Cut-back (ish) Week

On paper this was a cut-back week, though since last week's 46 miles became 40, it didn't *exactly* work out that way. On the other hand I did have a shorter, easier track workout and no real long run.

Not that I've really done anything truly big lately, but this was my last "big-ISH" week before tapering for Statuto 8K next Sunday, and I'm pretty happy that I've been able to run 40+ miles for four weeks in a row leading up to this race. You never know what will happen but I'm feeling pretty excited to go into a race feeling like I did *some* kind of real training (the first time that's happened in several months).

CIM WEEK 13 of 18: One More Block......

My training thoughts this week:

• Holy matzah balls how are we at week 13??
• How the heck are we only at week 13, can this race just get here already??
• I do NOT feel like I ran a race last weekend, what is this 32 mile "recovery week" nonsense?
• God I am so tired. All the time. There is not enough sleep in all of creation.

Also, in October I apparently ran over 200 miles in a calendar month for the first time in years. I've done it a few times in 30 consecutive days since I started training again in June, but this is the first time it's actually happened within a calendar month. So, that's kind of cool.

Please Stop With The Fitness Tips for the Holidays.

It looks like a smile, but it's really a scream for help. PUT THE FREE WEIGHTS DOWN, CINDY.

Seriously. You are making the rest of us so, so sad for you.

I don't know how to tell you this, but every time you start listing practical tips for staying fit & healthy during the holidays, everyone is laughing at you and definitely not taking notes.

Here is a list of real-ass "helpful holiday fitness tips" I have actually heard or read over the past week or so that have made me throw up a bit in my mouth with embarrassment for those doling them out:

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In addition to maintaining your normal exercise schedule, squeeze in an extra workout or two whenever you can. You know, in all that extra free time you have around the holidays. Bring your free weights to office meetings. Do laps around the cell phone lot as you wait for loved ones at the airport. The possibilities are endless. (I prefer wine aerobics and cookie yoga, myself.)

After a midday holiday meal, convince your friends & family to go for a fun, festive post meal jog or walk. GODDDDD please don't be this person. Please. You want to go for a fun, festive calorie-burning walk/run? By all means go for it. But please don't attempt to browbeat the rest of us who kind of just want to sit on our asses and shoot the shit with a glass of whiskey with people we only ever get to see once a year. Don't be that guy/gal.

Before you go to a party, decide ahead of time to limit yourself to three bites, three cookies, your three favorite foods, etc. and stick to it. Yes, limit yourself. To three bites, or three cookies, your three favorite foods, three foods of each color, three plates of food, three foods that remind you of each person at the party, three vats of artificially colored cookie frosting, etc. Again, the possibilities are endless. You do you.

Buy a low-fat, low-sugar eggnog and skip the alcohol to save calories per cup. Or, you could skip directly to stabbing yourself in the throat. :D

Enlist a fitness-minded friend or family member to be your holiday exercise buddy! Look. Those of us who want any kind of exercise buddy probably already have one. Those of us who don't want you to stop talking about this because you're making it weird for everyone.

Instead of baking cookies or playing board games, pass the time with an active pursuit like snowshoeing, hiking, or building snowmen or igloos. Recent studies show that holiday board games are definitely, DEFINITELY a leading cause of the Obesifying Of America^TM. Probably also terrorism. GET OUT THOSE SNOWSHOES, PEOPLE.

Instead of mulled red wine, make mulled cider. You save the calories not only from the alcohol in the wine, but also from the added sugar, since cider is naturally sweet. You know what makes cider 'naturally sweet'? FUCKING SUGAR. See also: Stabbing oneself in the throat.

Instead of dark meat slathered in gravy, choose lower-fat white meat without the skin and enjoy it with just a drizzle of gravy made with defatted pan juices, dry white wine, and low-sodium chicken broth. If you come to my holiday dinner and start talking about 'defatted pan juices,' we are so over. SO. OVER.

Bring your own healthy snacks to the holiday party. Yes, please totally be that sad person sitting in the corner eating celery sticks and homemade GMO-free hummus out of your sad little tupperware while you gaze longingly at your Three Favorite Foods. It won't be weird or awkward for ANYONE, TRUST ME.

Skip the baking; you probably eat more cookies while baking. Fuck that noise. You wanna bake? Fucking bake. YOU BAKE THE SHIT OUT OF THOSE FESTIVE HOLIDAY COOKIES AND EAT AS MANY AS YOU WANT. You baddass motherfucker, you.

Invite holiday vacation visitors to join you at the gym or a favorite exercise class. No. NO. NOOOOOO. Trust me; they do not not NOT want you to do this. HOLIDAY. VACATION. Look it up.

Do some yard work. What?

Lace up your sneakers and powerwalk between holiday errands at the mall. This is definitely not the saddest, most depressing thing related to exercise I've ever heard. Definitely, definitely not. (See also: stabbing in the throat.)

When traveling for the holidays, bring along a favorite fitness DVD and yoga mat. ARE. YOU. JOKING.

Eat and chew slowly. Take a second to savor each bite of baked brie or scoop of spiced nuts! Oh, so it's not enough that I'm packing my own fitness DVD and drinking sad teetotaler eggnog and powerwalking the mall between murdering children errands, now I have to monitor my chew-rate? IS THERE SOME KIND OF APP FOR THAT???!?!?

Turn away from temptation by facing away from the dessert spread. Don't worry, your chew-monitoring app probably also comes with DessertCompass^TM.

Choose a tall, skinny glass instead of a short, squat one; you'll drink less. Ha. Hahaha. Hahahahahaha wanna bet? (Or, maybe your chew-monitoring app also comes with CupChooser^TM.)

Sneak puréed veggies into baked goods in place of butter or oil. Bitch, I will straight-up cut you.

When baking [IF YOU MUST], try subbing half the flour with whole-wheat flour to increase the fiber, which fills you up faster & makes you feel fuller longer. You guys, sorry to be the killer of dreams, but I have spent way too much time sitting in a sports nutritionist's office and the whole wheat flour thing is 90% bullshit.

Stand up to "food pushers" -- Just say no, over and over and over again! Is this, like, the grown-up equivalent of the war on drugs? You would actually think it's that serious, based what WebMD has to say about the matter: "Despite your best laid plans, your holiday food goals can still go awry thanks to 'food pushers' – friends, family members, and co-workers who refuse to take 'no' for an answer when they're offering fattening treats. These are the people who, for whatever reason, seem to believe that their holiday celebration just isn't complete until they get you to give in to their food weaknesses.' YOU GUYS, DON'T GIVE IN TO THEIR FOOD WEAKNESSES, NOOOOOOO! J/K, you eat WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT, you baddass motherfucker.

(RealTalk: OK, sure, I agree that this is SUPER weird behavior that some people definitely engage in, but it's not limited to the holidays, and part of being a grown-ass adult is learning how to politely say 'No thank you' with a lovely smile plastered on your face when a thing is not your jam. So, like, stop making it weird, WebMD. This is not about Teh Holidayzzz or getting fat.)

Instead of trying to squeeze exercise into your schedule, take other things out. Like parties. And alcohol. And baking. And free-form chewing. Basically, anything that might bring you joy for half a second.

Skip the savory finger foods, creamy dips, and fried canapés, help yourself to a small handful of nuts, reduced-fat cheese and fresh fruit, or chilled shrimp. I have an idea, what if you helped yourself to whatever the fuck you felt like eating and didn't make a big deal out of it?

Honestly, you want my tips for staying fit & healthy during the holiday (AND I THINK YOU DO)?

• Eat like a normal person most of the time & have a tasty holiday treat or two when you goddamn feel like it.
• Do your normal exercise when you can but do not feel bad & flagellate yourself if you are sometimes too busy kissing under the mistletoe or slapping under the slappy spider or just feel like today you're more interested in wine/pie/polishing off that whiskey advent calendar.
• Stop talking about it like it's a thing. Everyone is laughing at you.

National Running Day had its ups & downs.

