September 2023 Reads!

Friends, we will get back to the relatable running content you are here for sometime in the very very near future, never you worry. But we are behind on book reviews and that just will not stand.

Like August, September included a few lemons on the reading front, but also some of my favorite books of the year!

In case you missed it...

January 2023 Reads February 2023 Reads
March 2023 Reads
April 2023 Reads
May 2023 Reads
June 2023 Reads
July 2023 Reads
August 2023 Reads
Reads from previous years(70) 

 🪐🔍🗡️The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa (pages, 2023). Audiobook. This book reminded me in turns of things I’ve read by Ian M. Banks and Nnedi Okorafor. We open in the wake of the Holy Vallbaran Empire’s failed attempt to conquer the Ominirish Republic. All this means little to Ominirish scribe-cum-tea mistress Enitan until her lover is assassinated and her sibling abducted by Imperial soldiers. She then proceeds to trade on her tea-making skills in an attempt to work her way up through the Vaalbaran capital in order to rescue her sibling and solve her lover’s murder, and soon finds herself at the heart of intergalactic intrigue and scandal. I am very picky about sci fi and this was smart, refreshing, and super well done.

August 2023 Reads!

Hello friends! I am safely back from the Middle East and readjusting to the Pacific time zone and regular life. I was super busy with work and jet lag and got absolutely zero running done, but I got through some books, so there is that.

Speaking of books, we are now up to August in terms of recapping the year's reads. August was a mixed bags in terms of books--a few lemons in there, but also some of my favorite reads of the year!

In case you missed it...

January 2023 Reads
February 2023 Reads
March 2023 Reads
April 2023 Reads
May 2023 Reads
June 2023 Reads
July 2023 Reads
Reads from previous years

(58) 👻😱🧨 The Lost Village by Camilla Sten (348 pages, 2019). Audiobook. Alice has finally secured enough shoestring funding to make her dream film–a documentary about the old Swedish mining town where her grandmother grew up and from which all of the residents had mysteriously vanished in 1959, leaving only two people behind–a newborn baby girl and woman stoned to death. Not long after the tiny crew sets up camp, though, distressing things begin to happen. Are they really alone here? And can they all be trusted? Pretty dark at times, but an interesting, well-written psychological thriller/drama/horror.

One last (kinda) normal(ish) week... (Kaiser Half Week 4 of 13)

Since I'm off to Southern California today and then to Dubai on Friday, this will be my last kind of "normal-ish" week of training for a while. I'm still planning (hoping?) to continue doing whatever following-of-the-training plan I can while I'm on the road, but one just never knows how things are going to work out during travel (particularly to somewhere you've never been before).

Here's how this week went down:

 ~*~*~ 🎡 🎡 Kaiser Permanente Half Week 4 of 13 🎡 🎡 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 36 miles

🐌 Easy: 28.2 miles
🏃🏻‍♀️ Moderate: 3 miles
🐎 Speed: 4.8 miles

⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 78% vs. 22%

July 2023 Reads!

Alright, we're more than halfway there! Enjoy these July reads!

In case you missed it...

January 2023 Reads
February 2023 Reads
March 2023 Reads
April 2023 Reads
May 2023 Reads
June 2023 Reads
Reads from previous years

(51) ℹ️ 🏫 Collective Efficacy: How Educators' Beliefs Impact Student Learning by Jenni Donohoo (152 pages, 2017). Paper book. Work read! A good one!

(52) 🔎🔪🧨 The Survivors by Jane Harper (384 pages, 2020). Audiobook. Returning to his tiny Australian seaside town with his new wife and baby after some time away, Kieran finds there are still people who blame him for two accidental deaths that occurred during a giant storm in his teen years. The plot thickens when a young woman living in town turns up dead and Kieran’s father–suffering from quickly-progressing dementia–can’t account for his whereabouts that night. As police investigate, connections begin to surface between events in Kieran’s past and present.

Thanksgiving Week! (Kaiser Half Week 3 of 13)

This past week was a strange one. It probably all started when I was in Southern California for work last week and basically didn't sleep the night of the 15th, predictably sending my recovery score into the toilet. I recovered a bit over the next couple of days, but after a tempo interval workout Friday followed by a friend's birthday bash, it was back in freefall. I really tried taking it pretty easy those couple of days and was rewarded by a nice solid green spike on Monday just in time for a speed workout! But after that it was right back into the toilet. 🤣😭 

I didn't even look at the score before the Turkey Trot (because why), but later was happy to see that things are slowly once again trending in the right direction!

