OMG can we talk about Marie Kondo for a hot second

As a kid I was an extremely messy, super hoarder-y person. I almost hyperventilated when somewhere around second grade my mom suggested that perhaps we didn't need to keep every single paper I ever brought home from school, and I definitely kept mental track of every toy and piece of clothing I had and fished them out of the trash/donation bin any time she tried to sneak something out that I didn't need or use anymore. I even hoarded a dead pet fish once because I couldn't bear the thought of parting with it. I can't possibly describe the face my dad made when he found it a week later.

But, somewhere along the way (late high school? College? Just after? I suspect having to pack and unpack and move around a lot had something to do with it), I began to abhor clutter. Having too much stuff, especially stuff I didn't really use anymore, started to bother me. Don't get me wrong, I was still super sentimental about stuff & had a hard time parting with stuff if it still seemed kinda-sorta semi-useful, but the time and effort and energy spent dealing with extra stuff sometimes started to win out.

I think every time I've moved, I've gotten a little more annoyed by clutter (mostly having to move & store it) & a little more courageous about thinning the herd of things I don't really use (including sentimental stuff). More and more I appreciate open, empty spaces and the idea that every material object I own pulls its psychic weight in some way.

So, when I first ran across The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I was intrigued. Not every detail of Marie Kondo's now-famous system resonated with me, but I found it thought-provoking and definitely found a number of her suggestions useful. And I really liked the underlying message (or, at least, it seemed to me) of really, truly appreciating the material belongings you have and avoiding the consumerist trap of more is always better. As with most self-help-type things (and I am kind of a self-help junkie!), I basically took what seemed useful to me & ignored the rest.

Unless you've been living under a rock you've probably heard that Marie Kondo now has a Netflix series of the same name where a person or family or couple request Marie's help with organizing & decluttering their space. Marie & her interpreter then descend on the home in question and lovingly (so lovingly!) guide the clients through a month-long process of "KonMari-ing" their space.

Friends, I binged the whole first season over the winter holidays & I regret nothing.

The Pros & Cons of Going Carless

Back in January I was savagely rear-ended on the freeway by some idiot going 90-100mph and somehow managed to escape without injury or crashing my car into the freeway divider or another car. (Like, it was a close thing. I cannot BELIEVE how lucky I was.) While I was fine, my 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid was totaled. AAA towed it to a body shop for me, but the kind manager there very gently informed me that repairing it would involve essentially rebuilding the back half of the car, and that I'd just done $10,000+ worth of damage to a car that at this point was worth *maybe* $4,000.

CIM WEEK 2 of 18: Escape From NY (barely)

The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. How many times have I met up with friends here for group runs or looped past it during long runs? The world may never know.

This wasn't the dumbest week ever but it was kind of close. (That distinction probably still belongs to this week.)

What's In My Race Bag: Local Edition

If you've ever read blogs written by ladies with nice-looking toenails (lololol), there was a "What's In My Purse?" blog post meme going around a while back. In celebration of the fact that by the time you read this I'll probably (hopefully??) have my first race of 2016 under my belt, I'm playing the distance runner version: What's In My Race Day Bag?

Today's race is a 10K ~45 minutes or so away, so this is the local edition. (I think we can all agree that things get a bit more complex if you're overnighting in exoticccc landzzz.) Keep an eye out for a separate post as we get closer to Eugene!

• Road ID. I finally broke down & got one of these a few years ago when I won a gift certificate in a local race. Honestly I've read/heard enough upsetting stories about unfortunate events related to running alone that I really should have done it a long time ago. WHAT'S STOPPING YOU? Seriously, go buy a Road ID or similar right now. They're actually super cheap & will give everyone in your life a little extra peace of mind.

• Garmin. Like, duh. Except not, actually, given that I drove halfway to a 10-mile race last summer before I realized I'd forgotten a Garmin.
  

• Albuterol inhaler. I have exercise-induced asthma, but these days as long as I use my inhaler before running, I almost never have problems. Every now and then, though, I have an attack while or after running, and that's definitely a situation where I absolutely do NOT want to get caught without the inhaler.