I didn't know it until Wednesday morning, but June 3 was apparently National Running Day. YAAAAAY NATIONAL RUNNING DAY!!

I was traveling for work but what kind of lame-o runner doesn't run on National Running Day, so as soon as I got home at 7:30pm I immediately threw on running clothes & busted out a 10 mile tempo run.

Just kidding, I'd already planned it that way because I was a) busy with work Tuesday (when this workout was assigned) & b) travel workouts almost always have to be done on treadmills and UUUUGGGGHH talk about workouts I DO NOT feel like putting myself through on a treadmill.

I didn't end up doing it exactly right. It was supposed to be 7 x 1200m @ LT pace w/ 45 second recoveries, only I couldn't remember how long the recoveries were once I got going, so for simplicity's sake, I kind of said, "Eh, 400m sounds about right." Which, equates to more like 2-2.5 minutes. Oops. Also I only did 6 repeats because I have a nice 10 mile loop that gives me 2 miles of pedestrian/traffic light heavy neighborhood streets at the beginning & end for a warm-up/cool down & that only leaves 6 miles in between. It was late & I did not feel like a) running deeper into the park in the dark, b) running more than 10 miles, or c) frantically dodging pedestrians & cars while trying to tack on another 1200 at either end.

As these types of workouts should be, it felt hard but do-able. I kept up the pace through all six repeats with no problem & felt like I probably could've done a few more at the end (though, I didn't really want to). I think I managed to tape my left foot in a way that actually accomplished something, and found that it was actually easier during the fast intervals to run on my left arch the way I'm supposed to than it was during the easy miles & recoveries. But anyway, it's good to be back to doing my official RunCoach workouts & feeling like I can (finally!) finish them feeling strong and without re-aggravating my leg.

Alas, National Running Day also brought sadness.

A while back I wrote about my first "official" half marathon, The Jungle Run in Los Gatos. After many years away I was looking forward to actually racing it again this summer in reasonably good shape & seeing by just how much I could beat my 2008 time of 2:16. But it was not to be. Wednesday evening I received an email from the organizers that the high school track area (where the start, finish, & staging are located) would be under construction & despite many inquiries into other potential staging areas, they were not able to find a suitable one. So, it looks like the race is cancelled for this year.

I did appreciate that, although all entry fees for this year were automatically rolled over to 2016, they did give participants the option of requesting a refund if they preferred (particularly given that the issue was around getting permits for the course/staging area so the biggest costs have potentially not yet been incurred by the race). I do actually want to run the race again so I accepted the rollover and didn't request a refund.

So now, I'm thinking about whether I want to try & find another good half sometime in July (of which there are not a ton) or just say, eh, screw it, more SRM training time. So far the only even halfway decent candidate I've found is the Davis Moonlight Race on July 11, which looks kind of fun in that it's a evening race (the 1st wave of the half starts at 6:30) and is not that expensive ($60). But to be honest I'm leaning towards 'no' because a) Davis in July can still be 90F+, even in the evening, b) it's kind of a hike from SF for a last-minute non-goal race, c) the course apparently has stretches of gravel. (Ringing any bells there?)

The other option is to run a local little 10K on July 18th. [Real Talk: I am sooo not excited about running a 10K right now.] So, maybe I'll just take a pass on a July race & use what I save in taper/recovery time to put towards SRM training.

NVM WEEK 8: happy new year; house; germs; winds of biblical proportions

Week 8 was my last abnormal holiday/vacation week of training (er...for now...), and I wasn't sure how it was going to work out, mileage-wise. In its favor was the fact that we were done traveling & back at home, and I took the entire week off from work (since we were flying on 12/29 & my office had 12/31 & 1/1 off anyway); going against it was the fact that it contained New Year's Eve (always treacherous from a running perspective) and the closing date on our new house (exciting!!! But super busy).

And, of course, wouldn't you know that after two plane trips and spending the week around approximately 17,392 children, Don & I both woke up Tuesday morning with sore throats, stuffy heads, and in my case, intermittent asthma.

No, this week was far from a perfect, but it could have been a lot worse, all things considered, and some parts of it were pretty awesome. The crown jewel was definitely my eighteen mile long run on Sunday, wherein I felt horrendously guilty about ditching Don & house stuff for 3.5 hours, even with his blessing.

Things did not get off to an auspicious start. I left about an hour and a half later than planned due to said house stuff and also was kind of horrified to feel myself getting hungry less than a mile in. Between that, the uncomfortably cold weather, and still feeling kind of sick, part of me was not at all convinced I wasn't just going to crash & burn. I figured if it got really bad, though, I could just call him to come scoop me off whatever patch of sidewalk I happened to collapse on.

Because of the late hour I decided to just run down to the park & then do laps of the east side (~3.7 miles each), rather than risk being on the west side in the dark. (Not that it's objectively more dangerous or anything; there's just more foliage and fewer people and the street lamps there seem to be out more often, so I never feel super comfortable running down there in the dark.) As with my 17 miler three weeks ago, I kept waiting for that achey, sloggy, ugh-just-let-it-end long-run feeling to set in, but lap after lap went by & it never did.

By mile 13 I still felt pretty normal, so I decided to try 3 miles at goal marathon pace & see how that felt. It felt hard but doable (8:15 uphill, 7:55 downhill, 7:59 flattish), and after that the last two easy miles were nothing. (I mean don't get me wrong, it was dark & cold & I was hungry & had to pee so I was glad I didn't need to run even one more mile, but physically I finished strong rather than achey & sore & dragging myself through the last miles.)

Sure, I finished around 7:00 pm in the dark rather than at 5:30 pm as planned, but afterward I felt pretty normal & as if I could have kept going with no problem. I'm particularly stunned by this given that I started the run hungry & only ever used two gels; I was legitimately worried that being hungry from the start might either force me back early for solid food or cause me to bonk. (This is where I think not carb loading for my long runs & using only minimal gels may have helped me.)

~*~*~NVM WEEK 8 OF 16~*~*~

Grand Total: 39 miles

* 15 easy
* 9 goal marathon pace
* 18 long (including 3 at marathon pace)
* No strength work or AT exercises. I suck.

Monday: Fly home.

Tuesday: 2 wu, 6 GMP, 2cd = 10 total 5 easy

This was the worst run I've had in months. MONTHS! We've had a cold front roll in, and though it wasn't actually all that cold (40s?), the wind was a BITCH, a constant maybe 15-20mph, with faster gusts. Apparently large trees were downed all over the city & even caused power outages in a number of areas.




And the wind, let me tell you something, was *freezing*. I could not put on enough layers to make any difference. It was just completely, utterly, totally miserable. In addition to this, I'd woken up feeling sick & been having some asthma problems all day, and they persisted into my run even after using my inhaler several times Usually that takes care of it but when it just got worse and worse, I ended up running back home to get it again rather than chance running without it. (I learned that lesson a while back.) My miles were slow and my heart rate was through the roof (which I blame on the wind, asthma, & the albuterol); also, I had a headache.

Originally I'd intended to run 10 miles with 6 at goal marathon pace, then downgraded to 10 easy, then 8 easy, then 6 easy, then at a certain point just said "F#@$ it" & turned around to head home for the second time. I ran a few extra blocks to finish the current mile once I got back to my house, but that was it. I mean yes, physically I could have pushed myself through 3-5 more miles, but honestly, I didn't feel like I was actually accomplishing much & decided I'd rather save the gas for more productive miles later in the week.

Wednesday (New Year's Eve): 2 wu, 6 GMP, 2cd = 10 total 6 easy

I would have liked to have done the 10 miles with 6 at goal marathon pace that day, but there just wasn't time. I mean, there could have been time if I'd gotten up early, but I was on vacation, dammit, & figured I'd just push it to Thursday.

Thursday (New Year's Day): 2 wu, 6 GMP, 2cd = 10 total Lie on couch with zombie-like countenance, drinking tea while binge watching Family Guy.