Anyone else determined to be an absolute sloth the day after Thanksgiving? 😅

 ~*~*~ 🎡 🎡 Kaiser Permanente Half Week 3 of 13 🎡 🎡 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 37 miles

🐌 Easy: 31.4 miles
🐎 Speed: 2.5 miles
🏅 Race: 3.1 miles

⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 85% vs. 15%

Race Report: Silicon Valley Turkey Trot 5K

Why did I sign up to run this race? 

Not that I've signed up for anything even *remotely* high stakes in quite a while, but honestly, this race is about THE lowest-stakes thing I've signed up for in recent memory. I am almost always traveling for Thanksgiving, and since we're staying home this year, I wanted to take the opportunity to run a local Turkey Trot just for funsies. 

A few weeks back I polled my team just to see if others were thinking about doing one and if there seemed to be critical mass somewhere (we have a number of local options here). A lot of ladies were planning on doing the Silicon Valley race in Mountain View (which offers both a 5K & 10K), so I figured it would be fun to join the group. I really, truly had no goals or ambitions whatsoever other than to run just fast enough to have fun.

And then what happened?

Generally I've felt really good running lately, but in the week leading up to the Turkey Trot, I started to struggle a bit, with my recovery score gradually sliding down through the yellow and into the red, in spite of really trying to focus on rest. In retrospect I think this was mostly about work stress and Thanksgiving prep stress, which I've learned can have a *huge* effect on how well your body recovers. On Wednesday I was feeling pretty exhausted so I decided to skip my usual shakeout run altogether in favor a bit more rest. To be honest, that choice was at least as much mental as it was physical -- a super easy 3 mile jog with a few strides thrown in shouldn't feel like much of a strain, but what was kind of a strain was planning out my day and fitting that in at a reasonable hour plus the whole rigamarole of getting dressed and cleaning up after. Mentally, I just did not want to deal with it, and it was such a (weirdly) huge weight off my shoulders after I emailed my coach to tell her. Like I said, this race had never been a high stakes thing for me but the closer it got, the more my motivation and ability to care about the outcome dropped. 😅 I was glad I'd already signed up and paid for it because otherwise I totally might have just flaked!

Getting It Done in SoCal (Kaiser Half Week 2 of 13)

Just toodling along last week. One harder workout but otherwise this was a pretty chill training week with lots of easy miles, a work trip, and a bit of race spectating thrown in for good measure.

 ~*~*~ 🎡 🎡 Kaiser Permanente Half Week 2 of 13 🎡 🎡 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 32.5 miles

🐌 Easy: 29 easy
🏃🏻‍♀️ Moderate: 3.5 miles
⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 89% vs. 11%

Tempting Fate... (Kaiser Half Week 1 of 13)

God I'm terrified to start posting training logs again. It seems there is no better way to attract the universe's attention (in a bad way). 😅

Anyway, now that I have a half marathon mark on the board, it's time to count down to the next one--that old Golden Gate Park classic, Kaiser Permanente (which is actually officially called The San Francisco Half Marathon but that gets easily confused with the San Francisco Marathon First and Second Half Marathons, so pretty much everyone I know just calls it Kaiser Half after the headline sponsor). It's reasonably priced, super close to home, has a reliable and good-enough course, and we always have a good contingent from the team running. (Also one of my teammates is one of the race directors so it's nice to support her.)

I'll have 13 weeks to prepare myself, though a big chunk of those weeks will involve work and holiday travel, which tends to disrupt organized for-real training. Still planning to do whatever I can do, though, with a very loose goal of dipping under 1:50 in the worst case and under 1:45 in the best case.

 ~*~*~ 🎡 🎡 Kaiser Permanente Half Week 1 of 13 🎡 🎡 ~*~*~

Grand Total:  37.5 miles

🐌 Easy:  21.8 easy
🐎 Speed:  2.5 miles
🏅 Race: 13.2 miles

June 2023 Reads!

Another pretty light month on the book front! Must have been another podcast heavy one.

In case you missed it...

January 2023 Reads February 2023 Reads
March 2023 Reads
April 2023 Reads
May 2023 Reads
Reads from previous years

(44) 🛹🪐 The Memory Index by Julian Ray Vaca (384 pages, 2022). Audiobook. In an alternative 1987, a global disease begins destroying human memory. While there's no cure, the lucky ones can create "artificial recall" via a daily treatment. Others, like Freya--the "degens"--need the treatment several times a day. Desperate to make sense of her father's mysterious and violent death, she makes a poor decision that gets her invited to a special school trialing a new technology that claims to make artificial recall obsolete. But questions abound--why is Freya the only degen in the trial? Why are students starting to vanish? And what is the school dean doing in a bunker in the woods behind the school? This book was weird and dark and kind of overly dramatic. There's a sequel but I keep feeling...not really that compelled to read it.