• Body Glide. Also probably not surprising.

• Sunscreen. No one likes skin cancer.
  
  Currently loving ThinkSport. SPF 50+, nice consistency, smells good, & free of all the nasty ingredients you often find in the bigger brands.

• Toilet paper. TRUST NO PORT-A-POTTY! Last summer at that same 10-mile race, my spare roll of TP saved at least a dozen runners from certain disaster.

• Sunglasses. I'd always rather have them and not need them than vice versa.

• Cap. I usually throw a cap on if it's hot, sunny, or raining. Again--rather have and not need than vice versa.
  
  Fav.

• Hair bands & clips. Never hurts to have extras!

• Safety pins. Races nearly always have these available and I don't think I've ever actually needed to break into my stash, but it makes me feel better somehow to bring them.

• Post-race clothes. At a local race, I usually don't really change after--just throw on a dry T-shirt if it's hot, or a warm-up jacket and maybe pants if it's cold. But, every now and then I've finished a race really desperate to get into fresh dry clothes (especially if it's not a quick drive home), so I'd definitely rather have them & not need them than vice versa. (If it's more than an hour home, I usually prefer to do future passengers in my car a solid & change instead of marinating in my stink while it seeps into the upholstery.)
  

• Plastic bags. Like I said, sometimes wet, nasty things need to get off your body like NOW.

• Hand towels. I like to be able to towel myself off after & one never knows what will be available for this purpose at the finish.

• Flip flops. I like to have them handy in case I just cannot even with shoes post-race. Sorry not sorry. (Though actually, I almost never put them on.)
  

• Lacrosse balls. Sometimes my legs get really angry post-race and I just know that getting in my car & sitting for a while isn't going to end well.

• Kinesio Tape. Just in case!
  

• Water bottle. Most races have water available in some form at the start, but not always, so I don't count on it.

• Chemical ice packs. I started bringing ice packs to races after my first marathon when I finished desperate to ice my hip and there was like a 45 minute wait for ice packs in the med tent. I've never used one but I've also never worried about it.
  

• Tylenol. Sometimes this is nice to have post-race. (Anti-inflammatories make tendons and ligaments weaker & stops muscles from getting stronger so things like Ibuprofen are maybe not the best choice for post-race or workout. Or, like, ever, if you're trying to get faster & stronger.)

• Post-race snack. If I finish at, say, 10:00am and wait around say half an hour for the result and then drive say an hour back home, odds are good I might actually kill the first person I encounter in SF in a fit of hanger, so again, this is really all for the benefit of mankind in general. (Some races have post-race snacks which I definitely appreciate, but sometimes you don't know for sure or you don't know how you're going to feel about what they have.)
  
  Current favorite. I love these things & buy them by the crate!

What's in your bag when you're racing relatively close to home?

Welcome to My Nightmare: Running Anxiety Dreams

Last night I dreamed I was running CIM with a friend who has also run it before, but never the same year as me. We are generally in the same ballpark pace-wise, so in my dream we decided to run it together. I was extremely worried about forgetting the route and going the wrong way (I blame this on the fact that I've mostly run super small local races this year where that is actually a concern), so since she has run it more recently than me, she drew me a rough map which I stuffed into my pocket. Our goal was to run 8:00 miles, so we started out doing so, and I was relieved to find that they felt fairly comfortable and easy.

We passed mile marker 15, which is traditionally the hardest point for me mentally in a marathon (15 miles is really far, and you've still got over ten miles left to go), and I was feeling really over the whole thing & just wanted to be done. "Remember, this is the part with the hills," my friend told me, and I remember thinking, "Ah, yes, everyone thinks CIM is just easy downhill, but they forget that there are actually some pretty big hills in there." (This is not true in real life. There are no big hills whatsoever.) Nevertheless in my dream the course went steeply up, up, up, broken only by a few short plateaus. My friend started to really struggle after the first couple of steep parts, so I threw her arm over my shoulder and basically dragged her all the way to the top. (You had to climb through a fence, too, which I also dragged her through, thinking to myself as I did so that perhaps that was not the most efficient strategy.)