So much for the GMP run. I spent most of Thursday feeling tired & like crap & still kind of sick. (Partly because of being a little sick; partly because the restaurant pre fixe we'd gone to the night before had tried to poison me with amazing wine & cocktails.) I could have forced myself out the door but it would have sucked a lot & I would have resented it the whole time. This counts as maybe half a wuss out, but all things considered, I don't really regret it.

Friday: 2 wu, 6 GMP, 2cd = 10 total

I still felt a tad sick on Friday, but better enough that I figured I'd take a crack at the GMP run I'd failed to do for the last three days. The GMP miles are still hard, but getting slightly less hard, maybe? I nailed my pace exactly (7:57/mile) with my heart rate right where I wanted it (175 bpm), which I was not expecting given that I was having mild asthma the whole time (part of that whole still-a-little-sick thing).

Saturday: Rest

Saturdays have kind of become my optional running day, where if I feel good & have time, I can run 4-5 miles, but no pressure if I can't or don't. I kind of wanted to in order to make up for some of the shenanigans earlier in the week, but on top of still feeling kind of sick, my legs & feet felt pretty beat up after Friday's run. Sure, I could have run 4-5 miles just fine, but I was paranoid about screwing up my long run Sunday & decided it was more important to rest & heal up for that than to worry about my mileage total for the week.

Sunday: 18 long, with 3 at goal marathon pace

I am sooooooo ready for a normal week!!

Before I get too much further behind, here.......

Ugh, the holidays.

Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of parts I enjoy, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't the absolute hardest time of year for me logistically, which naturally bleeds into running just as it bleeds into every other aspect of my life.

I am a creature of habit, and the holidays mess with my routine. Additional obligations abound. Trying to get things wrapped up at work while also getting ready to travel for a week-plus is stressful. All of this makes it tough to balance "No excuses!! Make it happen!!" with "You're only human, dude. Cut yourself some slack."

We flew out to Texas early on the morning of Saturday the 20th. Slack was definitely cut that week, mostly for good reasons, and I tried to be at peace with it (kinda/sorta/not really).

~*~*~NVM WEEK 6 OF 16~*~*~

Grand Total: 18 miles

* 12 easy
* 6 goal marathon pace
* 1 x 45:00 strength work, plus exercises from AT some days (but far from all)

Monday: a.m. strength work / karate

Tuesday: 2 wu, 6 @ GMP, 2 cd = 10 total

Wednesday: karate

Thursday: 8 easy

Friday: 8 easy Nada. This day was a mess of stress & packing, & I also remember having some kind of physical ailment somewhere (though it's been long enough now that I can't remember what) that made me think running was a bad idea anyway. If I'd known ahead of time I wasn't going to run Friday I would have tacked on a few more miles earlier in the week, but what can you do.

Saturday: Fly to Texas / drive directly from airport to family holiday party. Unless I was getting up at 4 am (hahahaha no) there was no way a run was happening.

Sunday: Shopping / family holiday stuff. I'd guessed ahead of time that there would be no time for a run this day either & that's exactly what happened.

* * *

Before we get into Week 7, let me give a little background on our holiday travels to Texas. As with the holidays in general, I absolutely DO enjoy getting to see Don's & my families & celebrate with them, and I am very thankful that a) we have the means to make that trip without it being a significant burden and b) so much of our family is now in (roughly) the same major metropolitan area, especially since between us we have three grandparents in their last years.

Still, I would be lying if I said it wasn't the toughest nine days of the year in some ways. Between our two families & all their different facets we had some 12 or so holiday gatherings to attend, spread out across an area roughly the size of the Bay Area:

Each little party hat represents a holiday gathering with a subset of family, some of which we trekked to multiple times. We put nearly 500 miles on the rental car in less than nine days. (At least gas was less than $2.00 a gallon, so, hey, #nottotallylosing!)

Add to this all the last-minute shopping & food/beverage curation & prep, & you end up with a lot of late nights, early mornings, & a diet that probably no one should eat ever but especially not people who are trying to run marathons. (There were multiple days when I went to bed feeling sick & woke up feeling like I had a brick in my stomach, & by the end I'd resorted to purchasing, preparing, & bringing along my own food to holiday gatherings because otherwise I was pretty sure I was going to die.)

Many quad-shot lattes were consumed.

If you don't want to drink Starbucks in the Hurst-Eulice-Bedford
area, Roots is a solid independent option (if a bit inconsistent).

Near my mom's place where we stay is also not the most runner-friendly area. There are a few small residential spots with sidewalks & not too much traffic or lights, but it just isn't a place that's been built for pedestrians (Texas kind of epitomizes car culture), so you kind of either stick to a small area & make 2-3 mile loops or do sketchy things like jay-run across giant traffic arteries / run on the narrow shoulder of roads that are only nominally not highways.

Which is all to say, running during these visits ain't easy & for the most part in the past I've just given up on it completely because it's so difficult to fit it in anyway without feeling like a terrible daughter/granddaughter/step-daughter/step-granddaughter/daughter-un-law/aunt/niece/cousin/girlfriend/etc. etc. etc. For these reasons, I didn't even bother planning any kind of schedule; I figured I'd just run whenever I could & not beat myself up about it.

~*~*~NVM WEEK 7 OF 16~*~*~

Grand Total: 31 miles, all easy. (I think my previous record for this trip is 15 or 18, so though I'd been hoping to hit 40, I really can't be too upset.)

Monday: 5 miles on the hotel 'mill. I had a free hour so I was like, "Eh, I'll just bust out a few miles, NBD." I was promptly reminded of how much I hate treadmills & how every mile feels like two & a half. Also I tripped the "emergency stop" at least twice so I have no idea how long it took me.

Tuesday: Holiday stuff

Wednesday: 8 easy in beautiful weather!

Thursday: Holiday stuff

Friday: 8 easy in yucky, windy overcast weather.

Saturday: Holiday stuff

Sunday: 10 easy

Sunday was maybe the hardest day of all. It was our last before flying out, and my grandmother's giant holiday party at her house (her four children, ten grandchildren, 15-some-odd (?) great-grandchildren, & all their associated spouses/significant others).

I really, really wanted to get an 18-19 mile long run in beforehand, even though I was not even remotely feeling up to it physically or mentally. Most of the time with long runs I can stay pretty positive but at just about every moment part of me was going, "Ugh, this sucks SO MUCH" (it was nearly freezing yet weirdly sunny & I had neglected to bring a hat, gloves, or sunglasses). Then I'd get annoyed with myself for being annoyed. "What are you bitching about?? This isn't even HARD. Some people are doing things that are *actually* hard right now, that involve choices & planning & tough decision making & all kinds of circumstances they can't control. This is not even HARD! Literally all you have to do is NOT STOP!"

So this went on for a while until I got a text from my mom being like, "Uh, where are you guys?" Apparently we'd been supposed to arrive an hour before. Sigh.

But like I said, I ran probably twice as far on that trip as I ever have before, and as much as I was hating it, I'm pretty sure I would have finished the long run otherwise & gotten my 40 miles for the week, so I really just need to be thankful that I have giant family that loves to see me & that I am physically healthy/un-injured enough to be like "UGH 31 MILES I MEANT TO RUN 40." That's gritty, real-life holiday gratitude right there, man.

I hope everyone had a great holiday / happy near year!!

NVM WEEK 3: I learn things. And drink a lot.

Don & I were in Spokane, Washington this past week for Thanksgiving visiting his parents, which is always a quiet, peaceful few days full of good food & amazing wine. This is what happens when your SO's parents are wine educators. (I, for one, have thoroughly enjoyed being educated by them.)

#gratitude #blessed #justkidding #getinmybelly

In addition to eating & drinking my weight in turkey, mashed potatoes, wine, and pie, I learned a lot of things this week. I will now recount these learnings in chronological order.

~*~*~NVM WEEK 3 OF 16~*~*~

Grand Total: 33.15 miles, all easy. Not the week I'd hoped for, but we'll get to that. Still, better than any other Thanksgiving travel week to date, which is something.