Race Report: Clarksburg Country Run Half Marathon

Why did I sign up to run this race? 

Mentally, I'd been planning on running this race for a while. It's nice and flat and usually has good weather (Also it's a PA race, so I'll get reimbursed for it.) And it was one of the first half marathons I ran when I started racing again in the Bay Area, so there's also some nostalgia there. 🥰 (Related, let me point out that in 2011 I ran this race for $45. This year it was $70. Gotta love inflation. 🤣)

Back when my knee was all messed up, I didn't know if it would happen, but once I got through the 12K in September with no issues, I felt pretty confident I could at least get into *plausible* half marathon shape (by which I mean, able to finish the distance at faster than a jog). At no point was I ever audacious enough to think it would be even remotely fast. But as I've been ever so gradually working my way back into shape, I've been trying to cultivate an attitude of not getting too precious about race times, and taking the opportunity to race less to see how fast I can run and more to practice running by feel and effort (though of course seeing how fast you can run x distance at y point in time is useful information as well).

When I was more consistently at a certain level of fitness, I raced all the time by trying to hit a certain goal pace, mile after mile, even if it felt too hard, and often, that worked. But when your fitness is kind of all over the place (except for high 😆), that approach just really does not work at all. So as I've been coming back from this knee injury, I have really let myself throw pace entirely out the window and just run by feel. (Like. Darling, you have run something like thirty half marathons in your life, *surely* you know what the right effort level feels like, regardless of your fitness? If not by now then when??) 

And then what happened?

May 2023 Reads!

May was a light reading/listening month. I think I was super into some podcasts and so spent more of the time I'd usually be listening to audiobooks doing that instead. On the other hand, not a single miss among them this month! Highly recommend all of these!

In case you missed it...

January 2023 Reads February 2023 Reads
March 2023 Reads
April 2023 Reads
Reads from previous years

April 2023 Reads!

One of the things that I find myself missing about blogging is not just writing about running, but also just kind of documenting other stuff that I'm doing. One of those things is what I'm reading.

Of course being that it's now November, I'm super behind on this! But I had a couple of drafts in the hopper before things got crazy last April/May that I figured I'd go ahead and share.

Enjoy, and as always please feel free to share anything you've read lately that you're particularly excited about.

In case you missed it...

January 2023 Reads February 2023 Reads
March 2023 Reads
Reads from previous years

NOT DEAD YET (Part 3)

Welcome back, friends. If you missed Part 1 & Part 2 of this little update, you might want to take a skim before continuing on. :)

Last we left off, I was dealing with a wild-out-of-left-field knee injury that took me out of running for five weeks, and had started dealing with it via as much elliptical, spin bike, & swimming as I could psychologically stand. (Which was still only a moderate amount, don't @ me.)

SEPTEMBER
Little by little, my knee did start to heal. I was able to run half a mile, then a whole one, then four in a row. I felt like I was walking such a fine line, trying to balance rest days and cross training with ever-so-gradually inching up the mileage to see if I could even get close to 7.5 and have a hope of finishing 12K. On Monday September 11, I ran seven miles; it gave me just the TEENSIEST little twinge in my knee and so I immediately pulled back, & did only cross training until we got to new Jersey that Friday.

Friends, I ran the race! And you know what? While it wasn't fast (of course I knew it couldn't possibly have been fast), I am still actually really proud of the way I ran it, in that I ran totally by feel, without looking at pace. And given how I felt at the end (ie LIKE DEATH), I feel like I actually nailed the effort releative to my current fitness.

Thankfully we had three other masters women running who (again) ran much, MUCH faster than me and brought home another 3rd place National Champs medal for the team. I ran 8.5 miles total for the day (7.5 race + 1 mile warm up) & had not a single peep from my knee at any point. Friends, I will take that!

NOT DEAD YET (Part 2)

Heyyyyy you came back! Always a good sign.

If you missed Part 1 of this little update, you can find it here.

Onward, shall we?

