanish Carbon

We are once again gathered here to continue our exploration of carbon plate running shoes.

If you're like me and struggling to remember what happened even yesterday, here's what we've covered so far:

• Some background on why the heck carbon plate running shoes & where did they come from
• A little editorial about my experience running in the New Balance RC Elite carbon plate shoe
• Another covering my experience with the Saucony Endorphin Pro carbon plate shoe

Today, we are looking at the first carbon racing shoe from Altra: the Vanish Carbon, which you can get here ($240).

You might ask, "Angela. You already had two pairs of carbon racing shoes. WHY OH WHY another?"

Race Report: USATF Club Cross Country National Championships 2022

The deets:

Every December USATF holds club cross country national championships, and every so often it's in San Francisco. Since this is one of those years, my team wanted to pull together teams for as many of the five races as possible (open women, masters women, open men, 40+ men, and 60+ men). The races were all in Golden Gate Park, & the masters women's race was 6K (about 3.6 miles). Originally I was planning on running CIM the weekend before so I thought I'd probably skip it, but since CIM didn't work out but I felt like I was on the upswing, I thought I could probably get through 6K without completely embarrassing myself.

Why did I sign up for this race?

Honestly, just for the team vibe and to have the experience. Our women's masters team had eight women signed up (five are required for a team) so we ran two teams -- our five fastest runners on the A team and the other three of us on the B team. I was injured this time last year and while I am only just *barely* not injured this year, I am in fact NOT injured, so I was excited to show up and participate in this special event!

And then what happened?

O hai, perhaps you want some running-related content...

Who wants to date themselves by explaining the photo? Go on, I dare you. 🤣

Lately this has been more of a book blog than a running blog, but to be honest there hasn't been much of note to write about running-wise, unless you include one running-related injury after another "content."

So, yeah. It's been quite the month, with at least three distinctly different injuries, and I can't say I've had a single week in all of November that's felt like it warranted its own training journal. But perhaps a quick round of highlights (and lowlights) to catch us up to the present day??

 

 

 

Saturday 11/5: 14 miles at Indiana Monumental Half Marathon! This was my last running-related post. You can read the race report if you want, but the tl;dr is that I went ahead and went, though I was not even remotely fit and was still getting over a bad cold. People kept going on and on about the weather in dramatic fashion and how horrible it was, but friends. I was at CIM 2012. I was at Boston 2018. Both were much, MUCH worse. The only issue at Indy was some rain and some admittedly forceful wind in hours 3/4/5 (so, I feel a lot worse for the marathoners than the half marathoners). But the rain was more a drizzle than a downpour, and it wasn't even cold. Now, was it perfect PR weather? No, so I felt much less bad than I would have about the fact that I had an asthma attack around mile 6 and had to run the rest of the race a mile to a half-mile at a time with lots of breaks.

August Reads

The slog continues!! If my math is correct we are now two-thirds of the way through the year. Have you picked out anything from my first even months for your own list??? If not, August offers a couple of good ones (plus several that are fine enough)!

In case you missed it:

January 2022 Reads
February 2022 Reads
March 2022 Reads

April 2022 Reads

May 2022 Reads

June 2022 Reads

July 2022 Reads

July Reads (will we finish 2022 before 2022 ends??? only time will tell)

I'm not giving up, friends! Here are my July 2022 reads, which I must say included some of my best reads of the year. Hope you enjoy! 

In case you missed it:

January 2022 Reads
February 2022 Reads
March 2022 Reads

April 2022 Reads

May 2022 Reads

June 2022 Reads

Race Report: Indiana Monumental Half Marathon 2022

The deets:

The Indiana Monumental Marathon (and half, and 5K) or "The Monumental", as it's affectionally known by locals, is maybe one of the all-around best races I've ever participated in. Clearly runners in the Indiana area are aware of its charms, but I can't really speak for how well-known it is beyond that. Despite it being one of the 15 biggest marathons in the country, my West Coast self had never heard of it before I started researching smoking fast half marathon courses.

What makes this race so great in my opinion?

June Reads (slowly but surely catching up!)

June was a busy month in that I was home for only about a week for the entire month--I spent the first two in Spain and Portugal & then for the last week of the month I was traveling for work. So most of my reading was done either on plane/train rides or via audiobook. There were a few good ones worth sharing, though!

In case you missed it:

January 2022 Reads
February 2022 Reads
March 2022 Reads

April 2022 Reads

May 2022 Reads

Race Report: Urban Cow Half Marathon 2022

The deets:

Urban Cow is another annual mainstay of the, maybe not Bay Area, exactly, but Northern California road racing scene put on by the Sacramento Running Association (which also puts on CIM). I have only ever heard good things but it is a *bit* of a hike (Sacramento, if that wasn't obvious) and it hasn't ever fit well enough into my fall plans to warrant the drive.

Why did I sign up for this race?

Urban Cow Half was a Pacific Association race this year and a bunch of my teammates were planning to race. I was planning to target the Indy Monumental Half a month later as a tune-up before CIM, so I had planned to use this race as a details-to-be-decided marathon pace workout; that way I could still help our masters team score for the event. 

And then what happened?

May 2022 Reads! (Go ahead, laugh if you want)

Hey, only four more months of books to go before I'm caught up! Progress, people!