Monday: karate

Tuesday: 10 easy

My schedule called for 9, including 5 miles at goal marathon pace, but given how beat up I was still feeling from last week's sleep debt that refused to die, I decided to take it easy & not push for the faster miles. But, I threw in an extra mile to compensate for the skipped GMP miles, because that is totally how that works.

Wednesday: a.m. strength work / travel

I had a morning session with AT, which was fascinating. We did basically all transverse ab stuff to start, & learned that I am apparently not awful in that department but still not great. Then she had me work on holding a bridge position & then lifting each leg off the ground one at a time. Which? I learned that I cannot do. Not even a little. Which indicates that something in the glute/core area is just not firing, no matter how well I do on all the strength assessments. So my homework is to lie there in a bridge position & try to pick my feet up off the ground one at a time. Or at least try.

(Sidenote: Although my sessions with AT have thus far involved only the most basic, simple, non-impressive looking exercises imaginable, they are by far the hardest, most painful, & most sweat-inducing strength sessions I have ever done, and that includes CrossFit.)

After that I headed home to finish packing & get to the airport, which led to learning #3: If you must travel the day before Thanksgiving & can swing it, try flying out mid-day.

"Busiest travel day of the year."

The airport was absolutely empty when we arrived at 1:30 for our 3:00 flight, but the TSA folks told us that it had been a mad house that morning & they expected it to get bad again later with the after-work crowd. Apparently, we were flying right in the sweet spot.

Learning #4: By far the most pleasant way to kill time at the Oakland airport is to head over to Vino Volo in Terminal 2. (The airport is not that big so it shouldn't take long to find.) Since we'd given ourselves so much extra time in anticipation of crazy security lines, we had a solid hour to kill before our flight even started boarding.



Also Vino Volo has the nicest, most friendly servers/pourers you can possibly imagine (and probably more than than you can imagine, given that they were working in an airport during the holidays).

Thursday: 8.15 easy

I haven't been able to run much in Spokane recently thanks to a stress fracture last year & really bad shin splints in 2012, so I was thankful (HA!) this year to be healthy & rested enough to go jaunting around the just-barely-rural area where Don's parents live before Thanksgiving dinner.


There are miles and miles of empty road rolling past scenic farms, fall colors, & evergreens, with narry a traffic light in sight. It was a little windy but not too cold, & I got a healthy dose of hills that certainly rival anything I run regularly in San Francisco.



For the first few days there, the temperature stayed in a very reasonable 45-55F range. The low end of this is colder than we typically get in SF, so I was sure to pack plenty of tights, long sleeve shirts, ski socks, & gloves. On Thursday it was still sunny & low 50s, so I wore my thinnest tights, a light long-sleeve, normal socks, & no hat or gloves. It was a little windy in places & there were a few times when I kind of wished I had gloves, but for the most part, my outfit seemed pretty much fine.

Friday: 8 easy

On Friday I did the same route but backwards, which meant starting with ~1/2 a mile nice, gradual downhill followed by 3 miles of brutal up hill. Given that I don't really run a lot of brutal hills these days, this was, um, an interesting experience. On the other hand, at least it was paired with a 20mph tailwind.

On the other other hand, that meant I finished with two miles or so of short, brutal ups interspersed with slightly longer but still kind of brutal downs, and a frigid 20mph headwind. (I'd forgotten how hilarious it is to run downhill with a strong headwind, because you actually have to work to move forward.)

As a result of all the hills and wind, I actually got several good stretches in at close to marathon heart rate, which I figured was probably fine since I didn't run any GMP miles earlier in the week. It wasn't that cold (high forties, maybe) but thanks to the wind & little bit of drizzle, I definitely felt a bit frozen in places when I got back.

Saturday: Rest/eat/drink/etc.

Sunday: 15 long 7 easy

In my fondest dreams, I had hoped I would get a proper long run in in Spokane. Alas I wasn't feeling great Saturday night & then slept a grand total of 3 hours, so when we woke up to single-digit temps, I was very close to just calling it altogether. After lunch with friends, though, I was feeling considerably better & proclaimed when we got back that I'd just run until the sun went down. Unfortunately, that only ended up giving me a little over an hour (what with the sun setting at 4:30pm up there this time of year). But given that it was about 18F at that point & dropping fast, even in my thickest tights & ski socks, two shirts, two pairs of gloves, & a hat, I am not sure I would have lasted much longer (which is a shame, really, because I was just starting to get into a groove & totally could have run happily for way longer, except for the cold/dark/empty rural roads/etc.).

When I got back, I couldn't feel my skin in most places & couldn't actually stand more than luke-warm water in the shower because otherwise it actually kind of burned. I pretty much spent the rest of the evening sitting in front of this & trying to thaw out.



But yeah. If we'd gotten back from lunch say an hour earlier, I actually MIGHT have been able to get a long run in with no problem. Still, this is the most miles I've ever run in Spokane (by a lot) so I'm trying to be happy with it.

Also, let us briefly talk about what I learned regarding what your heart rate does when you travel.

These days, down in SF, my easy runs have pretty much all been in the 142-148 bpm range. Up in Spokane? *Completely* different world. At what felt like the same level of effort, I was consistently averaging 155-170 bpm. Yes, the routes were hillier, but even slowing to what felt like a super easy effort, I still routinely found myself in the 170+ range on long uphills, and almost never saw that number drop below 150. I can understand this somewhat on the colder days, but the first couple of days weren't THAT dramatically different from SF, so I've had a hard time trying to figure out what the difference could possibly be.

(And I'm pretty positive it has something to do with location. Six easy miles in Spokane on Monday, 12/1? Average heart rate 163 bpm, which is an all-time high for this particular base training cycle. Eight easy miles in SF the next day? 143 bpm, among the lowest averages I've seen. Go figure.)

My only real goals for this coming week are to break 40 miles & get a 15 mile long run in. If both of those happen, no complaints.

i have signed up for races.

RACES

I got enthusiastic last week & signed up for some races. What's more, I totally did that thing I absolutely refuse to do so much of the time & signed up for races that are a geological epoch away because of a sweet early bird discount.

The reason I (almost) never do this is because it seems to me that if you consider the two most extreme outcomes of this decision, they are:

1) Best case, I run the race, mostly forget how much I paid because it was so long ago, and if I do happen to remember that I got a sweet deal on it, feel vaguely pleased with myself for a moment.

2) Worst case, I don't or can't run the race & spend a month castigating myself every other day for wasting the money instead of sucking up the extra $20 or whatever to sign up when it was closer and I had a better idea whether I'd be able to run it. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GOOD DEAL ON A DNS.

But anyway, the money is spent, I'm now registered for two races, and we'll see just how much good/bad karma I've accrued by next summer, I suppose.

The first one is Bay to Breakers on May 17, thanks to a $39 one-day-only Halloween special. $39 may not sound THAT cheap for a 12K, but when you consider that B2B tends to run ~$70ish at full price thanks to its insane popularity, I basically can't afford NOT to sign up.

The second is Santa Rosa Marathon on Aug 23. I was already leaning towards giving SRM another shot next year & had been thinking about registering while it's still in the early bird phase, and then last week they sent out an extra $20 coupon. It's hard to pass up a $105 marathon less than two hours from home when you already know from experience that it's well-organized, a good course, etc. (See: Reasons I am bummed that the timing didn't work out this year for CIM.)

So, there are now three races on my 2015 calendar; it remains to be seen which ones I'll actually feel excited about targeting & racing hard.

There's one thing missing right now that I would really like to have on the calendar, and that's a solid, low-stakes half. I know I won't be in PR shape for a while yet, but I would still really like to get one under my belt between now and NVM. Unfortunately, the two best candidates don't fall on the greatest of dates for me. Walnut Creek is the day after Don's company holiday party and also a solid hour of driving away and a 7am start, and Kaiser Permanente falls on the weekend I'll be in Mexico for a friend's birthday. Pretty much every other half marathon between 11/22 and 1/25 (because I wouldn't want to do it any closer to NVM than that) seems to be either a trail race or farther than I want to travel. Boo.