The payoff for the set of big hills, though, was a twisty slide on the downhill side that let you built up so much speed that it shot you out like a cannon at the bottom, and runners were meant to fly through the air a short ways, then literally hit the ground running. Soon after this I realized I'd lost my friend. I stopped & tried to see if I could spot her somewhere behind me, but it was like she was just gone. We'd agreed at the beginning that we didn't have to stay together if one of us started to struggle with the pace, so after a minute of looking I gave up & kept running.

(Also, it was dark. I have a had a lot of running dreams where the race takes place in the dark. Not exactly sure why.)

Around this time, a guy started running with me who reminded me a lot of a former co-worker. We had some conversation about how he was either trying to run the same pace as me or had the same goal time or something and so we decided to run together for a while, but he kept getting really upset that the pace was too hard and maybe he wasn't going to hit his goal time. And I kept looking at his watch (not mine, for some reason) & being like, "Uh, dude, the reason it's hard is because we're running 7:10 pace right now." But instead of being concerned about this, I decided it was a good thing because it felt easy for me right now and maybe I could bank some time. (#dreamlogic)

Soon after, we entered the shopping center portion of the course, which I remembered from my friend's hastily sketched course map. (I'm not sure why, but many of my racing dreams also seem to feature running through shopping malls.) My not-co-worker and I tried our best to follow the course, which was marked by yellow police tape, but mall workers kept redirecting us to go back because we'd gone the wrong way. "You have to go to the left of the Estée Lauder counter and then to the right of the Dior counter," a woman told us disapprovingly in the make-up & perfume section. I wanted to scream because I felt really good for this late in a marathon and I knew we were just barely right on pace and all this going back business might cause us to miss our goal time. Finally we reached a point where there were no other runners around and the police tape marking the course was wrapped comically around the mall railings and kiosks and even knotted in places, making it impossible to tell which way to go.

"Which way?" I asked a mall attendant frantically, who just kind of glanced uncomfortably around at the tape and shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe that way?" Why are you people all so incompetent?? I demanded in my head and pulled out the map my friend had sketched me, knowing as soon as I did that a) it was not detailed enough to tell me how to get out of the mall and b) there wasn't much race left to go and I still needed to make up a LOT of time. I'd lost my not-coworker at this point so just head in the direction that made the most sense to me. (I had the vague sense of other runners around, but somehow none of them were in front of me or running in the same direction.)

And that's all I remember.

I read on the internet that something adults should stop doing after the age of 25 is telling their dreams to anyone other than a significant other or therapist, so, if that's true, sorry.

HOWEVER, I'm not the only one doing it, because I've had enough conversations with fellow runners to know that I know I am not alone in having running anxiety dreams. And just as with showing up to work or a party naked or having your teeth fall out, there do seem to be some fairly common themes:

• Being unable to find the start. I once had a dream that my mother was driving me all over San Jose trying to find RNR San Jose and after like an hour of driving around we still couldn't find it. I was freaking out and she was soooooo angry at me, which made me even more upset & eventually made me cry.
• Uncertainties about the course (see above). This is definitely not the first dream I've had where it was unclear which way to go and the race volunteers didn't know either. (Though, this has happened to me in real life, so...)
• Thinking you've set a huge PR only to find out that you either turned around in the wrong spot or cut the course super short in some other way. I dreamed once that I ran a three hour marathon & everyone was congratulating me, and I kept telling them, "No, really, you don't understand. Something is very very wrong here." And it turned out I'd cut some kind of dog leg or something, and then everyone was angry and accusing me of cheating.
• Arriving at the race only to realize that I have forgotten to wear or bring running clothes, and trying to race in jeans & sandals or some such.
• There is no finish line. Or you can't find it for some reason. SF Track Club workouts at Kezar Stadium sometimes overlap with a Nike training group, and since "There is no finish line" is their mantra, I had a pretty amusing conversation with a Nike dude once about how those words made me shudder because they were my actual, literal nightmare.