May was a busy reading month 'round these parts, let's get right to it:

In case you missed it:

January 2022 Reads
February 2022 Reads
March 2022 Reads

April 2022 Reads

(28) Friend Request by Laura Marshall (2017, 385 pages) (psychological thriller). Audiobook. Louise just got a friend request. Except it's from Maria Weston, a high school friend (sort of?) who died under mysterious circumstances. Whoever is behind long-dead Maria's social media account is threatening to expose Louise's most dangerous and horrific secret, the one terrible night all those years ago that changed everything. And Louise will do anything--anything--to keep that from happening. A reasonably entertaining crime thriller, not bad, not life-changing.

Declaring Blog Post Draft Bankruptcy

Hello friends! Long time no post!

One of the reasons I stopped blogging in Fall of 2019 was because I was REALLY GOOD at starting new blog posts and also REALLY BAD at finishing them & getting them up. Turns out, the more things change, the more they they stay the same, sigh.

But also a lot has happened since my last post, sooooo in the interest of trying to not completely disappear into the void again, I'm going to try to just post *some* kind of update, even if it is short and incomplete. So here ya go, a lightening recap of the last, oh, six weeks or so:

Revvin' that marathon engine

Whew, okay, so now you know I've got a marathon in the chamber! And we can start labeling training logs appropriately. 

After that shit show of a (not-) 10K, I was pretty excited to move on to marathon training. I was looking forward to having a nice strong 10K time to boost my confidence, but alas we can't always get what we want. I am happy to report that Week 1 was a pretty solid first week of training, with 42+ miles and the longest run I've done since Big Sur Marathon in May 2018.

 

 ~*~*~ CIM Week 1 of  15 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 42.3 miles

* 17.9 easy
* 8.4 tempo/threshold
* 16 long

Of Marathons & Qualifying Times (Here Be An Announcement)

Remember those days when bloggers would, like, *announce* that they would be *making an announcement* like they were some kind of celebrity and everyone was just waiting around on tenterhooks to hear about what was happening next in their lives? It always made me think that maybe the announcement was something so terrible, so horrific, so shocking that we all needed to collectively prepare ourselves and brace for impact. 

And then after days upon days of Twitter-stalking or hitting refresh on their blog, the "huge announcement" would be, "Hey, I'm an ambassador for this race!" or even just "I'm running this race!" or "I am running a *different kind of race* than I usually run!" or even "Some random brand gave me some socks to give away" or something.

Like Jesus, Stacy. I thought you were giving birth to octuplets or starring in your own limited-run HBO mini-series. Don't toy with my emotions like this.

Which is all to say, sorry if I am taking you off guard, just MAKING AN ANNOUNCEMENT all WILLY NILLY like this without warning you first and giving you time to prepare your smelling salts and fainting couch.

So, like. Here is the announcement:

Gears for Days + Race Week!

Sorry for the delay, things have been so busy in the last couple of weeks! When I've had the time to update the blog I haven't been able to find the energy, and when I've had the energy somehow I just couldn't find the time. But I am home recovering from a routine medical procedure today & taking the opportunity to get a couple of new posts up!

My Giant Race 10K race report is up! My race was not great and also the race *itself* was not great, so if you want to go read about all the hilarious reasons why, be my guest!

In the mean time, let us review my last training week before that race and how it went down.

Race Report: The Giant Race 10K 2022

Why did I sign up for this race?

The Giant Race is a mainstay of the San Francisco road racing scene, historically offering a pretty flat & fast (not to mention scenic!) 5K, 10K, and half over two days (though this year there was no half), but for one reason or another I've never run it. Actually I know one reason I've never run it and that's because of the price. The 10K cost me $90 and the 5K was $75, and those were the early bird prices before service fees, optional bib mailing, if you want the swank VIP package, etc. 💸💸💸

Especially when I first moved to SF 14 years ago, that was farrrr to rich for my blood. This year I was willing to swing it for a few reasons:

• I wanted to get in a mid-distance race this summer but my dates were pretty constrained due to dumb amount of travel over the summer & early fall & a bunch of weekends already booked up with stuff, so my options for local races, especially in the 10K range, were pretty sparse.
  
• The start/finish is a very quick and easy BART ride or a very reasonable 3-mile warm-up jog from my house. No driving or getting up butt early required!
• Related, no hotel needed, making this one actually *cheaper* than two of the four races I ran this past spring. (These two reasons alone pretty much clinched it for me.)
  
• The course has historically been pretty flat & fast.
• In terms of favorable August weather conditions, SF is about as dependable as it gets.

 

And then what happened?

April 2022 Reads! (I know I know I know)

Hi friends, I apologize that I've gotten distracted with running and travel and fallen behind on posting my books. If you get *really* lucky maybe you'll see May 2022 Reads before the end of this month, but maybe don't hold your breath.

In case you missed it:

January 2022 Reads
February 2022 Reads
March 2022 Reads

(21) The Eighth Detective by Alex Pavesi (2020, 304 pages) (psychological drama). Audiobook. Definitely one of the leading candidates so far for my best read of the year! Book editor Julia Hart has sought out hermit-like mathematician Grant McAllister with the goal of republishing a unique collection of mystery stories he wrote years ago. Each of the seven "perfect" murder mysteries were constructed in such a way as to demonstrate one of the "mathematical boundaries" of such stories--for example, there must at a minimum be a victim, a detective, and at least two suspects. So how small can this set be and still qualify as a murder mystery? In what ways can the different roles potentially overlap? But the more the two discuss the stories, the more Julia begins to realize that some things about the stories don't add up. She may turn out to have an odd mystery of her own on her hands.

Road Warrior Kitchen: Tacos Edition + One Week to Giant Race!

Just one more week until The Giant Race 10K!