SHOES

You are welcome for the extremely untimely Pure Flow 2 review.

Though it will be a while before I'm doing much running in the 10K/half marathon/tempo range, I have long been on the lookout for a shoe to fill the Wave Musha-shaped hole that Mizuno left in my heart when they discontinued that shoe last year. I have a couple of candidates that I picked up pre-stress fracture, but those didn't see much mileage this spring & summer given that I spent most of it recovering and then marathon training/fretting constantly about potential calf/tibia/fibula injuries. Then just recently, I got a couple of sweet deals on two other lightweight performance shoes that have been on my radar for a while. Now that I'm not imminently training for something or worried about calf/shin bone issues, I'm hoping I'll have some additional reviews up for you soon.

One of the shoes I picked up earlier this year is the Mizuno Ekiden, the second lightest shoe that Mizuno makes. (The Hitogami is slightly heavier/more cushioned & the Universe is like running in huaraches.)

Because of its lack of cushioning and support, I hadn't run in this shoe since March, but for some reason on Halloween afternoon I felt inspired to throw them on for a drizzly 7 miler before heading over to do spooooky things at a friend's place.

We have now reached the point in the evening where
everyone is wearing pieces of everyone else's costume.

I had never run more than about three miles in them before (this was when I was coming back from the stress fracture) and I didn't know whether I'd be okay in them for the entire seven miles or not, so I figured I'd run maybe two in them and see how they felt, and if I needed to switch into something else I could just head back home & then tack on the last three miles in a different shoe.

And damned if I didn't go on & have my best run in MONTHS. It took a mile or so to adjust to the harder, lower-slung feel of the Ekidens, but once I settled into them, they felt so great. My legs felt light and springy, and while the shoes may have been a coincidence, I ended this run with my fastest average pace in two months AND my lowest average heart rate. Although I can feel that my legs and feet were using some muscles more than usual, the Ekidens felt completely comfortable for the entire run. I doubt I would go much farther in them right now or run in them more than say once or twice a week, but over time I could totally see working up to wearing them for a half marathon or longer tempo runs. I promise write up a detailed review once I've gotten some more miles on them.

WEEK OF 10/27-11/2

Grand Total: 38.5 miles

* 26 easy
* 12.5 long
* 2 x 45:00 strength workouts

Monday: a.m. strength work / p.m. karate

I didn't expect to feel as good as I did the day after a 2+ hour long run, and part of me kind of really did want to get out for a few easy miles for class. Figuring my body would appreciate the recovery day regardless of how enthusiastic my brain felt, though, I managed to distract myself between getting home from work & karate with annoying household chores.

Tuesday: 8 easy

Not much to say about this run except that it was lovely.

Wednesday: a.m. strength work / afternoon 4 easy / p.m. karate

I actually went to bed at a reasonable hour on Tuesday, but for whatever reason, woke up at 6:00 still feeling exhausted. I forced myself out of bed, stumbled around for a while getting ready, then finally got myself in the car on the way to the gym by 6:30 (which is significantly later than usual). Unfortunately after a bit of driving I realized I was kind of weaving all over the lane & blinking frantically in an effort to keep my eyes open, so I ended up pulling off the freeway into a parking lot & napping for an hour instead. I did make it to the gym, but only to shower and change, which is kind of the saddest gym visit there is.

I didn't need to run before karate that day, but after missing my strength work & being cooped up inside inactive all day, I really just wanted to go outside & move & get some fresh air. It was also kind of cool to be out in the crazy pre-Game 7 energy.

Thursday: 7 easy

I'd been kinda-sorta thinking on Wednesday that I might go to the gym Thursday morning & make up the workout I slept through Wednesday morning.

Drunk/Belligerent Giants Fans: HAHAHAHAHA YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO SLEEP TONIGHT HAHAHAHA. HAVE ANOTHER M80!!!!

Police, Surly From Having Broken Bottles Hurled At Them For Hours On End: HAVE SOME MORE HELICOPTERS & SIRENS, MOTHEREFFERS!!!!

So it was like that until about 1am. BUT, the next afternoon, I had a lovely, very San Francisco-esque run amidst light fog and a light breeze & basically perfectly temps. So there was that.

Friday: a.m. strength work / p.m. 7 easy

Halloween. Ekidens. Awesome.

Saturday: Rest

Sunday: 12.5 long

I got up early(ish) to do this run since we had plans to spend the afternoon looking at houses & now that the time has changed I have that much less daylight in the afternoon/evening. Thanks to the time change, though, getting up early was actually pretty easy and I was happy to have running out of the way first thing. The run itself was okay, although it was warm out and I was getting a few hints here & there of the stupid right hip/thigh issues. I'm guessing that had to do with two higher volume weeks in a row and potentially the Friday run in the Ekidens.

So, it kind of works out that next week is going to be lower mileage by necessity thanks to weekend travel plans. I am going to try to get in some *slightly* longer runs during the week, but there will be no Sunday long run. Speaking of the cursed right hip/thigh issue, I've been talking with a local strength trainer who has a lot of experience working with distance runners (and is a pretty darn impressive one herself, which is always a good sign), and I'm hopeful that doing some really targeted individual work with her will help me suss out just exactly what the problem is & deal with it before I try to run another goal race.

SRM WEEK 2: The Slow Burn

On Sunday we cooked a whole pig in our backyard, and it was delicious.

We used to roast it out in the open on a spitz over hot coals. While that method does make for a damn tasty, fall-apart tender pig and there is nothing like waking up to a house permeated with the smell of bacon, that method takes like 15 hours for an 80 pound pig (talk about a slow burn), and after putting out one too many grease fires at two in the morning, we switched last year to the caja china method.

Cooking the pig in the caja has the advantage of taking only 4-5 hours, and also of fewer grease fires at two in the morning. And it still makes for a damn tasty, 95%-as-fall-apart tender pig.

The pig is pronounced tasty.

* * *

In non-pig-related news, most of my runs for the last two weeks have been about three miles. Some of them have been surprisingly difficult (particularly those on warm days and/or involving hills), but on other days they've felt pretty darn good. With week 2 now in the books, I've almost reached the point of finishing a twenty-five minute run & going, "That's IT? Really? When does marathon training *actually* start??" I won't lie and say that I have been super duper excited to run every single day, but there have definitely been times when spending twenty-three and a half hours out of a day not running has felt really strange and there have been a few mornings only twelve hours post-run when I've been so, so ready to lace up the shoes & head out. "Let me at that pavement. Bring it right the hell on."

Of course, those things are easy to say when you've got 36 miles down and 575 left to go.

I definitely have a history of being incredibly gung-ho at the beginning of marathon training (Every mile!! Every run!! All the cross-training!! No sleeping in!! Unplanned/complete rest days are for wimps!!), and then about six weeks in, realizing I am tired and sore and grumpy and unmotivated and screw it, I'm taking half the week off, because otherwise I may never feel like a normal human ever again.

This time around, I'm trying to remember the extremely meta advice that I've given several first-time marathoners: Marathon training itself is a marathon, not a sprint. The first few weeks aren't supposed to be that hard; if they are, you're probably doing something wrong. I keep reminding myself that Coach Tom scaled these first few weeks back for me, and he did it for a reason.

Which is to say, I am taking everything week-by-week, run-by-run. So far I've been able to do everything on the schedule (with one swap in Week 1), and though I've been slightly sore at times, there's been nothing insurmountable yet. Still, I'm making a deal with myself to remember how those past marathon training cycles have felt and not wait until I'm exhausted and burned out to take an extra rest day if I need to, skip the cross training occasionally, etc. It may seem counterintuitive, but it turns out (for me, at least) that skipping a few miles here & there early-on often means not skipping a whole bunch later down the road when it matters more.