Do any of these dreams resonate with the masses? Have you had other, more different upsetting running/endurance racing dreams? Should I stop telling my dreams to people now that I am an actual, grown-ass adult?

Hey, look what came in the mail!

This is the series (is it a series if it's only two races?) medal we were supposed to get for running both the Foster City 10-Miler & Sunnyvale 10-Miler that I was unable to find out anything about after the Sunnyvale race. It actually exists!

Also this, about which I had no idea:

It's always nice to feel appreciated!

Finally, the package also included a finisher shirt for each race, both of which I already have in one size smaller.

Your guess is as good as mine on that one. Maybe they had leftovers & it was cheaper than more traditional packing material.

Dreams really do come true, yo.

I. Am. BACK.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but my boyfriend is a rock star:

Actually, that's inaccurate. Really, he is a funk/soul star, since his band plays funk & soul music & not rock music. For the most part they've spent the last 15 years or so playing bars, weddings, & smaller local music venues, but this past Saturday they had the chance to play one of the bigger name clubs in the city, Bimbo's 365 Club in North Beach. They opened for another band Don used to play in, a 14-piece Michael Jackson tribute band that has skyrocketed to national recognition in the last few years. (Don had to quit because they got too busy.) Both shows were fantastic & it was so much fun to see Don's band on stage at Bimbo's.

I even got a haircut to mark the occasion:

Before!

After!

Getting my hair cut is not something that happens very often so it is kind of a big deal.

(I may or may not have also been feeling a little too in touch with my inner Shetland pony.)

RUNNING:

On Saturday I'd planned to run 4 easy miles, but we had errands to run & a bunch of stuff to do before I headed off to get my hair cut & Don headed off to set up for the gig, so in the end it didn't happen. In retrospect, though, that was probably for the best -- it meant I was fresh and rested for Sunday, and that I didn't increase my mileage too much over last week.

On Sunday, my original plan had been to just try another five miler like the previous Sunday & see how that felt, but since I didn't run on Saturday and was feeling pretty good, I decided, "Screw it. We're going to six."

Six is significant for a couple of reasons. Most obviously, it would be my longest post-M2B run to date. But the other thing about six miles is that it's always been my standard day-in, day-out, just-get-the-miles-in distance. There is a perfect little loop that runs from my house to Golden Gate Park & back that I'm pretty sure I could navigate blindfolded and backwards, and if whatever else I'm supposed to be doing falls through, odds are good I'm out on that loop. Six miles, to me, feels long enough to count as a "real" run, but short enough that it doesn't require extra time or planning or actually having to think.

Attempting it made me a bit nervous because 1) I'm still having trouble running at an "easy" pace, and on some days even four miles at definitely-faster-than-easy-Run-With-The-Butt^TM pace still still feels really hard, 2) 2/2.5/3 miles is a long walk home if I got that far & suddenly my hip started to hurt, and 3) I really, really, *really* didn't want to try for six and fail.

I compromised a little by running my first mile maybe half with the butt -- I tried to focus mostly on leaning forward at the hips while keeping my shoulders back, chest up, and elbows in, still clenching my abs, glutes, & inner hamstrings, and to think about getting my calves maybe 75% of the way to parallel with the ground instead of all the way. (I have found another mental trick for this -- think about showing the soles of your shoes to someone behind you.) This let me run at a more reasonable pace (maybe 8:30 or so) and still protect my hip flexors. (BTW, that is one nice thing about the tiny tiny twinge of pain that still remains -- I get really good feedback from those muscles about how good my form is at any given moment.) After a couple of miles I warmed up and settled into full Run-With-The-Butt^TM mode, and although my pace did start to drop, I found that it wasn't exhausting me the way it has been. I think they call that, like, training or something.