This week was once again a little odd because we spend the weekend camping with a *different* group of friends. Why? Frankly, because we both love camping and are really terrible at actually planning it, so our strategy is mostly to sidle up to other friends we know like camping and are better at planning, talk about how much we like camping, and then glom on to the group camping trips that *they* plan. It's working out pretty well tbh, so I've got no real plans to do anything differently.

Each couple/family on this particular trip took on one meal to prepare for the group, so we made build-your-own tacos for Saturday night. We made everything except the guac at home in advance so that the only thing we had to do at the campsite was heat up the ingredients & set them out.

Too busy having fun to take photos during the camping trip it so please enjoy this documentation of me crushing an entire head of garlic to make carnitas for Saturday night camp dinner

Camping in Big Sur + I'm not really into goal setting, BUUUUUUTTT........

Hello! I am just back from a lovely weekend camping with friends in Big Sur, which I solidly recommend. Ask me anything about how to do it.

Enough frivolous joy & natural beauty, on to running stuff.

My strength coach (who is not a runner, but very knowledgeable about strength training in general, and has been very enthusiastic in learning more about running and coaching runners' strength work) occasionally asks me about what my goals are for upcoming races. 

And back in the day I used to get super into that stuff, setting "A" goals and "B" goals and so on down the alphabet, investing each with certain levels of meaning and import and in some sense kind of judging the whole endeavor by how far up the alphabet I managed to pull off on one random morning. 

But to be honest I've kind of been dodging that question every time he asks, tossing out noncommittal responses like, "Oh, you never know what will happen, I'm just going to try to run my best," or "It doesn't really matter, I just want to feel like I ran an honest race." 

Which isn't untrue; I've definitely accepted the reality that there are a LOT of things on race day that you can't control, and you can definitely work hard and do everything "right" and still not have the day you want.

I'm also more apt now to think in terms of process goals rather than outcome goals; you may not be able to control every variable on race day, but you CAN set process goals that you have a lot more control over. Time goals for me have really been out the window since before the pandemic, but I have been all over some serious process goals in the last say year or so, including but not limited to:

Home Again, Home Again + Dissociating is Underrated

Friends, I am here today to preach the good news of completely dissociating while running. Okay, maybe not completely dissociating. But largely. And not 100% of the time but, y'know, a lot of the time.

People will be like, "You gotta be fully engaged in the run! You gotta FEEL IT in ur BODY, get ur MIND all INTO IT!" And you know what, if that works for you, great. Get it. Feel your body or whatever. Some of us, though, only have so much mental "in-it-ness" or whatever you want to call it, and we have to be careful about where we spend it. 

I've always had a sense that, at least for me, running "hard" (whether that's racing, speed work, tempo runs, or some other workout where you're trying to hit a particular pace) doesn't only take physical effort; it's mentally taxing as well, in the same way that playing a complex and stressful game or taking a timed and detail-oriented entrance exam can be. (Think Chess tournaments, LSAT/MCAT/bar exam, etc.) In addition to being physically rested and recovered, you also need a certain "mental freshness" to do it well. I wasn't sure whether this was just me or a real thing until I read something Shalane Flanagan said about racing marathons:

Spain Photo Dump + 4 Weeks to Giant Race 10K!

Hello, all! I'm back from my conference in Spain & catching up on training logs such as they are. Not a ton of running got done over these 12 days, but it wasn't zero running, and on the plus side, I took some cool photos.

*~*~The Giant Race 10K Week 4 of 9~*~*~

Grand Total: 22 miles

* 20 easy
* 2 speed

Monday 7/11: Rest

Tuesday 7/12: 1 hour strength + 8 easy errand run. My trainer was out so no strength on Tuesday, just a very draining "easy" eight miles that I tried to use to run some errands (mostly grocery shopping) because I had too much to do & not enough time to do it. 🙈 GODDD I was tired!

Wednesday 7/13: 2 warm up, 10 x 1:00 hill repeats/recovery jogs, 2 cool down = 8 total. I have no good hills for this sort of thing even remotely close to home. Sigh.

Thursday 7/14: 6 easy. I was kind of nuts getting ready to leave & just couldn't make this one happen.

Friday 7/15: On a plane! No running.

Saturday 7/16: 6 easy if jet-lagged miles around Parque El Retiro in Madrid. Madrid was triple digits the entire time I was there but the nice thing about jet-lag is that you're usually wide-awake by 5am. Okay 7am. In any case by 9:30 I was out the door and it was still relatively pleasant out, so I used the opportunity to jog around the park and stop for photos. The heat didn't get too bad but MAN I got so thirsty and spent so much of this run looking for water fountains & sprinklers to drink out of and/or run through.

Back to Spain + 7 Weeks to Giant Race!

Howdy partners! Week 3 of Giant Race 10K is in the books and it was a pretty good one, though I definitely had some moments of fatigue as I stacked two 40+ weeks together for the first time in a while. 

Iberia is once again calling my name, so I'll be flying back to Spain this coming Thursday for about 12 days or so. Actually it is a work conference that is calling my name. But if you have to go to a work conference, Spain is not the worst destination I can think of.

I am hoping to get in as much regular training while I'm there as possible; Coach has given me some dialed-back workouts and easy runs for most of the trip, so I'm planning to just do what I can, whenever I can. I do love combination running/sightseeing but considering it will be triple-digit highs, we'll have to see how feasible that is. 

40+ miles & feeling good + 8 Weeks to Giant Race!

Week 2 is in the books!

As I mentioned last week, the Road Warrior got back to #roadwarrioring this week with a five-day work trip to inland Southern California where it was 112F in the shade, BOOOO. 

