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.

Race Report: American River Parkway Half Marathon

At 4am this past Saturday, I got up and drove to Carmichael (Sacramento, basically) for the American River Parkway Half. Initially I signed up for this race because I kind of just wanted to race a half marathon after NVM & see what I could do. After talking to Coaches Tom & Ashley, though, I decided not to try to race. They felt that 9 weeks wasn't really enough time post-marathon to put up a strong enough half to make it worth sacrificing time for taper/recovery. So for a while I kept going back and forth about what I wanted to use the race for, and finally decided on trying to run goal marathon pace (8:00 miles) & seeing how it felt.

I would like to preface this race report by saying that this race was one of my most deeply unpleasant & miserable race experiences in recent memory (short of ones where I did serious injury to myself, which, spoiler, thankfully did NOT happen!). I mean it was so absurdly miserable at some points that in retrospect it's actually kind of funny. Still, if you are really into cheery, heart-warming race reports involving a lot of talk about personal mantras & believing in oneself & non-ironic uses of the word 'gratitude', you may be disappointed.

(If, on the other hand, you're into snarky gifs, I humbly submit it may be right up your alley!)

If I had a personal mantra throughout this race, it
was definitely "F#@$ All Y'all." Bonus points for anyone who
can get it for me on one of those cute little Kara Goucher necklaces.

My first observation upon getting out of the car at 6:30: It was not cold. I knew right then that my original race plan was in trouble.

The race website had listed historical weather conditions/averages (51° by 7:00 am, 53° by 8:00, 60 by 10:00, 64° by 11:00), so I'd done the mental math & figured, well, I'll be done by 9:30ish, so I should be running in 50-something temps the whole time, which is totally reasonable.

The day before, I checked the forecast, which called for slightly warmer temps (~65ish by 9:30 or thereabouts, I think), but also full sun. Now, despite the fact that I've run a number of races in the mid-to-upper 60s on black top in full sun, I always really, really want to believe that this will be perfectly fine, slightly-warm-but-perfectly-reasonable running weather, and not at all like running in the ninth circle of hell. Every time, I swear it will be the last time I let myself be fooled. For whatever reason, though, that lesson has yet to sink in.

(Also, I just can't not mention the ridiculously high percentage of runners/walkers decked out in tights and long sleeve shirts. Just looking at them made me sweaty. I even overheard one woman telling another, "I had no idea it would be so cold! I'm shivering," and her friend reply, "I know, I'm sooo glad I wore layers." Part of me wanted to shake them and yell, "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU??? IT'S 6:30 AND ALREADY NEARLY 60 DEGREES!!! DO YOU HAVE ANY *IDEA* HOW MISERABLE IT'S GOING TO BE OUT THERE? DO YOU?!?!?11?"

On the other hand, at least race organization was quite smooth, & the little tent city erected by the start/finish was easy to navigate. The first bit of staging I encountered was a beautiful line of port-a-potties with almost no lines. Then I went in search of the bib table, where again, I only had to wait behind one person (and only because her last name fell in the same range of letters as mine; the other volunteers passing out bibs had no line at all). I also walked right up & got my shirt.

Now that it was 6:45, I found myself with some time to kill. My loose plan was to do all my race prep (sunscreen, BodyGlide, hair, FlipBelt, bib, etc.), watch the walkers' race start at 7:15, then jog 2 easy miles before the runners' start at 7:45. (I thought it was cool that there were not only two separate starts for the runners and walkers but also two completely separate courses, both out-and-backs that headed in two different directions.)

The walkers' start

I am a weenie about cold and most of the time wait until the last possible moment to ditch my warm-ups, but this time I didn't even bother putting them back on after slathering up, and was already sweating after one easy warm-up mile in one of my thinnest, lightest tops. Not a good sign.

At 7:40 I lined up at the 8:00 min/mile sign, the Folsom High School jazz choir sang the National Anthem (OMG *SUCH* a huge improvement over the amateurish solo performances most races get), the horn sounded, and we were off.

Runners' start. For the record, the 23-year-old baddass in the yellow
top is Olivia Mickle, who a) has a blog and b) went on to win this thing in 1:17:34.

As with Foster City Ten Miler, my biggest issue in the first few miles was overriding the "RACE!!!!" reflex and trying not to go out too fast. My legs really wanted to run more like a 7:30-7:40ish pace and I spent a lot of time looking at my watch and trying to slow my breathing and relax, particularly since the sun was already getting hot and I suspected that if I was really going to try to hold an 8:00 pace, this race could end up being a lot harder later on than I'd anticipated. My first mile was 7:59 and I knew that was still too fast this early if I was trying to average eights.