I won't tell you that I wasn't tired when I hit the turnaround, that I didn't take full advantage of stop lights and water fountains, or that it didn't take significant effort towards the end to keep my glutes & hamstrings fully engaged. But I will tell you that I finished six miles at 8:08 pace, that my hip felt great, and for the first time since being taken to the airport in a wheelchair after M2B on Memorial Day Eve, I finally feel like I can honestly say:

Look out, baby.

The bitch is back.

* * *

Grand Total: 17.4 miles

* 15 easy
* 2.4 tempo

Monday:

Lunch time yoga + p.m. karate / strength work

Tuesday:

3 easy. I was meeting a friend from out of town for dinner, so this was all I really had time for. (Also, I forgot to take my inhaler before I left & ended up having terrible asthma for the last two miles, which majorly sucked ass.) On the other hand, dinner at The Abbot's Cellar, which is something every Bay Area food / beer nerd should experience at least once.

via Eater SF

Yes, they need that many / different kinds of beer glasses. via SF Weekly.

The beer list slides out of the table. OUT OF THE TABLE!!! via seriouseats.com

Wednesday:

Strength work only. I had an all-day meeting & was meeting another out-of-town friend for dinner in the South Bay, so that's how my day was spent. (In other Bay Area food news: Curry Up Now. Go there. You need to.)

Thursday:

a.m. strength work + p.m. 4 easy. This was my morning with Coach Nate & after some plyometric push-ups & Oly lifting work, he had us running 200m sprints while clasping barbells to our chests (in between bouts of push-ups & other barbell stuff). It was kind of amazing core work. On the other hand, I was not sprinting for very long.

As for the 4 easy, I absolutely could not stomach the thought of looking at my same old route again so I tried a different route, which was meh. Also being unable to run at a casual pace with good form is getting really old (not to mention exhausting).

Friday:

4.36(ish?) tempo. The short story of this run is 1) I was sore & tired & didn't feel like running but forced myself to anyway; 2) Garmin hijinks ensued; and 3) Garmin is kind of irrelevant any time you attempt intervals shorter than a mile in an urban setting. In the end, I'm pretty sure I did something like 1 easy + 4 x (.5 mile @ ~7:00-7:15ish? / 1:00 jog) + 1 easy. Oddly, once I get going, I find fast interval runs MUCH, much more bearable than short, steady, "easy" runs. I still prefer to do them at the track, though.

Saturday:

Rest / cut hair / moon at rock star boyfriend

Sunday:

See above.

#mylifeisawesome

#winning at Doing Stuff, Running

One of my greatest pleasures in life is crossing things off my to-do list. Particularly things that have been on there for WAY too long. This week I sort of went on a to-do list binge, knocking out random tasks like it's my job. (I suppose it *is* kind of my job as a functioning human...)

1) Medals. In general I don't get all that excited about race medals & mine have spent most of their lives on a hook in the back of my closet & I have never felt compelled to do much else with them. On the other hand, I've placed in a few races where I've gotten things other than medals that I liked and wanted to keep but never really knew what to do with, and when I don't know what to do with something, it usually ends up cluttering up my desk, which makes me crazy. I can't stand clutter.

Then a few months back I ran across a men's tie rack that had both a shelf as well as a bunch of pegs, and it occurred to me that that would be a great way to organize my race schwag. The OCD part of me found the idea of gathering all of one type of thing together in one place in a well-organized manner *extremely* appealing, & after many many months on the to-do list, last week I finally found a rack like the one I'd seen originally and ordered it, got it Friday afternoon, and voilà:

Hanging every medal I have seemed a bit excessive, so I decided to only hang medals I've actually won and my three full marathon finisher medals, which are all ones I can honestly say I feel like I worked hard to earn & don't feel weird about displaying.

2) Sho-dan certificate. Ever since I got it (over four months ago), my black belt certificate has been sitting on top of a bookshelf in my room. I've been meaning to frame it, but it's kind of an odd size and shape, which means it's not the kind of thing you can just eyeball a frame for. Plus, getting a frame means, like, going to a place where they sell, like, frames & stuff. Don't ask me why this is hard.