JUNE, CONT'D
When we left off, I had just run one of my slowest 5Ks ever despite not terrible training. The next race on my docket was Tracksmith Twilight 5000m on the track at Kezar Stadium on July 19th. We had a vacation scheduled for early July, so I thought, "Maybe Stow Lake was just a bad day, let me get a bit of rest and some solid speed workouts in, and then I'll run one more 5K before we leave & see where I'm at." I picked the Stars & Strides 5K in San Jose since it was July 1st & we were leaving the next day. 

Not much else of note happened in June, BUT I did make this delicious cherry clafoutis!

NOT DEAD YET (Part 1)

Hi hi friends! Honestly I do not know who even reads this anymore, but since the worst thing that happens is that this missive sits unread out in the ether, what is there to lose really?

Anyway, if you are here and reading, welcome! You are great and I love you.

I'm finding that I sometimes go through the following cycle:

(1) Blog semi-consistently for a while 

(2) Get super-duper-hella busy & overwhelmed with life & work 

(3) Realize that in some ways blogging gives my life & thoughts a certain kind of structure that I start to miss after a few months 

(4) Sheepishly slink back to Blogger & write an awkward/apologetic "Heeeyyyyy it's me again????" post 

I heard keeping readers on their toes like that is great for getting those clicks and growing readership. Everyone love a little "will-she-won't-she" tension, amirite? Now you know my secret.

James Joyce Ramble 10K Week 1 of 4

Whew! SacTown 10 Miles is in the book and now we're looking forward to the USATF Masters 10K National Championships at the James Joyce Ramble in Dedham, MA on April 30. I am not starting from the best place in terms of health OR fitness, but we've got four weeks so I'm definitely going to make the most of it! I'm a bit behind here but doing my best to catch up. 😬

In case you missed it, most of my worries about this April 30 10K have been around my nuts travel schedule in April and how I was possibly going to fit in enough running, particularly workouts, to make flying across the country for a 10K worth it. 

All that started at the end of March with a work trip to Milwaukee. I got back from Sacramento Sunday afternoon, then had three days at home before Don and I flew to Walla Walla for a wine party we've been attempting to get to with Don's mother since before COVID (since it was cancelled in '20, '21, and '22). 

And of course if you're going to fly all the way to Walla Walla for *one* wine party, it only makes sense to stay some extra days and do some additional tasting, amirite? 😆 Truly, friends, there were no bad stops on this trip. Every winery we tasted at was excellent.

Rotie! A fantastic stop! Highly recommend.

Race Report: SacTown 10 Miles 2023 (+ USATF Masters 10 Mile National Champs!)

Friends, this month has been and will continue to be rough in terms of work and travel, but I was determined to get this race report up in a more timely manner than the last one! Please enjoy.

Why did I sign up to run this race?

Like last year, SacTown 10 Miles was not only a Pacific Association long course race but also the USATF Masters National Championship race for the 10 mile distance, so I signed up to compete with my team. Last year I ran 1:16:47 here so I thought it would be fun to see if I could beat that time.

And then what happened?

March 2023 Reads!

Hello friends, I don't know about you but I am SO EXCITED that it is properly spring. The time has changed, my evening light is back (as an evening post-work runner I *super* appreciate this), and we've even had a few pleasant days of weather (in spite of all the bananas rain & wind we've been getting in SF lately).

March was a pretty solid month of reading, including several starred reads! As always, I am taking recommendations if you have any to offer.

In case you missed it...

January 2023 Reads February 2023 Reads
Reads from previous years

(19) The Last Guests by JP Pomare (336 pages, 2021). Audiobook. Lena & Cain, an Australian couple with money worries, reluctantly decide to put the family lake house Lena inherited up on a vacation rental site, a situation that is complicated by an increasingly problematic secret she is keeping from Cain. Then one night a harrowing experience at the lake house threatens to destroy everything. Has Lena’s secret finally come home to roost or is there something even more sinister going on? The premise here was a bit outlandish in my opinion and the ending felt sort of unbelievable and unresolved, as if this were intended as the first half of a book rather than an entire story.

(20) What Remains of Me by Alison Gaylin (384 pages, 2016). Paper book.

Road Warrior Kitchen: Basic Sautéed Chicken Breast

Welcome back, friends. I have been living it up in Milwaukee the past few days (j/k, actually just working) & engaging in such wild activities as having a beer at the Harley Davidson bar, eating some REALLY good food  (one restaurant had a bottle of wine from a tiny little winery I actually visited in Galicia, Spain, back in June??? Wild!), and doing a little shakeout run along Lake Michigan.