The first couple of miles weren't too bad because there was more shade, but by the time we hit mile 3 there was less and less of it and more and more time fully exposed to direct sun. By the end of that mile I could tell I was working way harder than I should be to stay in the 8:00-8:10 range, which was a big blow to my morale because the whole point had been to practice marathon pace and I didn't really have a plan B. Should I try to hold the pace anyway, knowing it would be harder in the heat, and treat it as practice running the inevitably tougher second half of a marathon? Forget about pace & just try to run at marathon effort? Give up on marathon practice altogether & just get the long run miles in? Eventually I decided I'd just hold 8:00 pace as long as I could, and if I needed to run the last few miles at an easier pace, that was fine.

Mile 1 - 7:59
Mile 2 - 8:03
Mile 3 - 8:02

Through mile 4 I really struggled to stay positive because I could already tell how much the rest of this race was going to hurt. We'd run through a shaded section and I'd think, "This isn't so bad! I can totally hold this pace for 9 more miles, no problem. I can totally do this." Then the shade would end and immediately I'd be like, "NOPE! Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope," and the idea that there were still over eight more left to go would become utterly depressing.

Then we hit mile 5, which comprised a) a terrifyingly brief and steep downhill to go under a bridge, followed by b) a brief and barely runnable uphill, and c) a looooong, gradual uphill on gravel with absolutely zero shade.

My first thought upon hitting the gravel:

I actually don't think I have the capability to express to you how much I HATE running on gravel. Add to that an ENTIRE MILE of uphill in direct sun with nary a tree or aid station in sight?

No.

Just no.

I'm pretty sure I made it through that stretch purely on spite and the knowledge that if I collapsed and died now I would be unable to murder anyone for this god-forsaken stretch of hell's asshole after the race.

Mile 6 included another sharp downhill/back uphill to go under another bridge, and another long, fully exposed stretch toward the turnaround.

At this point I was way slowing down at aid stations, grabbing a cup of Gatorade to drink plus as many cups of water as I could carry to pour all over myself. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that for the entire rest of the race there was no period of time during which I was not desperately thirsty.

Mile 4 - 8:12
Mile 5 - 8:07
Mile 6 - 8:00

This picture is here so you can notice how my top is so completely,
100% soaked that it's sticking to me. I even had blisters from wet socks.

My inner optimist (not dead yet!) was super excited to reach the turnaround, but was then almost immediately deflated by the thought that I still had over six miles of this business left to go, which felt just impossible. (I mean not *actually* impossible, but completely and utterly pointless and miserable. I just had absolutely zero desire to run the rest of this race except that that seemed like probably the fastest way of getting back to civilization, given the lack of surface streets.)

I had hoped that because the first half of the race had felt mostly like a gradual but relentless climb, the second half would be a pleasant, subtle downhill. The problem with that logic was that the way out followed the American River Parkway bike trail, and at the turnaround you went down yet another brief yet super-steep downhill onto the levee trail. So, we got to spend the return trip on the lower trail gradually working our way back up to Parkway level.

I was holding my pace, more or less, but it was so hard, and people were getting more and more spread out, so you could spend fairly long periods of time running nearly entirely by yourself in the blistering sun. In tough races, I feel like the energy of people around me and the trappings that remind you you're actually running a race are a big part of what help me stay strong, but at this point there was just NOTHING for fairly long stretches. I might as well have been just out for a run on my own, which made all the misery start to seem like not really worth it.

(Also, while I certainly appreciate the musicians who volunteered to play on the course, I kept suffering crushing disappointment from spotting their tents on the horizon & mistaking them for aid stations. It kind of made me want to cry every time.)

I have a strategy for getting through the last 20-25% of a really hard race, which is to start counting backwards from 400 at each mile marker with three steps per count. (I think it's effective because it gives me something else to focus on and always helps me feel like I'm making some kind of progress when every tenth of a mile seems like an age unto itself.) So, I knew it was a bad sign when I found myself resorting to that mid-way through mile 7. My pace was definitely starting to slow, but I didn't really care; at that point I was just trying to run as fast as I could manage given the number of miles left, not because I thought I might salvage a kinda-sorta not-awful time but because I was so freaking miserable and couldn't bear the thought of staying out here any longer than I absolutely had to.

Mile 7 - 8:08
Mile 8 - 8:09
Mile 9 - 8:12

Weirdly, I found my pace picking up a little in the last 2 miles, probably because my mind and/or body decided that was a fairly manageable distance and it probably wouldn't kill me to run 0:10/mile faster. It was still hard and I felt like I might hit a wall at any moment, but at least it seemed like the folks around me were suffering at least as much or worse because, in spite of making zero effort to do so (see above), I found myself passing runner after runner as early as mile 9.

At that point the optimist poked its head up a little and I found myself thinking, "Okay, I don't really have speed right now, but what I DO have is a marathoner's strength and ability to endure a reasonably high level of discomfort for long periods of time." Yes, it sucked and I wished it were over, but physically, there was no doubt in my mind that I did actually have the ability get through it without the wheels coming off (which, to be honest, was also kind of depressing, because it kind of would've been a relief to just have my body quit *for* me).