* * * WEEK 2 * * *
(13 to go)

Grand Total: 21 miles, all easy

Plus:

* 30 miles bike
* 1.5 hours strength/stretch/roll

Monday: a.m strength work / p.m. karate

Not that I didn't already know this, but WOW have I lost some muscle in (basically) 5 weeks. 15 push-ups with the 25 pound plate is no longer a thing I can do; at best I can manage ~5-6. For the time being I've gone back down to the 10 pound plate. I went down 10 pounds for my back squats & deadlifts as well. The deadlifts felt about right, actually (sigh) but the backsquats felt too easy, so I may go back up to where I was pretty quickly with those. I wanted to get some biking miles in as well, but alas there was no way to fit it in with Monday's work schedule. Maybe it's for the best, though, considering that my legs still felt like Jell-O after karate.

Tuesday: a.m. 15 bike / p.m. 3 easy

Barely one week back from vacation and I am So. Stinking. BORED of my usual routes I could just wretch. Finding novel routes to run that start at my house is tricky because I live in the land of a) traffic lights and b) hills. I am not talking about nice, friendly, domesticated, everyone-should-run-hills-sometimes-it's-good-for-you hills; I am talking about the big, nasty, feral, soul-destroying, barely-runnable-if-at-all behemoths of central San Francisco, the types of hills from which no real benefit can be gained, in terms of marathon fitness. (Not least of all because coming back down the other side puts you at not-all-that insignificant risk of tripping & falling & breaking your neck.

Runnable in the most literal sense of the word, but not very useful training-wise.
(This goes on for like 4 blocks, BTW; the sidewalk actually turns into stairs at one point.)


It's less the going up & more the coming back down.

So, on Tuesday, I went a different direction & tried to figure out a new route near home that wasn't too heavy on the traffic lights or un-runnable hills, and mostly succeeded! I even found a nice view to look at.

Not too shabby as urban running goes!

Wednesday: a.m. strength work / afternoon 3 easy / p.m. karate

On Wednesday I went back to doing back squats with the same weight as before vacation, and they felt fine, so I'll probably stick with that for now. Hopefully I'll be able to add the ten pounds back deadlifts soon, too (and honestly...I keep being told I'm not using as much weight for either of these as I could / should, so maybe sometime soon I'll get brave & try adding a little more.)

Continuing the spirit of finding new routes/places to run, I stopped on my way home at the north entry to Sawyer Camp Trail. When I lived on the Peninsula back in the mid-'00s, I used to do my runs out-and-back from the south entry of this trail all the time, but I've never run from the north end.

Easy on the eyes, but MAN, that grade! Those crazy turns! That insane camber! I totally sucked it up on this run, so obviously I will need to try it again sometime soon.

Thursday: 4 easy

No bike this Thursday thanks to working from SF. Instead, I had a wicked sports massage in the a.m. I have recently procured a brand-new pair of Kinvara 4's as well as a pair of 5's & did my easy four-miler with one on each food. (Keep an eye out for a post comparing the two a la this one.)

Friday: a.m. 15 bike / p.m. 3 easy

Since I missed my Thursday morning bike I went back & forth on whether to make it up Friday morning or do my strength work as planned. It seemed more fair to make it two-and-two than three-and-one, so bike it was. After work I took Tuesday afternoon's route through my neighborhood, and BOY do hills suck right now. Which probably means I should be running this route more often.

Starting to have some annoying pain on the upper outside of my right calf. I've had it on & off over the years; what freaks me out is that that's exactly how the stress fracture on the left side started. :-/ Fortunately, running doesn't seem to be making it any worse, so for now it's watch-and-consult.

Saturday 3 easy

A quick one through the neighborhood; same old, same old, more or less.

Sunday: 5 easy + stretch/roll.

Squeezed this one in amidst pig roast prep & made it down to the Panhandle for the first time in five months, which was quite exciting! The pain in my right calf came & went, but never really got any worse, and actually felt a little better afterward, so fingers crossed.

On tap this week: 26 miles and (drrrrrrrrrum rollllllll) a track workout! On an actual track! Here's hoping I can remember how that sort of thing works.

How To Date (and not date) A Runner

Be still my beating heart, it's a Valentine's Day round up! FIRST, can we all just agree that this sounds like the worst idea ever?

Also, if matchey-matchey couples running outfits are now a
thing...maybe you could do me the courtesy of just not telling me about it.

It's one thing to run with your established significant other, or find yourself crushing on someone who just happens to already be a member of your regular running group. But that doesn't seem to be what this article is talking about. It seems to be referring to that early-on, you're-kinda-cute-and-nice-but-that's-about-all-I-know-about-you period, wherein you intentionally make plans with this person to go on a run together as a date. Why, oh why, would you put the object of your affection through such an ordeal??

Some people will be all, "But I'm a RUNNER, this is who I AM! S/he should know the ugly TRUTH about me right from the START!" To which I say, heeeellllllllllz no. No one wants to see all your warts up-front. They don't. I love to run, and I also love to run with friends. But the truth is, it's hard for me to put a date in the 'win' column if I'm kind of grossed out by the thought of touching you when it's over. See-ya-later-smooch? Not happening if you smell like a laundry hamper & taste like a salt lick. Is that really the impression you want us to leave one another with?

Frankly, I feel like Tip #5 says it all:

"DON'T spit or blow snot--even if that's customary
among your training buddies. You should control
whatever bodily functions you can."

If there is a number one rule-of-thumb for ruling out first/early date activities, concern regarding the control of bodily functions has to rank pretty high up on the list.

If we are just getting to know each other, I would prefer that you looked together and not winded and smelled nice and were able to speak easily in complete sentences and not kind of half preoccupied by your bodily functions. (And, honestly, I want those things for myself as well. If that makes me a diva, then bring me my tiara, darling.) Let's keep the mystery alive and save running together til the three-month mark, at least.

SECOND, as long as we're on running and dating--

I don't want to name any names but there is this one active lifestyle website whose mailing list I got on because they occasionally send out sweet coupons or race discounts. Realistically, though, I get about two of those kind a year, and twice a week or so I am treated to newsletter-type-emails telling me all about local endurance events I have no interest in, the most obvious/useless training tips known to man, and whimsical (I guess?) items that run the gambit from "utterly vacuous" to "someone got paid for this??" in terms of quality.

Recently said website published such a whimsical post informing us all about "How To Date A Runner." I thought maybe it was just a humor piece, but once I clicked through (COME ON I HAD TO), I realized that no, someone is *actually* trying to give us serious (or at least semi-serious) advice.

BEHOLD: How To Date A Runner (if you absolutely have to) (because seriously) (who would volunteer for that)

(Warning - I am about to give you all unsolicited relationship advice. I am qualified to do this because:

• I am a runner who has only ever been dated by non-runners.
• I have never had an argument with a partner over running.
• I have never had angstful passive-agressive unspoken non-arguments with a partner over running.
• I have never had a relationship end over running.
• This is the internet, why are we talking about qualifications.

What I'm saying is, I pretty much rock at this. You are welcome.)

Tip #1:

Advice: I am sorry you are dating someone who has never been in an adult relationship and has therefor not yet learned about things like "boundaries" and "priorities" and "not being a one-trick bore all the time." Goals / discipline / work ethic / etc. is one thing, but at some point you really just have to be able to say "Seriously, can we have like ONE CONVERSATION A DAY that is not about running??" If s/he has trouble with that, maybe tell your honey to get a blog & vomit their obsession onto the internet where only willing volunteers have to hear about it? (I am convinced that this blog has played no small part in why I still have a functional relationship as well as many happy friendships with non-runners.)

Or, hey, if you only need to see your S.O. a few hours a week and can totally deal with spending most of the time you spend together nodding and smiling while s/he drones on blissfully un-self-aware, again, more power to you.