In any case, on Friday, after hanging the medals, this got done too:

3) Shoe recycling. OMG I HAVE BEEN SO SICK OF LOOKING AT THIS PILE OF OLD SHOES. Again, they've been sitting in the corner taking up space for MONTHS. On Saturday, off to the Sports Basement recycling bin they went:

4) Thrift shop. I try to purge my closet of stuff I don't like or don't wear anymore every April or May. It turns out I was kind of preoccupied this last April/May, so this didn't actually happen until this past week. Off to the Buffalo Exchange went two bags of clothes!

I can't tell you how good it feels to look into my closet / dresser and know that I will *actually* wear everything in it. (Again, if I have a nemesis in life, it's clutter.)

5) Blood tests. I've been putting this off. I always put this off. I took Thursday morning off to see my hip doctor, though, & just decided I might as well get it done while I had the time & was close to the lab. The only downside was that this was mid-morning and I hadn't had anything to eat or drink for maybe twelve hours, so my blood was not incredibly cooperative at first. After a pint of water and a few more sticks, things finally got moving, and I spent the rest of the morning rocking the Gauze Cuffs of Glory on both sides, which was super glamorous. Thankfully I have *the* world's best phlebotomists, who have never once left a mark or sore spot.

No picture. You're welcome.

* * *

In other news, #doubledigitweeks continue.

Grand Total: 16 miles

* 13 easy
* 3 tempo

Monday:

Lunch time yoga + p.m. karate.

Tuesday:

4 easy. Track workout scheduled, but I felt straight-up terrible on Tuesday & had also just gotten the stink eye from my sports doc re: speed work, so I didn't feel too bad about just running some easy miles (which sucked, for the record).

Wednesday:

Wednesday was an epic fail. My goal was 1) swim in the a.m., 2) lunch time yoga, & 3) karate, but I ended up feeling terrible from the time I woke up, opting for an extra hour of sleep, getting pulled into a lunch time meeting & missing yoga, & then continuing to feel so awful that I left work early & went straight to bed. #fail (but probably a necessary one)

Thursday:

a.m. strength session (mostly continuing to work on my Olympic lifting) + p.m. 4 easy.

Friday:

3 tempo / 1 cool down. Schedule called for 1.5 warm up, 2 @ marathon pace, 3:00 jog, 1 @ half marathon pace, & 1.5 cool down, but since I didn't want to go over four & my "easy" pace these days has been right around marathon pace anyway, I decided to just start running & maybe skip the warm up mile. Ultimately I ended up with 7:55 / 7:52 / 1:00 walk / 7:15 / 8:14. A little faster than intended but still much better than last Friday's.

Saturday:

Strength work only. Plan called for 5 easy, but I was already at 11 miles for the week & planning on trying for five on Sunday, which would already mean a nearly 20% increase in mileage over the previous week. Also my hip was feeling sore, so I did a bunch of pull-ups, push-ups, crunches, planks, & clam shells & called it good.

Sunday:

5 easy. In keeping with the Sunday "long" run tradition, I set a new post-M2B distance record & managed to keep my hamstrings & glutes engaged the whole time. For the most part my hip felt good, though as my posterior muscles started to tire I could hear it snarling, "Don't you *DARE* wimp out." (As we learned last week, firing the glutes & hamstrings properly protects the hip flexors from over-recruitment.) I finished this run feeling pretty good but also like I'd pushed the endurance of my posterior chain about as far as it can really handle right now, so I'm glad I didn't try to go any farther. I also tried to work on getting more forward lean on this run, which is easy during speed / tempo work but much harder when I'm just trying to run at an easy, casual pace. When I get it right, though, it makes the glute / hamstring engagement OMG sooooo much easier.

So almost, like, a real week of running, eh? :)

A Small Reprieve...