I mean I literally don't think my brain would have let me slow down or walk even if I'd wanted to, because every part of me was just *so* opposed to anything that would delay the cessation of this wretched experience by even a moment.

I also had that weird experience that I kind of think I need to work on where with two miles to go, my body was 100% certain it absolutely, positively could not run even a tiny bit faster, and then HEY LOOK IT'S THE FINISH LINE, BETTER SPRINT THIS ONE IN AT 5K PACE BECAUSE WHY NOT.

Mile 10 - 8:13
Mile 11 - 8:15
Mile 12 - 8:08
Mile 13 - 7:57
13.1(7) - 6:39 pace

I would like it noted that I was so pissed at the end of this race that I actually went out of my way to take an ironically happy finish photo:

#blessed #yolo #gratitude #f&@$allyall

So, yeah. Final score:

Official: 1:46:29/13.1 miles/8:08 pace
Garmin: 1:46:31/13.17 miles/8:05 pace

Overall: 106 out of 1248
Women: 27 out of 791
A/G: 5 out of 15

Okay, WTF 30-34 women?? Where you at??

I'm trying to figure out what my takeaways are for this race, and here's what I've got so far:

• Even once it felt hard (read: mile 3), I hung on to within spitting distance of my goal pace for a good long while in spite of how completely miserable I felt. In fact, I think I was kind of using my anger and misery as fuel. Life skills!
• I had a rough few miles in the 9-10-11 range, but I managed to come back after that and finish strong even though I basically wanted to die, and I think that says something about the strength I've been building up even though I'm not fast (for me) right now.
• The runners who were ahead of me for most of the race were running sub-8:00 pace, and that period in miles 9-11 when my pace dropped off by 10-15 seconds was *still* when I passed the most people.
• I was never passed by a woman I didn't eventually pass back.
• Part of me keeps trying to be like, "Oh, look, your half marathon is worse than it was in 2010 when you barely trained. GOOD JOB YOU!" And so I have to keep beating that voice back by reminding myself that I've done zero LT training and almost zero speed training in nearly a year, and also instead of tapering for this race I ran a long, tough hill interval workout in 80° heat on Thursday (since I wasn't willing to skip a key workout).
• In a way, I feel like I kind of unintentionally did end up practicing the back half because things got just so hard so early. Then again, it's hard to say that anything ever really accurately tests your ability to run the second half of a marathon at pace except the second half of a marathon.

So, yeah. If nothing else, it was definitely good practice if not with embracing the suck, then at least with managing & pushing through it (er, sort of), which I apparently do via violent mental rage & imagery.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*LOGISTICAL STUFF~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Location: Sacramento, CA

Date: First Saturday in May (May 2, 2015 this year)

The Deal: This race is a fundraiser for the American River Parkway & is entirely volunteer-run.

Prices: $50 by 2/18; $65 by 4/28 (online deadline); $80 if registered at bib pickup (4/30 or 5/1) or on race morning.

Field Size: 1248 finishers in the runners' half marathon (I want to say they said the cap is 2000), 382 in the walkers' half marathon, & 224 in the 5K. There was also a half marathon walk relay and a half marathon wheel chair division.

Deadlines/sellout factor: There was race day registration, so you probably don't have to worry about rushing to sign up.

Staging:

The race was staged at William S. Pond Park on the banks of the American River. There were two start/finish lines (one for walkers that headed north & one for runners that headed south), lots of little tents for bib pickup/registration/gear check/local running groups/other organizations, a post-race food & drink area, and the obligatory giant line of port-a-potties.

The one thing that made me sad about the staging area was that there was almost NO natural shade, so the only areas where you could get out of the sun were the small tents, most of which were over grass. There were some picnic tables on concrete platforms, but these were not shaded. (Also there just weren't that many of them.)

The Course: From the website description of the runners' course: "For the runners, we start and travel along the scenic river-level trail until the turning point. From there, we turn and briefly travel back along the levee trail before crossing Sacramento's most famous footbridge known as the Little Golden Gate bridge - a classic suspension bridge that looks just like the most famous bridge in the world! Once you've crossed the river, you follow the Parkway's 'Lost Trail' for several miles taking in scenic views and running through forests on a path less traveled. Then, another crossing of the river over Sacramento's newest bridge, which returns you to the final three miles on your way to the finish line."

Part of me is wondering if maybe the course got changed between the time this was written and race day, because we definitely didn't cross any bridges (though we did run under the Little Golden Gate). Also, race directors....We have to have a little talk. This word 'scenic.' I do not think it means what you think it means. The only scenery on this course were trees. And not like particularly interesting or unique trees--just the regular kind. And there's nothing wrong with that! But don't call it scenic.