Tip #2:

Advice: If you need reassurance from the internet that "No, really, dude, she is TOTALLY NOT AVOIDING YOU" and earth-shattering advice like "If x thing about partner is bothering you then you should probably talk to partner about x," you may have some other issues you need to work out. As for your self-centered, neglectful partner, see above.

Tip #3:

Advice: I like that this one ends with a period AND a question mark. It's kind of like the writer was like, "You should definitely maybe do that. I guess? Maybe.?" Since the author seems uncertain, here's an actual tip. If partner is like, "Let's totally do X!! X would be the coolest!!" and you are like, "X sounds like an utterly miserable waste of time to me!!" then you have some choices.

Choice 1: "X is not really my plate of tamales but you should totally go have an AMAZING time without me & we will do something AWESOME together when you get back!"

Choice 2: "I am not totally stoked about X, but since it's so important to you, I can hang." (If you go this route, you have to *actually* be able to hang, not be miserable and passive aggressive but keep saying it's fine. Basically you're accepting that this trip is about your S.O. & not you, so anything fun or cool you get to do is a bonus--no expectations.)

Choice 3: "I am not too sure about doing X because [reasons], can we discuss / maybe do [compromise thing] instead this time?"

This is called not having a dysfunctional, passive-aggressive relationship.

Also, what's with the weird assumption that the S.O. has to accompany his/her runner love to every race-related event? If it were me, I'd happily go along, but I definitely would not let myself be dragged along to the expo or press-ganged into being a one-woman pit crew for three/four/five hours. Hell no. I'd happily meet the conquering hero at the finish with a snack & a dry change of clothes, but that's about as far as my spously devotion extends. (I certainly don't expect my boyfriend to do more than that--and even then, only for a marathon--& he's put up with my running obsession for over six years now.)

Tip #4:

Advice: Firstly, massive side-eye at the OMG LADIES ARE DELICATE FLOWERS THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE ACTUAL BODILY FUNCTIONS WITH ACTUAL SMELLS, DISGUSTING!!! vibe happening in this "tip." We're all human. We all have metabolisms and personal biomes. I feel like most athletes I know are self-aware enough to realize when we're emitting eau de long run & jump into the shower before foam rolling getting in some core lounging on the couch with a recovery smoothie beer. But if on some days we're a little more brain dead (it happens), just be a grown-up and use your words. "Oof, girl, u ripe!" works as well as anything. My boyfriend is also fond of, "What's that homeless smell?" If your honey bursts into tears over this, well....you've got bigger problems in your relationship to tackle than post-run funk.

Tip #5:

Advice: Is there advice in here somewhere?

Tip #6:

Advice: This pretty much boils down to, "She likes a thing. A LOT. Which is not that weird because maybe there is a thing you like a lot too?" I feel like running websites & magazines would have us believe that we runners/endurance athletes are unique and special in how much we love our thing, and if you are not a runner, CLEARLY you can never have ANY IDEA what it's like to care about something SO MUCH, because running is *definitely* the only thing in life that people ever get really overly-invested in & obsessed with committed to. If you really never have been super duper into something, maybe work on a hobby or two before you get into a relationship with an actual adult human.

Tip #7:

Tip #8: So....this started out like the world's most obvious fact, transitioned into laundry advice (which I think is bullshit, btw), and finished with a healthy dollop of sexism.? Good times.

I don't know what the big deal about running laundry is. Drape it over the edge of the hamper for a day til it's dry. Then throw it in the hamper. (I do all my laundry pretty much every Sunday religiously, and seven days in the hamper has never created enough of an odor to notice unless you're sticking your nose directly in it.) Wash with the rest of your lights & darks as needed. I promise it will not melt/soil your normal clothes. Throw in half a cup of baking soda if you're concerned. Sports bras should probably air dry but honestly I don't see what's so special about wicking material of shorts, tops, etc. that it can't go in the dryer. I have been doing it for years so somebody please tell me if my running clothes are actually all broken from this & I should go out & get new ones right away.

Advice: This is again not an actual tip, but if you are this person, maybe you don't take your partner to races. I mean let's be honest: for non-runners, hanging out a road race is about as fun & interesting as watching paint dry (see tip #3). If s/he's not a runner, do yourself a favor & leave your sweetheart home in bed on race day unless s/he specifically volunteers to come. And maybe even if s/he is. (ProTip: If the volunteering only comes after shameless hint-dropping and/or passive-aggressive shenanigans on your part, it doesn't count as volunteering. If you really, really, really want them to come to something, use your words and ask, and if s/he's not enthusiastic, let it go.)

Also, this quote: "Honey, I'll never understand why you endure months of hard training, only to be disappointed on race day." YEAH HONEY, WHY DON'T YOU JUST STOP DISAPPOINTING YOURSELF ALREADY???

Tip #9:

Advice: Again, no actual advice, but why let that stop us? (Also, clearly a complete lack of familiarity with white noise and/or Peanuts, but that's neither here nor there.) This strikes me as just another illustration of the bizarre ONLY RUNNERS UNDERSTAND ABOUT BEING REALLY, REALLY INTO SOMETHING. The only real advice I have is for the runner gal hosting brunch, which is to DTMFA who equates "really into running" + "enjoys chatting about shared interests with friends" with "one-dimensional" & clearly has some kind of inferiority situation going on.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!!!!

(For more unique & awesome Valentine's Day cards, visit The Oatmeal!)

Winter Hols + Fueling Practice

Happy whatever-it-is-that-you-celebrate!! (Not working, making delicious treats, drinking a lot, and/or sitting alone in the dark enjoying the silence totally counts.) Don & I are hanging out with his folks in Washington state this week, which is delicious, quiet, & generally awesome. I am ready for it.

Running:

Even though 12.6 miles still doesn't really feel (in my mind) like an actual long run, I decided it was time to start putting all the fueling tips I've been reading about into practice & see how they work for me. My long run assignment this past Sunday was 95-105 minutes, which I'd originally been planning to push to 14 miles, but given that I was still having some not-insignificant pain in my left calf (see below) I decided to just stick to the hour forty-five.

Recently I ordered a box of key lime Accel Gel from Amazon:

Accel Gel because it's the only other one besides 2nd Surge that I know of that contains protein. (They are actually made by the same company; I think 2nd Surge is basically just Accel Gel with a bit of the protein traded out for caffeine. This would explain why 2nd Surge only comes in chocolate & espresso.) Key lime because it was on sale.

(BTW, if you use this link when you shop at Amazon, 0.5% of what you spend goes to a charity through their Smile program. They have a few you can pick from, or you can enter your own. Pretty sweet, no?)

I had one gel before I started, then another every 30 minutes, which amounts to 40g of carbohydrate per hour. (You might recall from this post that 30g / hour is the smallest effective dose in terms of improving performance, and the more you can tolerate per hour, the better.) This isn't surprising considering it's not all that much different from what I've done in marathons in the past; the real test, I think, will be figuring out how much I can tolerate at half marathon race pace. (Y'know....once I can run that pace again for 13 whole miles.)

The other thing I need to figure out is how I'm going to carry all these gels I'm supposed to be gulping down. For marathons I wear shorts and a top with zipper pockets, but for a half I'd rather wear lighter, less bulky things if possible. I do have one pair of booty shorts / boy shorts / whatever with a zipper pocket in the back, so those might work.

* * *

This wasn't the training week I'd planned on, but at the very least, I can say that I did as much as I could as well as I could without seriously injuring myself. Which is kind of the best you can ever do, I think.

Grand Total: 25.6 miles

* 11.5 easy
* 1.5 speed
* 12.6 long

Monday:

Karate + light strength.

Tuesday:

5 track. 1.5 warm up, 2 [3 x (300m @ 5:40 pace / 100m jog), 300m jog], 2 cool down. My legs still felt beaten up from my Sunday long run, so I was not super excited about this run. I don't know what I did, but by the time I finished my cool down, my right hip flexor (the one I tore) and the outside of my left calf were killing me. Much stretching & rolling ensued.