In the past when I've been down there for this project I haven't usually pushed myself to complete workouts necessarily & mostly just tried to fit in whatever miles I could on the hotel treadmill. I have a lot of travel this summer, though, so I wanted to try my best to try to do the workouts as/when assigned. I know it can be done, it just takes a little more planning than I've sometimes had the bandwidth for in the past.

Carbon Plate Shoes I Have Known: Saucony Endorphin Pro

Hidey ho, friends, today we are continuing our discussion of carbon plate running shoes.

If you've been missing out, allow me to catch you up:

• Some background on why the heck carbon plate running shoes & where did they come from
• A little editorial about my experience running in the New Balance RC Elite carbon plate shoe

Today, another little editorial on the Saucony Endorphin Pro, Saucony's first foray into the carbon plate world. You can still get this version of the shoe at a few places at a significant discount though the available sizes are limited. The version 2 (extremely similar to version 1) is widely available and the version 3 (HELLA different) is coming soon. (A few shoe blogs and running stores have released their preliminary reviews.)

Why did I buy these shoes when I already had a pair of New Balance RC Elites? Three reasons, friends:

The Road Warrior is Back + 9 weeks to Giant Race 10K!

 ...And weekly training journals are back!

I returned from vacation in the middle of the week so in addition to Week 1 of Giant Race training, I'm also including a **bonus** Week 0 training journal AT NO ADDITIONAL COST so that you know you're not missing A SINGLE MOMENT of my 9 (& a half) week journey to The Giant 10K. See how mama takes care of you.

Now friends, I'm sure you all know the struggle of returning to Regular Life after a long-ish vacation. I'm not gonna lie; those first few days were a bit rough. It's not that we were completely sedentary on our trip; we actually did quite a lot of walking, and even some pretty vertical hiking. That said, it was a specifically wine-and-food focused trip, and there was still a good deal of sitting on various planes, trains, and automobiles, and unlike on November's Portugal trip, I did not go running even once.

The day after we got home, I put on running clothes & went out for a nice, slow, easy, four-mile amble, just to flush out the legs and gently reintroduce to them the idea of moving at a pace faster than a brisk walk. We made it through okay but I'm not joking when I tell you I was actually sore the next day!

Not too sore to get in another four easy miles, though. I thought Coach would ease me back into training pretty gently, and, wellll sort of??? But not that gently! 🤣🤣

~*~*~ The Giant Race 10K Week 0 of 9 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 25 miles

* 22 easy
* 3.5 speed
* 5 tempo/threshold

Wednesday 6/15: 4 easy. Just easing back into things with a little jet lagged jog!

Thursday 6/16: 4 more easy.

Friday 6/17: Coach said "Alright enough of this, 7 easy, get after it!"

Saturday 6/18: Rest. OMG you guys. I had the option of three easy miles this day but I was legit sore from *all that running* after three weeks of vacay. So rest. I regret nothing.

Sunday 6/19: Coach said "Alright enough resting, 10-12 miles including 5 x 3 min baby tempo intervals with 2 min jog recoveries." I did 10 and that was PLENTY. It was hot AF and not gonna lie, I was still kind of sore. BUT BUT BUT! I can still run mid-to-low 7:xx's without too much trouble, which, after vacation, feels like a win.

~*~*~ The Giant Race 10K Week 1 of 9 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 38 miles

* 17.6 easy
* 3.4 speed
* 5 tempo/threshold
* 12 long

Monday 6/20: Rest

Tuesday 6/21: 1 hour strength + 6 easy in the shockingly hot sun 🥵. Friends I am not used to it being ninety-frickin-three in San Francisco at 11:00am. Just rude.

Wednesday 6/22: 3 warm up, 3 x (4 x 200m/200m)/2:00 min jog, 3 cool down 8 mile progression run. The track was closed for a soccer game (it's that time of year again!) so I improvised by switching today's workout with Friday's. I have to say I was pretty shocked at how comfortable low 8:xx/high 7:xx was feeling, which is not always the case! I finished miles 6 & 7 in the 7:30s and when I think back to how devastatingly impossible that pace felt in late 2020/early 2021, it makes me so grateful for how good I am feeling these days when I try to run fast (y'know, for me).

Thursday 6/23: Massage + 3 easy Post-vacation my right hip/lower back definitely needed some attention!

Friday 6/24: Chiro session + 3 warm up, 3 x (4 x 200m/200m)/2:00 min jog, 2.6 cool down = 9 total. Definitely not feeling the lightness pop in my legs that one likes to feel on track day, but Og didn't give a shit. My left hamstring was feeling a bit tight so Og was like, "Just not hammer so hard, focus on leg speed & turnover, interval times not matter so much." As usual, Og, you are completely correct. (For the record, the times were completely respectable, especially for not hammering them particularly hard and coming off of three weeks of no running.)

Saturday 6/25: Rest

Sunday 6/26: 12 long. The Road Warrior is officially #roadwarrioring again -- I had to catch a flight to Palm Springs in the early afternoon, which meant getting up a bit early Sunday to get my long run in before finishing up my packing and heading to the airport. The last time I ran 12 miles was May 8, and I could definitely feel it in my legs! Also my body is just really not a fan of hopping right out of bed and out the door and I started off feeling like I'd already run 15 miles. 😱 I honestly was not sure how I was going to get through twelve entire miles but just kept grinding away at one more mile until the thing was done.

~ * ~ * ~

I'm going to attempt to train through all my various upcoming work travel to the extent that I can, but we'll see how it goes. I have three runs to do over the next four days of work travel, so fingers crossed that I'll be able to balance it all with the work stuff. 🤞🤞🤞

Run Like A Pro (Even If You're Slow): Elite Tools & Tips for Runners at Every Level

Here's the thing: I'll probably buy and devour anything Matt Fitzgerald decides to write.