Now I am home for one day, trying to relax and rest up before our masters team heads up to Sacramento on Saturday for Sunday's USATF 10-Mile Masters National Championship. (I will not be running fast BUT my right ankle has been doing a-ok, so I'll be very happy just to get a double-digit run under my belt for the first time since Victory Half over a month ago now.)

I know you have been waiting with bated breath for your next visit to The Road Warrior Kitchen, so let's dive right in. Today, we're talking sautéed chicken breast.

Race Report: Victory Half Marathon 2023

Whew, finally getting this one out into the world!

The deets:

Brazen Racing is well known in the Bay Area for fun, inclusive, reasonably affordable, and extremely well-organized events, with the vast majority including a 5K, 10K, and half marathon. Most of them are trail races (including some real doozies!), but they host a few flat, paved events as well (including Hellyer in the South Bay and the Bay Breeze/Summer Breeze races at the San Leandro Marina). It is always a really fun and supportive crew, and their races are known for such perks as big beautiful medals (including age group winner medals), cool shirts that you'd actually consider wearing *not* only for running, free photos taken by volunteers stationed on the course, and an epic post-race spread.

Why did I sign up for this race?

I didn't have anything on my spring race calendar until the USATF Masters 10 Mile National Championships on April 2nd, and I wanted to run *something* in the 10K-to-half-marathon ballpark between New Years and then just to see where I was fitness-wise. My criteria were a) late Feb/early March, b) 10K, half, or something in between, c) mostly flat-ish course, d) reliable organization, e) fairly close to home, & f) not too pricey. That's a lot to ask for in one race! So I actually felt very lucky that I was able to find even ONE race that checked all the boxes.

Victory starts and finishes at Craneway Pavilion in Richmond, just over the bridge and a bit down the freeway, about 30 minutes from me. It's a really pretty area of Richmond with some gorgeous waterfront views (a lot of which you get to see on the course). All three courses are mostly out-and-backs and pretty close to totally flat. I have run the 10K at Victory twice before (2017 and 2020) so I felt very comfortable with the logistics (getting there, parking, the course, etc.).

Brazen has always put on some of the highest-value "low-stakes" races in the Bay Area--if you just wanted to run and have fun and see what you could do, it's always been hard to do better in terms of price and what you get for it. Alas, inflation has of course come for us all of late, including race directors. So prices have gone up a bit. But prices have gone up everywhere, so Brazen is still a QPR winner any way you slice it.

This year's prices for the 5K/10K/Half:

• Until 12/18/22: $58 / $67 / $83
• Before 1/22/23: $63 / $72 / $88
• After 1/22/23: $68 / $77 / $93
• Race day: $73 / $82 / $98

And then what happened?

February 2023 Reads!

Oof, hi friends, long time, no post. I have a race report almost ready to publish BUT in the mean time, please enjoy this missive covering my February reads. Hang on to your hats, last month was a doozy. 

 In case you missed it...

January 2023 Reads Reads from previous years

(8) First Born by Will Dean (368 pages, 2022). Audiobook. Outgoing, extroverted Katie is at Columbia on a full ride, while her mousy, introverted, pathologically anxious twin Molly hides from the world back in her London condo. But when Molly's parents call to tell her that Katie has been murdered while they're visiting her in New York, Molly must steel herself to fly to the U.S. to support her parents and the investigation of Katie's death. This took a super interesting turn riiiiiight at the end but there was a lot of kind of boring stuff in the middle and I came very close to not bothering finishing it.

(9) Run Time by Catherine Ryan Howard (373 pages, 2022). Audiobook. Another mystery/thriller with a twenty-two-year-old woman at the center. Once a rising star, recently disgraced actress Adele Rafferty has left her native Ireland for LA in a desperate (and thus far unsuccessful) attempt to revive her career. When she's offered the lead in a small, hush-hush indie horror film back in Ireland out of the blue, the deal seems almost too perfect. But soon Adele starts to feel as if the eerie events of the script are happening around her for real, and it seems as if her tumultuous past has somehow come back to haunt her. Reasonably entertaining but I've liked previous works of hers better.

(10) Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl (336 pages, 2018). Audiobook.

January 2023 Reads!

 ...And just like that, the cycle begins anew. 👵 ➡️ 👶 Welcome back, readers!