There were little music ensembles playing every mile or so, maybe, which was a lovely gesture, though I felt bad for them because, especially if they were past the first few miles, it must have been boring as hell a lot of the time. In the back half of the course when runners got really spread out, sometimes they would literally strike up a few chords as they saw me coming and then stop once I was gone (which I don't blame them for at all, even if course entertainment was my bag, which it's not). Speaking as a musician, I personally I am not a good enough person to volunteer for a gig like this.

Another thing to be aware of is that, because there isn't a lot of easy access to the Parkway, there's almost zero crowd support. There were a few knots of people here & there (also some surprisingly good signs, and I notoriously hate 'witty' race signs), but mostly you're just kind of out there on the open road. I don't usually miss crowd support but because this race was just so much straight, flat, nothing, it did get really mind-numbing at times and I just wanted *some* kind of stimulation to reassure me that, yes, I was actually making progress.

Something I thought they did a good job with was having volunteers out at spots to call your attention to things, like when we ran by this construction site & there was a big sort of speed bumb protecting a bunch of power cords running across the path to the site. They had two volunteers out there with big red flags being like, "Speed bump!! Don't trip!!"

Also, like I mentioned above, not much shade and a mile-long uphill stretch of gravel.

Parking:

This year different bib numbers were assigned different parking "zones" in the area surrounding the start at William B. Pond Park, with different arrival times. The race email had specified that my assigned parking zone should arrive between 6:00 & 6:30 in order to get parked and take the shuttle to the start. This was confusing to me because on the map it looked like the parking area (a residential area by the park) was pretty close to the start/finish area, but since the email included warnings like "If unforeseen circumstances interfere [with your arriving in the time window specified in the email], we will have bus service after your assigned arrival time, but we cannot guarantee on-time delivery," I decided to get there around 6:15ish.

Thankfully there was no traffic and thanks to the many signs it was easy to find and park in my designated zone (though, despite email warnings to the contrary, it did not seem like anyone was enforcing it.) I started walking towards the spot on the map with the little shuttle icon, but after maybe five minutes of walking towards the park I could see the start/finish, having never encountered a shuttle bus. (Later I did see a bunch of school buses driving around with runners getting on & off, but I never did figure out what the deal was with this since the parking was literally a 5-10 minute walk from the start. It would have been like a two-minute bus ride, max. It makes me wonder if some of the parking areas were significantly further away.)

Schwag:

Logo tech tee, nice medal, & I think the best post-race food I've ever had at any race. It was actually catered with different types of BIG wrap sandwiches (turkey, ham, veggie, etc.). I was actually really sad that in my post-race brain dead state I managed to douse mine in water. (I still ate almost half of it anyway.)

Overall Assessment:

I think this is a race some people will love and some people should never do again. It's a nice "big-small" race with a local feel, everything was well-organized and ran quite smoothly and overall they did a nice job with it. That said, it's unlikely that I personally will run it again, particularly given that it's almost 2 hours to get there and nearly 3 to get back (courtesy of west/SF bound Bay Area weekend traffic). It was maybe a little warmer than usual this weekend, but temps were really not much higher than historical averages and full sun in spring in the Central Valley is not rare, and I know from experience that I just do NOT run well in those conditions. Also, for me, personally, the course was mind-numbingly dull, and there is my intense, firey hatred for gravel to consider. But, if you live nearby and those things don't bother you, this could be a good choice for an excellent price if you're looking for a smallish, spring half.

Fleshing Out 2015........

HAPPY NEW YEAR, Y'ALL!! Here's hoping you are bright-eyed & bushy-tailed & ready to greet the day/month/year. :D

(And because I am told it is the order of the day -- If you're looking for a painfully earnest, dewy-eyed goal-setting post, allow me to refer you here. That's kind of all I've got, dudes.)

Friends, I run for one reason and one reason alone, and that is for the purpose of racing the shite out of my local events. So let us talk races.

I have a few picked out for this year so far:

Jan. 18 - Foster City Ten Miler. Essentially, this race is pinch-hitting for the half marathon I really wanted to get in between Thanksgiving & NVM. On the plus side, though, woo-hoo! Trying out a new distance!

Mar. 1 - Napa Valley Marathon. This is the race I had to defer last year because of my stress fracture & am fake-racing just for like, the experience or exposure or whatever. The goal here is not to run a particularly fast race, but really just to finish at a slightly-faster-than comfortable pace (80% is the number I've been throwing around) & feel like it did not suck.

May 17 - Bay to Breakers 12K. This is the iconic SF race that I got a sweet internet deal on on Halloween. It's too short for me to actually be in shape to kick ass at while marathon training, but hopefully I'll still be able to beat all the drunk and/or naked people.*

*(No but some of the naked people are hella fast tho.)

Aug. 23 - Santa Rosa Marathon. Unfinished business. Kinda wanna blow the doors off, if my body cooperates. 'Nuff said.