Wednesday:

a.m. strength work. My left calf felt *extremely* painful as soon as I got up. I was not confident at first that I'd be able to handle squats & the like on my busted leg, but it ended up okay. I did not relish the thought of running on it the next day, though.

We were supposed to go to karate in the evening, but Don got home late, traffic from SF to Berkeley was terrible, & neither of us were feeling great, so we decided to skip it. Usually if I skip karate I try to get in a short run, but there was no way that was happening.

Thursday:

3 easy Rest busted leg. I don't know why I had such a short workout on my schedule during a normal training week, but it was just as well considering that I could barely put weight on my left leg. Don's company holiday party was Thursday evening so originally I'd planned to get up early & do this run before work, but with as terrible as my left leg felt when I woke up, that was clearly out of the question.

But hey, the party was good!

We clean up alright. ;)

Friday:

1.5 warm up, 4 x (1600m @ LT / 1:00 jog), 1.5 cool down) 4 easy. My calf still hurt on Friday, but I was determined to see if I could get any running in at all, even if I couldn't do the tempo run. It was miserable, and my calf throbbed horrifically any time I stopped at a traffic light, but I got in four miles which is more than zero. I thought I probably could have forced myself through more, but I didn't want to risk doing more damage to my leg and jeopardizing my Saturday or (especially) Sunday runs. On the plus side, it actually did feel better after the run than before, and with the exception of the pain in my leg, I felt really good & wished I'd felt confident about going farther.

Saturday:

4 easy. What a huge, huge relief to find that although my calf still hurt, and walking was not incredibly comfortable, it still felt better than it had the night before and the short run I'd done on it hadn't made it worse. Also you can only complain so much about a day that ends with wine & bonfire.

Happy solstice!

Sunday:

12.6 long. Again, the leg felt better in the morning than it had the night before, which was encouraging.

Between my still-anemic endurance and achey calf, this run was tough. Like, last-10K-of-a-marathon tough. Something about the pain in my calf transferred itself up into my left hamstring, so that felt tight & painful as well & stopping periodically to try to stretch it out & loosen it up didn't accomplish much. Several times it occurred to me that it wouldn't be terribly unreasonable to call it good after an hour or an hour fifteen or an hour and a half, but if I was honest, the pain in my leg wasn't that bad--it was achey more than sharp and throbby the way it had been on Wednesday and Thursday, and it wasn't affecting my stride--and the whole point of marathon training is habituating yourself to mentally and physically pushing through that exact feeling.

(But GOD, was I still glad when this run was over. So, so incredibly glad. I am really looking forward to the point where long runs stop making me want to shoot myself.)

Brilliant Feats of Athleticism: Year-End Edition (NVM T Minus 12 Weeks)

Let me tell you, there's nothing like watching a bunch of your friends & fellow bloggers set *huge*-slash-jaw-dropping marathon PRs in sub-freezing temperatures to make you feel like a total slacker. (And by "watching," I mean perusing my Twitter & Facebook feeds while sipping chai from the comfort of my bed at 10am. Part of me wished I'd gone up to spectate, but my company holiday party the night before & the cold I've been staving off since Friday evening made that kind of a tricky-slash-moderately unwise proposition.)

To me, anyone who even shows up & finishes in sub-thirty temps is a trooper. But 7 minute PR? 12 minute PR? 15 minute PR? 26 MINUTE PR???

Seriously. Beasts.

Which only topped off an already amazing weekend sport-and-athletics-wise, since the night before we'd watched Stanford kick some Sun Devil booty at the PAC 12 Championship & secure a spot in the 100th Rose Bowl.

Needless to say, we're making travel plans.

At the 2013 Rose Bowl. There's something kind of cool
about starting & ending the year at the same event.

I'm pretty psyched.

~*~Running~*~

Running lately has been rather touch-and-go. I was doing fairly well, & then we went to Hawaii for a week. I did pretty well once we came back & even had a fairly not-too-terrible "race" race, & then we went to Texas for a week for Thanksgiving, where my choices were basically a) get some running in, or b) sleep adequately & don't alienate any of the 50 or so relatives that I only ever see once a year. Given that many of those relatives are over 80 or under 10, I went with option b), and came back sleep-deprived as it is.

I don't regret that choice--family trumps running now, always, & forever--but the timing of our vacation & the holidays has certainly made things harder for me as I start burning through NVM training time at kind of a terrifying rate. (12 weeks left, if anyone is counting.) This past week was not the training jump-start I would have chosen, but I did manage to salvage something from it, both mentally & physically.

Wednesday: 3 easy a.m. / karate + light strength p.m. This was my first day back from Texas, and after waaaaay too many near-sedentary days & five full Thanksgiving dinners (ah, the joys of large blended families), I was feeling desperate for some exercise. I got up early to hit the gym for a few treadmill miles, & while I'd vaguely planned on maybe four, the sharp painful place in my right tibia that's been bothering me ever since Berkeley started acting up around 2.5, which was just as well since one I hit three, I was not sure I could've gone another step. (See: sleep deprivation / general travel fatigue.) I was feeling a little better by the time karate rolled around, & it felt good to work hard & sweat for 90 minutes or so.

Thursday: Strength work a.m. / 6 easy p.m. Feeling energized (and rather delinquent in the strength department), I got up early to get in some push-ups / clamshells / squats / weird (and deceptively challenging) ball-sitting exercise that my PT has put me onto for the one rogue left glute muscle that doesn't seem to be firing quite right with all the rest. The run was not particularly fast but felt surprisingly good. (See: fresh legs)

Friday: Friday was when the wheels came off. I'm guessing I just tried to do a little too much too quickly after doing almost nothing since Berkeley, because WOW, were my adductors sore. Clearly no running was going to happen, since frankly walking from my office to the kitchen at work was barely happening. Which was just as well anyway, since later that evening I started feeling like I was trying to catch a cold.

Saturday: Still sore + still borderline sick = more rest, lots of tea, & a mildly amusing, alcohol-free (for me) company holiday party, in which I encountered this for the first time:

My 65-year-old boss requested this song special & was shocked & appalled to learn that most of the 20- & 30-somethings in the crowd didn't know it (though Don did, apparently). Afterward I had many questions, like, is my boss cooler than me? Is this what counts as 'cool' now? Have I avoided pop music for so long that I've lost the ability to understand it? And what the hell is going on in Norway?

Sunday: 10 easy. After spending the evening stalking Facebook & Twitter for CIM results, I decided I was feeling good enough to try to get in some double-digits (bringing my post-injury double-digit run total to three). It was only once I was done that I realized the plan had actually only called for 8-9 , which means I am a winner (as long as you ignore then two eight-milers I skipped on Friday & Saturday).

Ocean Beach windmill at the west end of Golden Gate Park.
Lots of rolling hills = great NVM training!

Things I pondered on this run:

• The longer the run, the faster my average pace, even with the same level of effort. (3-4 miles = 8:35-40 pace; 10-11 miles = 8:15-20 pace) I suspect that this is a combination of a) having more time to get warmed up & b) the 2.5 pedestrian-and-traffic light-infested miles I have to slog through to get to the Panhandle / Golden Gate Park.
• I'm in pretty decent shape in that 8:00-8:15 feels comfortable once I get going; I'm in rather shitty shape in that *nothing* feels easy once I hit double digits.
• I really, really suck at breathing cold air. Yet another reason why not being able to run CIM this year was a blessing in disguise.
• I most definitely do not feel like I'm 12 weeks away from marathon shape. Finishing a marathon shape? Not embarrassing myself marathon shape? Fine. Really good, worth-all-the-time-and-money, PR / BQ / sub-3:30 shape? Not so much. (On the other hand, if I stick to the plan, I will have more and longer long runs going into this race than I have with any other marathon I've run, so maybe that'll prove me wrong.)

So I finished this week with 19 miles, which is pretty piss-poor in general but not totally abysmal for being out of town for two days & under the weather / too sore to walk for two more. Next week's goal is 30-33ish, which I think should be very do-able with a little advance planning.