I got off to a solid start in January in terms of reading. Here's what was on my nightstand / in my headphones this month:

(1) The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan (336 pages, 2012) (psychological drama, lgbtqia+). Paper book. I can't remember how this book got onto my 'to-read' list but about a quarter of the way through, I was like, "You know, this book realllly reminds me of a different book I read ages ago." It bugged me so much I had to hunt that book down and guess what? It was The Red Tree, by Caitlin R. Kiernan. The story is presented as schizophrenic India Morgan Phelps's attempt to make sense of some very strange recent events by writing things down, since she can no longer trust her own memories. Plot points include a tumultuous new relationship with a gamer girl, the suicides of her mother and maternal grandmother, and her encounter with a vicious siren, a wolf, a feral little girl, or something altogether else. This was a really interesting well-written book but it was also very, VERY strange.

(2) Survive the Night by Riley Sager (336 pages, 2021) (crime/mystery/thriller).

Unscheduled rest days? We do that here. (Victory Half Week 7 of 8)

Monday morning I dragged my suitcase up my front steps at 10:00am, so bone-deep exhausted I was almost sick with it.

Actual footage

I'd left DFW airport (Texas) at 7:00am central time; this meant setting an alarm for 4:00am, but it turns out you don't actually need an alarm when you're awake all night (like literally allll night, not even even a bit of light dozing). It's not that I didn't try to sleep but I often have a hard time sleeping when I have an early alarm, and unfortunately none of my usual tricks (melatonin, diphenhydramine, reading) were helping.

So yes. Up at 4:00am, out the door at 4:30, returning my rental car at 5:15, at the gate for my flight at 5:45. (It wasn't boarding until 6:30am so I was earlier than I needed to be, but that's because everything went perfectly and you can never count on everything going perfectly when air travel is involved.) 

After ~3 hours of fitful airplane sleep, I touched down at SFO, took an Uber home, said hi to my cats, and tried (in vain) to get some real sleep on my couch. (My bed wasn't made and I was not not NOT in a place to make it. So, couch.)

The kitty welcomed me back home and by 'me,' I mean 'my body heat.' (She's like one of those sea creatures that can only thrive in the extreme heat of hydrothermal ocean vents.)

Road Warrior Kitchen: Chopped Veggies in Dressing

Here is the thing. We already know we should eat more vegetables and that it's good for us both as regular people with bodies and as runners. But if you are like me, you don't necessarily default to vegetables. That means that when we are extra tired or busy or annoyed with the world or we forgot to buy groceries this week, vegetables are probably the first to go.

Over the years, though, I've found some strategies for getting back on the veggie bandwagon when I don't necessarily feel like just crunching on raw celery sticks; today The Road Warrior Kitchen is bringing you one of them.

Consider the watermelon radish

You may be thinking, "But Angela, chopping vegetables is not a recipe. Everyone already knows about chopping vegetables and some people even do it regularly."

True enough, friend. Everyone knows about chopping vegetables; not everyone knows how to make chopped vegetables delicious and attractive and if you have not yet mastered that voodoo I am here to help.

Bad Puns, Solid Workouts (Victory Half Week 6 of 8)

There are certain running puns that make my eyes roll so far back in my head I'm in danger of losing them. "In the long run." "Back on track." Anything involving the word "half" when you're running/training for a half marathon.

But here I am, about to say that I am {cringes} "back on track" this week after last weekend's minor shit show. And I wasn't going to say it, but then I was going to write something about how it feels getting back on the track again after a hiatus, and {sigh}...

Welp. Here we are. Back on track.😬

You Are Invited to The Road Warrior Kitchen!

Hello friends, welcome to The Road Warrior Kitchen!

Let me disabuse you of the notion, should you be harboring it, that we are here at The Road Warrior Kitchen to learn all the finer points of sports nutrition. I have written some about that in the past based on work with a for-real sports nutritionist, but a) I'm not truly an expert at that stuff, & b) I don't find it that interesting to write about.

On the other hand, a big topic of conversation between my various groups of running friends is more like, "How do we balance the logistics of eating *generally* in a way that supports our training with all the bullshit of real life, AND is also delicious?" 

I always love hearing what recipes, hacks, strategies, whatever that others have in their arsenal and seeing if maybe they can work for me. Perhaps you will learn something that works for you! Or perhaps you will share a hack of your own in the comments. 

Before we begin, let me provide a bit of framing. I want to be clear that Road Warrior Kitchen is not about describing *THE* one true way of cooking/eating for runners, even just for me. But it will obviously reflect my personal beliefs, preferences, biases, experience, likes/dislikes/etc.

So please understand the points below as a kind of lens for understanding what does or does not show up in the Road Warrior Kitchen and why I cook & eat the way I do.