First, I have to share how awesome it is to climb out of bed at 11 am on Sunday morning & see that the first handful of posts in my facebook & twitter feeds are pictures & announcements & congratulations on all manner of race-related accomplishments. So first, some hearty congratulations to friends from the blogosphere & beyond:

• Layla & Sam for their fantastic PRs at the Pittsburgh Marathon;
• Robin, for a sweet 24 minute PR + BQ at the NJ Marathon;
• Dave, for leaving it all out there & getting it done at a crazy tough NJ Marathon;
• Brooke, Cate, Jana, & Kimra for rocking various parts of Wildflower on a super-hot day;
• Sesa & any number of my former colleagues for finishing The [12 person, multi-day, 200 mile] Relay from Calistoga to Santa Cruz;
• Anyone else I missed (I have pretty much been a social media failure for the last week or so....but what else is new.)

Please humor me as I *do not* feel much like writing about my own running right now, though.

Instead, how about one of those posts where people talk about other stuff they do in their lives besides run? Those are nice. Let's have one of those.

1) Karate. I still need to do something about collecting all the pictures & video taken at my testing by various cameras, but there was one in particular that I was waiting on.

This is me with my panel (ie, the people who tested me) after the testing. In general I am a pretty un-emotional person but for some reason this one makes me emotional.

You can tell I was the one testing because of the translucent gi. Also, the hair. As always at Berkeley Isshin-ryu, QUALITY post-testing hair.

2) Books. One of my goals this year was to read 12 books. I am constantly depressed by my "To Read" list on Goodreads.com (BTW, you can follow me or be my friend there or however it works if you like to see what people are reading. I've found a lot of awesome books following folks on GR). I have started actually reading more, but at some point I had to just bite the bullet & accept that I'm never going to have all that much time to sit on a couch / lie in bed / whatever & read pages & pages at a time of anything. Not without quitting something.

On the other hand, I have a pretty reasonable car commute most days, so I finally took the advice of some friends & hopped on the Audible.com bandwagon. Yes, it means I am spending money on books and then not physically owning them, but on the other hand, I think I've gotten through an order of magnitude more books in the past four months than I've read old-school in any of the past few years. And that makes me happy. And the truth is that sometimes money can buy happiness.

Some of my favorites so far this year:

The Disappearing Spoon, by Sam Kean. What a great read! I was looking for something interesting, well-written, and not overly serious, and this fit the bill. I would recommend this book for the following people:

• People who enjoy amusing stories about science told through a historical / human interest kind of angle. (If you like RadioLab, you'll enjoy this book.)
• People who knew their chemistry at some point & would kind of like a refresher of the basics explained through entertaining stories.
• People who are curious about chemistry / particle physics but find terms like "covalence electrons" and "ionic bonds" kind of intimidating.
• Young people who have not yet studied chemistry formally (whether they're interested in science or not -- I could totally see this book turning a "fuzzy" on to science).
• Anyone who enjoys unconventional histories various & sundry.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan. A smart & cute read, especially if you live in or know the Bay Area, especially if you are in any way tech-inclined or even tech-curious. (You certainly don't have to be knowledgeable to follow what's going on.) Lots of books try to be "young" and "modern" and totally blow it (especially with pop culture & dialogue), but this one pulls it off. If The Da Vinci code were hipper, cooler, better written, took itself less seriously, and set in SF / Silicon Valley, it might have turned out something like Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore.

The Glass Bead Game, by Herman Hesse. The best way I can think of to describe the feel of this classic is as a literary mash-up of Siddhartha, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, & Anathem -- a deeply abstract & cerebral bildungsroman full of interesting ideas about life, philosophy, academics, & the meaning / purpose of art, knowledge, & culture, in a kind of monastic setting. Not what I would call a beach read, but I've been meaning to read it for years & was happy that I finally got around to it.

Bossypants, by Tina Fey. This book was so much fun. It clearly shares DNA with Caitlin Moran's "How To Be A Woman," except more jokey & humorous (though she does make some serious points). Tina Fey is hilarious & it was fun to learn more about her & her career. (Basically, all I knew was that she was on Saturday Night Live & did Sarah Palin. I didn't even know she was connected to 30 Rock. Or what 30 Rock even was.) This, I WOULD call a beach read, in the best possible way.