To me, reading my favorite running authors can feel a little bit like religious people reading their sacred text. Like, it's not that you don't already know what's in it. You don't read it expecting shocking new revelations, and you read it in part because you're already on board with the big ideas.

That said, coming back to those same ideas in different situations or at different points in your life can hit you in different ways. Sometimes something is phrased or explained in a way you hadn't considered and it's somehow just what you needed in that moment. Sometimes you read something you absolutely 100% already know and it just convicts you in your heart a little bit and inspires you to make a new commitment to walking the walk (or like...running the run, or whatever. Sorry not sorry.)

Earlier this year I grabbed Matt's newest title, which he co-wrote with Ben Rosario, then-head coach of the famous NAZ Elite running club. Interestingly, the original project was something different, another book called Running The Dream, in which Matt convinces Ben to basically let him come join NAZ Elite for a season and chronicles his summer training with and like the pros for the Chicago marathon.

Out of that relationship with Rosario was born this second book, which attempts to answer two fascinating questions:

(1)  Why, when decades of science and practical knowledge are so exceedingly clear about what works for distance runners, do adult recreational runners by and large continue to do things almost completely differently?

(2)  What should they be doing instead?

Summer Planzzzzzz....

 Hello friends!

I'm back from an amazing Iberian vacation (photos coming soon) and ready to run-ble (see what I did there? Sorry not sorry). Also please enjoy this photo I got from Stow Lake Stampede:

I have some I don't want to say *big* plans in the works, but let's just say, big-ger plans than I've been willing to entertain in a while. Why?

Carbon Plate Shoes I Have Known: New Balance RC Elites

Hello, if you missed Part 1 about carbon plate running shoes (ie "super shoes"), you might want to check it out before reading on. Or don't! It's your world!

If you've chosen chaos, allow me to catch you up slightly:

• Carbon-plate shoes have been around since the 90s, they just weren't good enough for the heinous price tag to make the shoes economically feasible as a product.
• They caused a massive dust-up in the mid-2010s when Nike pros started running in VaporFlys & normies started sometimes paying like $800 a pair on the secondary market
• Yes, they really do work, science says so.
• The magic is a combination of a super-stiff, super-light carbon plate usually sandwiched between next-gen foam with crazy high energy return. The plate works like a teeter-totter and the foam is what provides the spring-like action.
• In addition to letting you run faster with less effort, they may also mitigate the damage on your calves from training, possibly allowing you to train more and harder.

As I said in the previous post, I got my first pair of carbon plate racing shoes as a Christmas present at the end of 2020--the New Balance FuelCell RC Elites. At the time I was planning to train hard in spring 2021 and run 5K, 10K, and half marathon time trials and it's always fun to have a new toy to motivate you.

Race Report: Stow Lake Stampede 5K 2022

Why did I sign up for this race?

This race was another on the PA short-course circuit where I thought we might end up having a team, and it seemed like a nice follow-up to the (40)8K in April. It didn't hurt that it's super close to home (just three miles away in Golden Gate Park) on extremely familiar ground.

I was also just excited to try my hand at a 5K again, especially in a situation where I'd have a big chunk of weeks to train for it consistently in a way that really targeted 5K speed. So often when I've run 5Ks it's been in the middle of training for a longer distance, or the beginning of a season as a kind of fitness gauge, or a convenient way to get in a workout; I was really curious what I might be able to do at this point with some for-real 5K-specific training. 

I really do believe that variety in what you train for plays a big role in everything from keeping running and training mentally fresh to making you fitter and less injury-prone by switching up the physical stimuli, so it was nice to do a couple of months training for the half and 10-miler and then switch gears to shorter, more speed-focused stuff.

And then what happened?

Stow Lake Race Week + Spring Racing Comes to An End!

(Posting this for the sake of completion -- alas I didn't manage to get it up before leaving for vacation. :) )

Hello from the end of spring racing season 2022! Apparently I finished up my spring races just in time for it to get hella hot out. No 12-mile workouts in 90F for me, ha! (Er, at least for now.)

 *~*~Stow Lake Stampede 5K Race Week!~*~*~

Grand Total: 29.5 miles

* 24 easy
* 2.4 speed
* 3.1 race

Monday 5/16: Rest

Tuesday 5/17: a.m. 3 easy to/from gym + 1 hour strength; p.m. 2 warm up, 2 miles of 2:00 fast / 1:00 easy, 2 cool down = 9 total

Wednesday 5/18: 5 easy

Thursday 5/19: 3 easy to/from gym + 1 hour strength

Friday 5/20: 30-35 minutes easy Rest. I just had this hunch that my body needed to take an extra rest day this week before the race, so I went with it. No regrets!

Saturday 5/21: 3 easy + 4 strides = 3.4 total

Sunday 5/22: Race! 3 warm up, 3.1 race, 3 cool down = 9.1 total

(Race report here!)

Mental Health Talk: Less Thinking, More Running (1 Week to Stow Lake 5K)

Someone created this to help kids handle their anxious feelings better but spoiler, it's occasionally useful for certain 41-year-olds as well

***CONTENT WARNING***, mental health talk ahead.

So, some years ago I started getting treatment for anxiety, not like horrific life-altering can't-function-in-the-world-on-a-daily-basis anxiety but a kind of constant, low-grade-but-sometimes-*less*-low-grade anxiety that, when I stopped to think about it, I had really suffered from for basically my entire teenage & adult life.