I'm not ready to think much farther than August right now, but there are still a few stretches in the first part of the year where I'd kind of like to get a race in if I can. It's probably not practical to hit all of these, but here are some others I'm considering:

Apr. 12 - Santa Cruz Half Marathon. I ran the 10K here back in 2011 when I was still pretty shitty at 10K's. Part of me wants revenge for that, but knowing that I'll still be marathon training in April & not in shape to run a great 10K, I'm thinking I may go run the half instead & see what happens. It's a solid six weeks after NVM, so I could conceivably be in not-that-terrible shape, all things considered.

June 27 - Pride Run 5K. I've run this race almost every year since I've lived here. Actually in 2011 I ran the 10K which I will probably never, ever, EVER do again, but the 5K is not awful and it's for a good cause, so why not?

July 12 - Jungle Run Half Marathon. This was my first half marathon EVER back in the day (2:16 baby!!) & ever since then I've kinda had an inkling to go back & give it another shot (now that I, like, train or whatever). It tends to be on the warm side so I wouldn't expect a PR or anything, but worst case I could always treat it like I did SFM2H this past summer & do it as part of a long run.

Call me a curmudgeon if you want but I'm not setting any 2015 Goals And Resolutions^TM. In the past I've sometimes set goals like PRing certain distances, but at this point I think I've sort of picked all the low-hanging fruit there & from now on PRs are going to be incredibly hard-fought battles where everything has to go perfectly, including a lot of things I can't control.

Another popular NY goal/resolution I've seen a lot of is participating in or completing a particular distance or type of event, but for now I feel like I've done pretty much everything I have any desire to do athletic-wise in terms of just finishing & there's nothing crazy & different really calling to me right now.

If I were going to "resolve" to do anything running-wise this year, it would just mainly be continuing to do all the stuff I can control, & do it better & better & more & more consistently (sleep, strength train, eat well, do the long runs, etc.), but to me those are ongoing things I'm more or less constantly working on all the time, so it doesn't really make a lot of sense to call them resolutions or goals.

Okay fine. Pie-in-the-sky, magical dream world? I would totally finish this year with a sub-3:30 marathon, a half PR, and over 2,015 miles, and I'm certainly planning to do everything in my power to make it happen. But I also know (from experience, sigh) that life happens & there's a lot that I can't control, so if none of it happens, the world will not end. (Honestly, I'd just settle for not being sidelined/in PT for months at a time.)

Happy 2015, all!!

Pumpkin Spice Nightmares & Some (very very preliminary) Race Talk

First things first: We all know that the best thing about Runner's World is Remy's World.

I mean seriously. If you still had any doubt that things have gone too far....

Whut

And of course, I assume you are all familiar with the popular urban legend:

I kid, I kid.

(No but it is liquid diabeetus, tho.)

On the other hand, I will brook no hatred toward my pumpkin beer.

Nothing like a Dogfish Head Punkin Ale after a fall long run.

There's a real art to pumpkin beer. I do not want a beer that tastes like drinking pumpkin pie. (Unfortunately, I get the sense that this is the type of thing a lot of pumpkin beer haters have tasted.) What I want in a pumpkin beer is something dark and rich that hints at cinnamon, nutmeg, & cloves, with just a kiss of pumpkin. (I almost want to just smell it, rather than taste it.) A pumpkin beer done well is a beautiful thing. A pumpkin beer done poorly makes one want to hurl.

RUNNING:

After declaring my Month of (Relative) Sloth at an end, I did some chatting with Coach Tom & another of the RunCoach staff, Coach Ashley, about setting goals for the next year & getting back on a real schedule. I told them about wanting to do nothing but super easy base training for a couple of months, then adding in one marathon pace run per week for a couple of months after that, and about feeling unsure whether I want to use my deferred Napa Valley Marathon entry (Mar. 1) since I don't feel like that's enough time to solidly base train AND fit in a marathon training cycle.

Their take was that devoting some time specifically to base training & nothing else was a good idea, but that waiting four months to add back speed/interval work was probably overkill. So I imagine it will probably end up closer to six weeks & six weeks instead, & I'll start adding some speed work in mid-December. They also thought I should go ahead and race Napa rather than doing it as an easy run, but as more of a fitness check than a goal race. They agreed that five months isn't long enough to be at my best (which is fine because it's not a GREAT course anyway), but it's long enough to make some significant progress, & running a full around that time just to see where I am isn't a bad idea. (Again, always assuming my right leg doesn't sabotage me between now & then.)

The two other races I'm thinking about right now for 2015 are the Newport Marathon on May 30 (Oregon) & Santa Rosa again on Aug. 23. I'm not sure right now whether I'd want to run one or both or which it would make the most sense to target as my "A" race; most likely it would depend on how the next few months go and what happens with NVM. The nice thing, though, is that both of them are great courses, small, pretty cheap as far as marathons go, and unlikely to sell out early, which means I can take my time deciding what I want to do.