A Song of Ice And Snow And Wind And Blizzards (Victory Half Week 5 of 8)

Week 5 started off great but kind of fell apart at the weekend. A friend of ours was renting a house in Tahoe & invited us to come up and stay with her, and given the epic snow conditions lately, we decided to take her up on it.

It's such a fine line between "Sounds awesome but I can't, I'm prioritizing training right now" and "Life is short and you're not a pro athlete, don't let training turn you into a monk." I have really been trying to prioritize getting in pretty-ok-to-decent shape for Victory Half but I also really like to ski and with everything else I have going on nearly every weekend between now and May, I wasn't going to have a lot of chances.

So, like any other respectable modern woman, I decided that choosing was a false dichotomy and with enough effort and hustle, I could "have it all."

If you've ever tried to "have it all," you can probably guess where this is going.

Do You Run With Headphones??? (Victory Week 4 of 8)

Spoiler: I do, most of the time. :)

 

Look closely, they're there! 

These days my headphones of choice are Shokz Aeropex (now listed as Shokz OpenRun), which are bone conduction open-ear headphones specifically designed for running. That means that they don't actually go in your ears, which means you can still actually hear everything going on around you while using them. Yes they're a bit pricey, but I got my current pair on a Labor Day sale in 2021, and given that I use them nearly every single day of my life (not only for running but also a lot of times while working, doing errands on foot, or doing chores around the house), that $141.16 (after tax) amortizes to something like 30 cents a day and dropping, which seems like a pretty good deal. (And also people pay $250+ for freaking AirPods???? 😱 JGDFC.)

More Recovery Talk (Victory Half Week 3 of 8)

Not that I've had any actual *hard* or *intense* weeks yet, but this last week was slightly easier (in terms of how much running I've done) than Week 2 for a couple of reasons:

1) A last-minute ski weekend in Tahoe! Back in December I got new skis and have been looking forward to trying them out. Since there's now ten bazillion feet of snow in Tahoe (and somehow all my free Jan/Feb weekends are starting to fill up with Stuff), it seemed like a good time to go. (Also, this early in my season when I am running fairly low mileage, I don't really mind taking an extra day or two off of running.)

 Top of Lake View Chair at Palisades

2) My lower left leg/ankle has been feeling a bit tight and pound-y, and again, there's no reason to risk overdoing it this early when I'm just trying to build up the miles and re-acclimate my whole body to running. Luckily I was able to get in with my massage therapist on Wednesday who did some SERIOUS work beating up my various fascias and such. It's generally better to give body work a good 12-24 hours to settle in before a run anyway, so rather than thinking of it as a Sad Unplanned Rest Day, I tried to think of it as smart recovery so I could run happy on Thursday.

Speaking of recovery, a quick reminder of the basic equation that governs all of training, for literally anything:

Race Report: Christmas Relays 2022

The deets:

Christmas Relays is a fundraiser for my running team and also on the PA road circuit. It's unique on the PA circuit in that it's a four person relay, with each person running the same 4.5 mile loop around Lake Merced. There are a wide range of divisions teams can compete in, from men, women, nonbinary, mixed gender, open, 30/40/50/60+, couples, corporate, junior girls, junior boys, under 14....The list truly goes on and on! There are super fast competitive teams as well as super chill teams just out there for a good time, and the race is known for attracting a wide variety of Christmas-themed costumes and outfits. Everyone on our team is encouraged to run as well as volunteer with various logistical race tasks (which works out well since it's a relay and only 25% of people are running at any given time).

Why did I sign up for this race?

Mostly because it's a fundraiser for my club and we are really encouraged to run if we can. Last year I was signed up to run on the women's masters team but then strained my calf and by the time the race rolled around I still couldn't jog more than about a block without pain. So this year, even with one injury/illness after another in the fall, I was determined to stay healthy enough to at least complete one 4.5-mile leg.

And then what happened?

Victory Half Week 2 of 8

No stories this week, just a good old fashioned training log (and a few pretty pictures to keep you entertained). So far, so good! My main challenge right now is not getting over-enthusiastic and doing too much too soon just because I feel good. Trying to think ahead to April/May/June & how I want to be running then, which will require a slow-but-steady approach. 🐢🐌 (Also really nailing recovery! Which I'll try to talk more about next week.)

~*~*~ Victory Half Week 2 of 8 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 35 miles, all easy

Monday 1/9: 5.18 urban hiking! I felt good on Monday but didn't want to run because I was worried about increasing my running miles too quickly like I did in December. So instead I vigorously walked 5+ miles of these San Francisco hills, which pretty efficiently gets one's heart rate into the same range as easy running.