There were some ways in which it manifested in running, mostly around perfectionism and catastrophizing about races and psyching myself out, then super beating myself up if things didn't go at least acceptably okay. (Not productive, do not recommend.)

And then there was a period of time (~2017ish to ~2019sih?) where I started to have some weird issues every time I'd go to the track, which historically had always been my favorite workout of the week. I was telling my therapist about this once incidentally, how sometimes I would be warming up and not even doing anything hard yet and my heart rate would shoot up really high and I'd have this ringing in my ears and a sensation like ice water running through my veins, and my hands would shake a little and suddenly I'd feel lightheaded and have a hard time catching my breath. Weird, huh? So yeah, anyway!

And my therapist was like, "Uhhhh back up there chief, do you think maybe you were maybe having a little panic attack?"

And I just scoffed like, "What? Now that is ridiculous. Of course I wasn't having a panic attack. I think I'd know if I was having a panic attack."

And she was like, "Uhhhhh are you sure about that because I am a therapist whose job it is to know these things and tbh it kind of sounds like a little mini panic attack."

And I was like, "Madam. Please. WHY on EARTH would I be having a PANIC ATTACK before my track workout?"

And she was like, "EXCELLENT QUESTION MY FRIEND, PERHAPS YOU WOULD LIKE TO TALK ABOUT IT, PERHAPS TO SOMEONE LIKE I DUNNO ME, UR LITERAL THEREAPIST????"

Carbon Plate Super Shoes: What's Up W/ That?!?!

If you are reading this I am sure you know all about the Nike Vaporfly and the general uproar it caused in the late 2010s. But in case you are curious about why someone would ever put a carbon plate in a running shoe in the first place and how the whole deal works, here is a quick primer.

The first carbon plate running shoes were made by Reebok in the early 90s, followed closely by Adidas (1, 2). Even at that point people had figured out that a carbon plate could offer an advantage, but it was an idea whose time had not yet come. The carbon fiber was so outrageously expensive that there was no way to produce a shoe that could compete with the rest of the market (remember in those days more than $100 for a pair of running shoes was kind of outrageous), and the shoe tech and knowledge needed to really optimize the effect of a carbon plate and make it something people would actually pay top dollar for didn't yet exist.

Reebok InstaPump Fury with a Carbon Fiber bridge (from FreeRunSpeed.com)

Training Log: 2 Weeks to Stow Lake Stampede

Wow, it is so hard to believe it is only two weeks to Stow Lake 5K & the end of my spring racing season, and only about 3.5 weeks until my vacation! 

I don't know why it should be so funny to notice training working and yet it never fails to entertain me. This week's mid-week workout was 6 x 1K at 5Kish pace (not that I really know what that is right now, but the intervals were supposed to be at roughly 6:40-7:05 pace). On paper that still seems REALLY FAST to me but on the first three intervals I found myself running ~6:45ish pace, I don't want to say comfortably, but with a feeling like "You know what, this isn't that awful, I could do it for a while."

The last three definitely got harder, particularly keeping the legs turning over quickly towards the end of the interval, but I still managed the last one at 6:48 pace without feeling like I was going to die. So in the end I ran them all between 6:41-6:48 pace. If you'd have asked me a year ago if that was ever in the cards again, I probably would have laughed. Even just a few months ago I probably would have grimaced doubtfully.

Then on Sunday I had 12 miles, with fartleks for the middle four, 2:00 fast/2:00 easy, which I decided to do actually *at* Stow Lake because a) it's a nice place to run & b) I never really run fast there it & seemed like I might as well take the opportunity to practice.

Some random photos of Stow Lake I happen to have on my phone. It does not suck! Though the swans might chase you in a threatening manner.

 "Fast" wasn't really defined so I tried to do the first 2:00 by feel & without looking at my watch, aiming for "as fast I can run that feels like I can do it eight times without redlining" & apparently that was around 6:45 pace, which shouldn't have surprised me after Tuesday but still kind of did. (I even saw 5:51-5:52 pace on my watch for some of that last hard 2:00, and you can be sure any time I see sub-6:00 on my watch under any circumstances, I will 100% mention it on the internet.)

While obviously I need the physical benefits of all the speed-focused stuff as much as anyone who is trying to run a fast 5K, I actually think my bigger hurdle has been mental; it's been so long since I've been able to run a 5K at sub-7:00 pace and so long since it was a pace I ran with any regularity that it's hard to believe it's something I can actually do, even with the right training. Running these workouts at what to me still feel like SOOOOPER fast paces has helped my brain kind of re-calibrate & go, "Okay, you know what, yes, 6:45 is a pretty hard and somewhat painful pace and also you have now trained your body so that it can actually maintain it for a while, possibly for an entire five kilometers."

Because after those workouts, I did find myself thinking that, yes, I actually think that physically I *could* run a 5K at that pace right now. Yes, it will be super hard and painful towards the end, but well, that's just racing, isn't it?

Of course, as I was reminded a couple of weeks ago, it all comes down to having a good day & getting the rest of your ducks in a row in terms of rest, recovery, mental state, etc. But I am feeling optimistic about Stow Lake!

 

 ~*~*~2 Weeks to Stow Lake Stampede 5K~*~*~

Grand Total: 38 miles

*  29 easy
*  9 speed

 

Monday 5/2: Rest

Tuesday 5/3: a.m. 3 easy to/from gym + 1 hour strength + p.m. 3 more easy = 6 total. This was a difficult mental health day for reasons I am sure many of you are already aware of & in the afternoon I was going a bit nuts & really needed a little physical activity to get the bees out of my skin.