If things go well for the rest of 2014, I'm also thinking of potentially running a half sometime in December, the most likely candidate being Walnut Creek on 12/13. Obviously I won't be in shape to race a half or shoot for a PR, but training for too long without a race gets boring, and doing a half about halfway between now and NVM could be a good way to see what kind of shape I'm in & how I'm progressing. I could race it as a half (knowing I won't be in top shape for it) just to see how I do; another option would be to run it at 8:00 pace (the marathon pace I'm shooting for long-term) & see how that feels; a third would be to run it at marathon effort level & see how that shakes out pace-wise. Options are many.

WEEK OF 9/22-9/29

* 25 miles, all easy
* 4 x 45:00 strength workouts, plus a smattering of random push-ups/crunches/clamshells/etc. here & there

The thing about the low-heart rate stuff is that, although it's only 25 miles, it's closer to the amount of time I'd usually spend running 30 miles. Ie, although my easy weekday runs have mostly been 6 milers, that's actually slightly over an hour of running now, which is about the same thing I'd be doing on my maintenance days in the middle of marathon training when I'm doing mostly 8 milers (though I'm taking more rest days right now).

Similarly, I'd been planning to run another 8 on Sunday just like the previous week, since time-wise it would actually be more like 10, which would be the longest period of time I've run since Santa Rosa. But that was before my plan from Tom & Ashley was in place, and that called for ten (which, time wise, would feel more like twelve). It was fine except for that same pain in my right foot that I've been having on and off all summer (and which I am just sure is related to the hip/upper right leg thing).

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

Tuesday: a.m. strength work / p.m. 3 miles with 4 x 0:30 hill sprints

This was the day I was supposed to go to RunSafe, so my original plan was to get a few miles in after work, knowing that I'd be doing more running there. Unfortunately there was apparently a scheduling mix-up, and they had to reschedule me for Oct. 6. At that point I was cooled down, showered, & changed, & just really didn't feel much like going back out for more miles.

Also, let me just say that if you really do go all-out, thirty seconds sprinting up a hill is maybe more of a workout than you'd think. Four of them were plenty.

Wednesday: afternoon 6 easy / p.m. karate

Thursday: a.m. strength work

Friday: a.m. strength work / p.m. 6 easy

Saturday Rest

Our friends had a fancy black tie wedding on Saturday, so we had fun dressing up.

That one's mine ;)

I suppose I cleaned up okay as well.

Sunday: 10 long

Hope you're enjoying all your favorite things about fall, even if that thing is hating on fall. :)

I promise not to make that horrible pun about how I am "back on track."

Admit it, a little bit of your soul dies every time someone does that. I kid, I kid.

On Tuesday afternoon I dipped my pinkie toe back into the world of speed work for the first time since last December (when my finished my workout by limping off the track with insane pain in my left calf), and what a gorgeous day for it.

My main goal, really, was just to not collapse and die, and my secondary goals were to maintain structural integrity in the calf regions and not embarrass myself. So winning!

My workout was two sets of 3 x 300m at 6:15 pace (so about 1:09 each) with 100m recoveries. When I'm in decent shape I shoot to do this workout at 6:00 pace (or 1:06ish each), and when I'm in REALLY good shape I can do it in the 5:30-5:40 (1:01-1:03ish) range.

The 6:15 pace was based on my Spring Forward 5K time, so I didn't know how hard or easy it was likely to feel at this point. I do, however, know that I have a bad habit of running intervals too fast, so I decided that I would just try to run them by effort & take it just a tiny bit easier than normal & not try to kill myself trying to hit specific numbers my first time out this year.

Kind of all over the map, but really not too terrible in general! Overall, I was pleased.

I still have a bit of a twinge in my right calf. It hurt a bit while I warmed up, felt totally fine running fast, & gave me just the slightest dull ache during the recoveries and cool down. Nothing too overly concerning so far, but you better believe I am stretching & rolling the heck out of it every night.

Of particular note to SF folks, I also learned from Coach Ken (who coaches a kids' track & field team from the Tenderloin every Tuesday evening) that apparently the city will finally (FINALLY!) be refurbishing the thirty-year-old track at Kezar Stadium later this summer. It will be open through July, then closed for three months while for construction. AND we're getting an extra lane! For me the timing works out fairly well; after July I'll only have 3-4 more speed workouts before Santa Rosa, & it's no big deal to do those somewhere else.

On Pithy Motivational Quotes

So the other day I bop over to one of my favorite web comics, www.NatalieDee.com, to see this:

Which really just proved yet again that Natalie Dee is totally my homegirl. (Seriously; you should check out the whole week.) No disrespect if pithy motivational quotes & images are your bag; we can still be friends. But personally, every time I see one I kind of throw up in my mouth a little.