Yeah; I live here.

The Year in Books, 2022! (+ my top reccs for the year)

Because I love numbers and making lists and quantifying all the things. :) 

 

(You may be asking, "Did you do all this tracking and calculating yourself????" To which I say, HELL NO, The StoryGraph does it for me! In case you missed it, I left Goodreads because I am sick of their bullshit/screwing over authors and sick of supporting Amazon with my data and clicks. Instead I joined The StoryGraph, an independent book-tracking platform created and run by a woman of color. It is still building up the level of community that Goodreads has had years to develop, but I find it MUCH more user-friendly and I love all the cool stats features and the recommendations based on your reviews of past reads. Come join me!)

By the numbers: 

Run Like A Pro: Balance Intensities Like A Pro (Part 1)

So like I was saying (lo these many months ago 😬), reading running books by your favorite authors can be a little like a religious devotee reading their religious text. They already know pretty much what's in it, they don't expect a lot of surprises, but sometimes it's good to be reminded of what you know you should be doing that you've maybe gotten a bit away from doing. So we are here to talk about where and when in Run Like A Pro I found myself feeling a bit convicted and like I needed a bit of revival.

The chapter in question is called "Balance Intensities Like A Pro," intensities being whether you're running easy, hard, or somewhere in the middle. 

If you have read 80/20 Running or any other book that discusses how runners should allocate their fast training miles vs. their easy training miles, the advice in this chapter will not come as a shock. In case you haven't, though, a quick overview.

When scientists look at the most successful endurance runners, from 3-10K track specialists to half marathon and marathon road racers, all of them seem to stick quite close to an 80/20 split--that is, 80% of their miles done at an easy, comfortable pace and 20% done at moderate and high intensities (speed work, tempo/threshold runs, etc.). 

The conclusion: "Relatively high training volume at low intensity ... was beneficial for the development of running performance at the top level" (Run Like A Pro (Even If You're Slow), pp. 66-67). The same has been found to be true for elite athletes in other endurance sports such as cross-country skiing, cycling, rowing, swimming, and triathlon.

All-In On Recovery (Victory Half Week 1 of 8)

Technology is amazing, think of all the years I spent without a watch to let me know how tired I am. 🤣😭

So, starting in mid-2021, I decided to go all-in on injury prevention. Of course injury prevention is key for anyone making an effort to challenge themselves with their running and racing, but the older I get, the more clear it is that keeping all my parts strong and happy and bouncing back from what I ask them to do is going to take regular, systematic attention (vs. the whack-a-mole / catch-as-catch-can approach of my 20s and 30s).

Of course part of the reason I was never able to attack injury prevention with as much gusto as I would have liked in my younger years (especially 20s) has (like so many other things in life) to do with time and money. Not that I'm rolling in the dollah dollah bills now or anything, but one of the perks of getting older and further along in my career has meant that I do have more flexibility and control over my time than I used to, and a bit more expendable income. Even so, just a few years ago, I still did a lot of skimping around stuff like strength and body work and was constantly asking myself, "Geez, this stuff isn't cheap, is it really worth it?" 

And the conclusion I came to at age 40 (knowing that I have enough expendable income now to do it without being irresponsible) is "HELL YES, it's worth it." Because it's not just about being able to run the way I want to; it's also about just generally taking care of my various bones and muscles and joints so that I can be that old lady toodling happily around the track and living happily and independently well into my golden years.

This year's theme, I think, is shaping up to be recovery.

2023 Race Plans!

Hello friends! I hope you were able to have some rest over the holiday season and your year is off to a promising start. 

Over the past few weeks I've been doing some brainstorming about what I want to run this spring. We have some National Masters Grand Prix road races to consider, plus I still haven't ruled out trying to get a marathon under my belt this spring. Here's what's on my calendar currently:

February 25 -- Victory Half Marathon (Richmond, CA). This is the rare flat Brazen road race and it's only about a half hour from me to boot! I've run the 10K here twice before (2017 and 2020) and, like every other Brazen race I've ever participated in, it was well organized and well supported both times. 

2017 10K

December Reads (We made it, friends!)

Happy new year, friends! Regardless of anything else that happened in the last year, you can say you made it into 2023.

Today we are wrapping up this year's reads with December's list. I had more time for reading last month, and had several books that I really enjoyed! Take a look and see what you think.

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

November Reads