Wednesday 5/4: warm up, 6 x 1K VO2 max (6:40-7:00 pace) / 2:30 jog, cool down 5 easy. In the gym we've been putting serious work toward strengthening my hamstrings and adductors, especially on the right side. It is clearly working because I woke up quite sore in my right hamstring/adductor! I could have tried the workout but I thought better to take an easy day & do it Thursday instead.

Thursday 5/5: 2.7 warm up, 6 x 1K VO2 max (6:40-7:00 pace) / 2:30 jog, 2.3 cool down (= 10 total) + 1 hour strength. The downside of moving the workout to this day was having to back-to-back it with strength. C'est la vie! Let's just say I ate a hearty dinner.

Friday 5/6: 5.5 easy. Grocery store run! + a little extra.

Saturday 5/7: Rest

Sunday 5/8: 4 warm up, 4 miles of 2:00 fast/2:00 easy, 4 cool down = 12 total.

Training Log: 3 Weeks to Stow Lake Stampede 5K

 I think one of the ways you know that you didn't *really* ask as much of your body as you could have in a race is that you feel pretty much fine the day or two after. For example, I didn't feel like I pushed myself at Oakland Half all that hard, but OMG I felt like an utter train wreck for the 2-3 days after. 

On the other hand, even though I felt like I ran the 8K as hard as I was capable of at the time, I felt basically normal a few hours after the race. Which is all to say, this week was supposed to be a little easier to give me some recovery time, but I didn't really feel like I needed it. 

My first (and only) actual workout of the week was Sunday, 14 miles with two 3-mile stretches at half marathon-ish pace. I felt so good on this run; the acceptable pace was anything between 7:35 & 7:55 and I had to keep slowing myself down the whole time. Even so I think most of the miles were 7:30ish and I felt like I could have run that pace forever (but probably not haha).  Even on the cool down, where I really was running at what felt like a very easy effort, my splits were in the eights, which is unusual. How do I channel these great workouts into race day?? 🤣🤣

Training Log: (40)8K Race Week

Pretty boring training week heading into San Jose (40)8K, but here it is for the sake of completeness!

 ~*~*~San Jose (40)8K Race Week~*~*~

Grand Total: 32.5 miles

* 24.5 easy
* 3 speed
* 5 race

Race Report: San Jose (40)8K Race to the Row

Why did I sign up for this race?

This race was on the PA circuit, meaning a deep field, a good course, and (supposedly) a well-organized race overall. I was hoping to run something in the 5K-10K range around this time, so poof! Perfect. (Even more so because I'd never run a certified 8K before so I had no real expectations.)

And then what happened?

One of my research teams got a paper accepted to a pretty major conference & the conference was Thursday April 21-Monday April 25 in San Diego. It would have been no problem for me to go if our session had been on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Monday. But no; we got Sunday.

Fortunately, there was a virtual option and I wasn't all that excited about the rest of the conference, so our team agreed that we would present virtually. The race was at 8:30am so unless something went horrifically wrong, I'd be done running by 9:10ish. The first session slot was 9:45am and the next one was 11:30am, and it would be no problem to be home & presentable by 11:30am. "Surely," I thought, "there is no way my luck is so bad that our session would not only be on Sunday morning, but also the ONLY slot that I couldn't possibly get home in time for.

Welp.

March 2022 Reads!

In my twenties, I was very much a Type A, capital-S Striver. Everything was goals and plans and accomplishments. I have always loved books and stories and reading but let me tell you, for a while there I had a very unhealthy kind of Type A relationship with GoodReads. "You mean I can get likes and kudos and gold stars by PUBLICLY TALLYING the books I read and broadcasting them as ACCOMPLISHMENTS?? Say no more."

Eventually, though, that gets old. I still loved to read but I realized that there were times I was forcing myself to read and sometimes finish books just to watch my yearly count go up, and not because I was always enjoying it. Then came the thirties, and with them, permission to read when I felt like it and just sit on the couch and watch TV or scroll the internet if I didn't. Part of me felt so scandalized. "You can do this? It's allowed??" Something about it felt so wrong and lazy and I 100% embraced it.

And then (thank GOD) came the forties, and with it, The Great Panini (boo, no thanks). No one felt like doing anything they didn't absolutely have to. We as a society were constantly reassuring each other that we were going through a collective slow-motion trauma together, your job is to survive right now, no really, if ever there were a time it was completely acceptable to not improve oneself and do literally whatever you have to to avoid crippling depression and/or anxiety, it is now.

Training Log: New Shoes & "New Shoes" + 1 Week to San Jose (40)8K!

Friends it has been a week of unboxing new shoes here at Chez Road Warrior. For a while I was on a running-shoe-buying hiatus, and I am still being pretty choosy about it as I still have a few brand-new pairs of Saucony Kinvaras and Brooks Launch tucked away in the closet. That said I've definitely been wearing through plenty of pairs over the course of the panini and cutting down on the number in the active rotation.

I realized a few weeks ago that I was starting to have some weird foot pain that may or may not be my old friend PF rearing its ugly head, and I also tweaked a calf muscle last week which put the fear of god into me for a few days. I was ruminating on what in the world could be causing these things, and then also realized that I had at least three pairs of shoes that I had continued to run in even as they were worn down to the midsole (or worse!) because "they still feel good."

Sigh. Like many runners, especially those that run enough miles to be buying several pairs of shoes a year, I have definitely always erred on the side of squeezing every mile possible out of a shoe--a couple months on long run duty (up to say 200 miles), a few months in the easy run rotation (until they start to show serious wear), and then maybe a few months ferrying me to the gym and back. Basically, I will keep wearing them for *something* until they start to feel actively bad.