This probably explains why one of my other favorite internet places is Despair.com:

The Natalie Dee comic kind of reminded me of the time I made the mistake of browsing the Health & Fitness section of Pinterest, & instantly went from thinking I was doing pretty well for myself (running 30-50 miles most weeks, martial arts Monday & Wednesday, not too terrible in the strength work department, eating lots of vegetables) to realizing that no, in fact, I am nothing but a giant slob of a failure:

{Backs away slowly...}

In theory, these little images & cute sayings are supposed to be inspiring; I don't know about you, but frankly, they just make me tired. (And to be honest...kind of afraid.)

Don't get me wrong; I understand the general sentiment, and there is sometimes a grain of truth. Delayed gratification is tough sometimes. Sometimes we do have to be a little audacious to talk ourselves into working hard for something. And in this sense, the pithy motivational quote/images aren't horrible. Realistically, they are a lot like porn, or bodice-ripper romance: all fine and good, as long as everyone involved understands that what they're looking at has a specific purpose, which does not happen to include representing reality.

In the case of "run/fitsperation" (and a lot of inspirational/motivational quote-images in general), I think the purpose is to help your brain do a little trick: believe something it really doesn't, want something it really doesn't, enjoy something it really doesn't, at least perhaps not in that very moment. It may not last for very long, but it gets you through whatever it is you felt like you needed to do & really kind of didn't feel like (because let's be real. People who are super pumped & really feeling whatever it is they're "supposed" to go do don't need inspirational quotes to get them out the door). So I'm not railing against the existence of this stuff; it doesn't do much for me personally, but it serves a purpose for some folks, and I think I understand why I can't go into a sporting goods store or read the internet without being inundated by it it has such a following.

As for why I kind of roll my eyes and derive so much glee from the spoofing of it? Because so many people just don't get that it isn't reality, that cling to these platitudes & clichés as if they are literally true and not just a device to help you temporarily tolerate a bit of unpleasantness. And when the pithy little quotes don't deliver, when the fledgling athlete's actual experience doesn't live up to the slick images and snappy slogans, she concludes that there's something wrong with herself. That she's doing something wrong, that she's an exception, & running/exercise/whatever it is just isn't "for" her. And that becomes a reason not to try.

Friends, I am here to give you the straight dope on motivational sayings. Heed me.

Pithy quote:

Reality: Pain is your body's way of sending a warning to your brain. Obviously, no one is getting through a speed workout or setting any new PRs without a little discomfort. But there's a difference between the *discomfort* of a brief or infrequent all-out effort or pushing your body slightly further than it's used to as part of smart training and the *pain* of impending damage. There are many, many instances where easing up or stopping because of pain is the smart, safe choice. (You can ask me about that sometime, if you want...)

Pithy quote:

Reality: GIRL. Unfuck your shit. Stat.

I mean, get the sentiment here. I do. It is a great gift to be able to use running (or whatever) to get some endorphins going and take your mind off your problems. But that's different than running from those things. Bills/work/routine/commitments got you down? By all means, go for a run & get your head straight; then go back and actually deal with your problems. Going for a run to feel better doesn't actually count as addressing them.

Pithy quote:

Reality: Sometimes this is true. It's okay if it's not. You aren't broken or doing it wrong or anything. Running just doesn't fix everything all the time.

Pithy quote:

Reality: Not necessarily. The run you go on when you're sick or hurt or sleep-deprived or have other responsibilities to deal with is probably not better than just letting it go. While it's rare that I'm like, "Well that was kind of a bad idea" & wish I'd just stayed home with a good book & a bottle of wine, it does happen. In fact that's pretty much how I'd categorize every run from the week of December 16.

Pithy quote:

Reality: You might not love the burn. It's okay. I personally detest the burn. In fact, I am a firm believer that there are two kinds of people: those who abhor the burn and liars. Also that picture is photoshopped.

Pithy quote:

Reality: Honestly, relying on a recreational activity to define you as a human being is a lot to ask. It is something I've seen people try more than once and it rarely ends well because the real, true, underlying problem has not been addressed. If you're truly having an identity crisis, taking up a new hobby or setting a big goal isn't a bad idea necessarily, but again, please also do something to help you address the real problem.

Pithy quote:

Reality: What. Tha. Eff.

Seriously. Get some help. That shit is above my pay grade.

Makin' Fun of Pinterest: Part 2

CIM Week 1 of 14: New Beginnings

Fall has always felt like a time for new beginnings. You'd think that distinction would belong to spring, but I think I've spent too much of my life in academia to see it any other way. Part of it probably also comes from being a football fan. (Sorry, but I just can't get excited about baseball or basketball.) To me, summer always feel like a respite, a calm, lazy season in which to recharge and rejuvenate before the electric buzz of September sets in. Once the corduroys hit the shelf, butternut squash shows up at my local farmers' market, and bloggers start humping pumpkins like it's going out of style, suddenly it feels like all kinds of exciting things are afoot.

(I mock because I love. I am kind of a big pumpkin fan myself. ;-D )

There are other new beginnings going on for me, not the least of which is my transition into a new regular-person job. Obviously this comes with a lot of pros, but one of the biggest ones for me is a predictable schedule and not having to work on evenings & weekends. Which has all kinds of benefits.

I also have a new training plan, which for me always feels a little like wiping the slate clean. For whatever reason, I seem to plan my running years in four-month trimesters: January - April, May - August, and September - December. Not intentionally or for any specific reason; it just seems to work out that way. This year it was because I'd signed up for a race at the end of August, and didn't really have the bandwidth to think much beyond that. But the pieces are falling into place. I have a very sassy, very autumnal fall half marathon coming up in October:

And in case you've been living under a rock and haven't seen a bajillion emails / facebook posts / tweets about it, this race just sold out...

So you can probably guess what the deal is with that. :)

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

I'm not quite ready to call this "Week 1," although I guess technically it kind of is. While I didn't really race Santa Rosa, I still worked pretty hard & ran farther than I had in a month & was pretty sore on Monday and Tuesday, so I've spent this week recovering with mostly short, easy runs.

Grand Total: 24, all easy (er...sort of)

Monday: Rest / hang out with my college roommate, who was in town for a few days.

Tuesday: 4 miles easy. Mostly I figured I'd just start running & see how far I could get before I stopped feeling easy. Which happened after about a mile. My hamstrings and glutes felt sooo tight, and my calves/Achilles were back to that threatening-to-cramp business they were pulling last week. I just kept it nice & slow, though, & figured I'd get to 4 if I could & then call it good.

Wednesday: karate + strength work. Actually felt pretty good, which has been unusual for karate as of late.

Thursday: some unspecified number of easy miles Without going into unnecessarily melodramatic details, the universe thwarted my plans and I instead ended up driving 50 extra miles & also cooking tailgate snacks until one in the morning. Ah well.

Friday: 4 miles easy. Friday was kind of awesome. I knew I'd be leaving work early to tailgate (GO STANFORD!!) & wouldn't have any running time Friday evening, so I attempted a lunch break run for the first time ever. I knew there were some lovely (paved) trails near & around my new office, so I brought my running clothes & shower things & went exploring. And wow! Gorgeous! Next time I will have to snap some pics to share. In the mean time, please enjoy these shots of the area from the internet:.

Full disclosure, the physical experience of this run totally blew. I felt the way I did in January after taking a month off post-CIM -- completely out of shape and utterly miserable by mile 2. However, I am willing to overlook that & focus on the victory that is figuring out the logistics of a mid-workday run. Between the shower & the beautiful routes, my workplace seems sort of made for runners. Once I'm feeling normal again, I plan to take full advantage of this. :)

Saturday: 6.25 easy. My usual loop to the Panhandle & back. Made it through, but I'm playing fast & loose with the word "easy" here for sure.

Sunday: 13-14 long 10 easy. And by easy, I mean ass-hard. Like really. I'm thinking back over the entirety of my running career and I cannot remember running a tougher ten miles, ever. By mile two I was absolutely miserable and really, really wanted to quit. Also at mile three. And four. And six. And you get the idea. GOD, was it miserable.

Things got a little easier around 7-8ish. Cardiovascularly (is that a word?) I was doing fine & could've made it three more miles no problem, but since my legs had been dead at mile two and every time I stopped at a stoplight or water fountain they felt feverish & throbbing with pain pretty much everywhere below the knee, I decided that the end of my ten-mile loop was probably the smart place to stop. Ugh. For the rest of the night I felt like I'd just run 20 miles.

This is the toughest week of running I've had in a long, long time. I'm clearly still recovering from basically not running in August "racing" on Sunday, but I'm if nothing else an optimist. I've had sucky weeks before and I'll have them again. I fully expect that I'll be feeling normal again in a couple of weeks.

In the mean time, I am reveling in the energy that comes with a new season, by which I mean both fall (even though it doesn't feel all that different yet here in SF) as well as marathon season. As recently as July, I couldn't even think about running another, but now, eight months removed from the experience, I'm actually pretty excited about number 2. Like, really, REALLY excited. (Here's hoping I can keep that attitude up all the way through November!)

Part of the reason I'm so excited about CIM is because so many other people I know are also running it, and I really enjoyed the feeling of working hard and training for something at the same time as so many other friends & nearby bloggers last year. (I'm kind of sappy that way.)

Post-race brunch in Sac-town. I love these ladies. :)

It was partly because of that that CIM was such a great way to end the year last year, and I expect that this year will be equally epic.

Are you running / volunteering / spectating at CIM this year? Will I see you there?