But like....look at this.

Training Log: (Super) Dead Super Shoes + Crisis Averted!

Before we get into this week's training log, a moment of silence please for this amazing (in some respects) pair of New Balance RC Elites that I super enjoyed running in for a little over a year. As you can see I really pushed the envelope in this these things but I think April 3's SacTown 10 was destined to be their last hurrah, and we're calling it at a whopping 216.27 miles according to my nerdy little spreadsheet. I am pretty sure when you can actually see and touch the actual carbon plate that you should not be running in a pair of shoes anymore regardless of how much they cost.

These shoes were a pandemic-era Christmas gift from my mom but I am pretty sure they cost $225 which puts us at about $1.04 per mile. I have never calculated this ratio for a running shoe before but once you get up into the > $200 super shoe category, it really just becomes irresistible.

I've had opportunities this last year to run in a few different carbon plate distance shoes (not the Nike ones, I absolutely refuse on principle) and I have a lot to say about them, so look for a future blog post going into more detail. But for now, just know that I loved these shoes *so much* in terms of feel and performance but was also super bummed at how non-durable they turned out to be (lesson learned).

ANYHOO, let us move on to this week's training log.

Race Report: SacTown 10 Miles 2022 (+ USATF Masters 10 Mile National Champs!)

Why did I sign up to run this race?

Originally I had been thinking I would stick to PA short course races for the spring as I was getting back into the swing of things, but then I actually really enjoyed Kaiser Half in February and started to feel like, hey, maybe the long stuff could be fun too?? My "official" 10 mile PR was an incredibly soft 1:20:xx (about 8:00-8:05 pace) from one time that I'd run a 10 mile race as a marathon pace workout, so I thought odds were good I could probably better that a bit.

Later I found out that, not only was SacTown a PA race this year, it would also be the USATF 10 Mile Masters Championship race. There were three other 40-44 ladies on the team planning to run, so I really just couldn't pass up the experience.

And then what happened?

Then I ran my fastest half marathon in nine years at Oakland on March 20! Including a 10-mile split of 1:16:44 (~7:40 pace), utterly demolishing my old PR. Coach A asked me if I had any goals for SacTown and I kind of just arbitrarily said let's shoot for 1:15 (7:30 pace)??? I didn't feel like I'd run all-out at the half marathon so it seemed like it wasn't completely unreasonable.

Training Log: SACTOWN 10 Race Week!

Kind of a weirdly high mileage week for going into a race, but intensity-wise it wasn't too over the top. The highlight (other than the race) was probably the 4 x 1Ks. Coach A had suggested 4:08-4:20 for each K (~6:40-7:00 pace) as a place to start & then we could see how that felt. I really have not done a ton of speed work like this lately and immediately thought "Ooooh that's fast, going to have to really hammer those!" I started the first one and thought, "Ok, this might be about right." Then I looked down and saw 5:53 pace on my watch. OOPS!

I managed to slow them down a bit but I think I still ran them faster than I needed to. (4:04, 4:06, 3:56, 4:10) So, hey! Whattaya know, I actually do have some leg speed!

~*~*~ SacTown 10 Race Week!~*~*~

Training Log: Two Weeks to SACTOWN 10 Miles

 Hey, I survived Oakland Half Marathon! Better than survived it!

Running last week was pretty boring as I was mostly just trying to recover from the race, so maybe it's a good time to mention how *weird* that race/recovery process was compared to my memory of past half marathons. Like I said in my race report, I didn't feel like I ran the race all that hard -- for the first seven miles I was running in total comfort, and I didn't really try to run hard until the last 5K. That said, I ran hard enough at the end that I was VERY happy to be done, but I also felt pretty normal pretty quickly after (ie, no wandering around in a daze/looking for a place to throw up) and drove home feeling peppy and spry.

That evening and the next couple days, though? Oh ho ho! A different story!

February 2022 Reads!

Argh, I am already behind. January 2022 reads here in case you missed it. Anyway! Without further ado!

(10) The Trouble With White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism by Kyla Schuller (2021, 304 pages) (nonfiction, intersectional feminism). Audiobook. I wanted to read this because I read an interview with the author. Intersectional feminism and the toxic nature of historically white feminism is a topic I have passing familiarity with but I wanted to know more. I found this to be an excellent “101” in intersectional feminism. Schuller walks through the history of American feminism using case studies where she compares the actions & approaches of a white feminist leader or icon with those of a contemporaneous intersectional feminist. If you don’t really know what white feminism or intersectional feminism is or aren’t familiar with the (deeply problematic and harmful) history of white feminism (i.e., what a lot of white ladies just call “feminism”), this is a great and very accessible place to start.

(11) The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward (2021, 335 pages) (genre = dark). Audiobook. Ho-ly shit, guys, I don’t know where to start with this one. It’s very hard to know what to say about this book–even the genre–without getting into spoilers. So let’s just say that there’s a very strange man that lives in kind of a sad house with his cantankerous daughter and a Bible-reading cat. And a new next door neighbor whose little sister disappeared at a nearby lake 11 years ago. And…nothing is exactly what it seems. I am often disappointed when books advertise “so many twists and turns!!” because a lot of times you can see the “twists” coming a mile away. That…was not the case here. It’s hard to get into content warnings without spoilers, but let’s just say it is quite dark in places and I can absolutely see how some people would nope out pretty quickly. But it’s all done in the service of a really rich and earnest story and not shock value.