3) Sorbet. I'm kind of obsessed with it right now. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's the new ice cream maker. Maybe it's all the amazing fruit that's available right now. I don't know. What I DO know is that I could freaking live off this stuff (er....if it had, like, nutrition & stuff).

The Alliterative Gourmets & I had an 'M' themed dinner party Saturday night, so I brought mango, Meyer lemon, & mojito. NOM.

Not pictured: mint julep, because I ate it all.

It's actually pretty easy to make even without an ice cream maker; just freeze a pan of the syrup (there are tons of recipes online), then stick it in a blender for a few seconds to fluff it up.

4) Wine. Because if I was going to have a blog, it was either going to be about running or wine, and there are times when I am still not convinced I made the right choice.

What we've been drinking lately:

1999 Woodward Canyon Cab (Walla Walla, WA). Because Don's birthday, and also 30-day aged sirloin. Highly recommend, but let it age. It's that kind of cab.

2009 Kenneth Volk Pomar Junction Touriga (Paso Robles, CA). "But what is Touriga?" you ask. "I have never heard of that one." Never you mind; it's a grape, and you need to have some. It doesn't taste like pinot, but it's comparable in terms of body & mouthfeel (ie, lighter in flavor / medium bodied). The main flavors in this one were plumb & other "magenta" fruit, baking spices, & very faint vanilla & anise. This one does not need to age more than a few years & went quite well with Mediterranean chicken pizza from Little Star.

2008 Williams Selyem Westside Road Neighbors Pinot. Uh. Mazing. One of the most fantastic pinots I've ever had. Tasty red fruit balanced with lovely baking spice all the mushroom-ey things I love about a pinot nose, and a nice, light body that makes it perfect for drinking on a hot day. If you are in Sonoma, call & make an appointment.

Finally, this was purchased on Saturday.....

because....

....yeah. The difference between 'hoarding' and 'collecting' is sometimes a matter of appropriate storage, and I'll give you one guess as to which message the cardboard box system sends.

Okay, two sentences about running: I have a very bizarre, very geographically small yet extremely painful strain to something in the general vicinity of my right adductor that's making even walking quite painful, so I haven't run a single step since last Wednesday in an attempt to let it heal (since I know trying to run even a little would just make it worse), and I am hoping against hope that a rest week four weeks out from the marathon is a better idea than trying to run through the injury. I am going to try running a few miles tomorrow and see how it goes; hopefully it will be solid enough that I can jump back into my schedule for the last three weeks.

Sigh. Anyway, I hope your training week has been better than mine. Catch you later this week!

Some Thoughts About My Stuff (Not A Serious Post)

...because I'm sure you've had enough of those lately to last you two lifetimes.

No; this is one of those posts that grows out of the random thoughts that bump & swirl around in my head while I'm out running (which I did today! Again!) & spin into something semi-coherent while I'm killing time in a hotel room in Santa Rosa.

At least there's a Big Bang Theory marathon on.

It's been a few months since I've posted a bird's eye view of my shoes, so I figured I was due. Wouldn't want you to forget this is a running blog or anything.

1) My Newtons have managed to get noisier. Don't get me wrong; I love these shoes. I always have loved these shoes. But there is something wrong with them. Frankly, they have never been particularly quiet. In most of my others, I'm like a ninja; people never hear me coming until I leap past them out of nowhere and they shriek and jump out of the way (this has happened). Not the Newtons; these bad boys go *smack*smack*smack* all the way home.

I blame it on the External Actuator Lugs^TM (which, for the record, I still think are freakish and bizarre and am not convinced actually do anything other than make the 4mm heel drop happen). They're just hard to run quietly in. That didn't really bother me, but lately something in them somewhere has gone kind of squeaky, as if there's a little whoopee cushion in each sole.

Which, there might be, kind of. If you recall...

"When your midfoot/forefoot LANDS on the ground, the technology's four external actuator lugs are pressed into hollow chambers inside the shoe's midsole via an elastic membrane (ACTION). This movement absorbs shock. As you LEVER inside the shoe, the lugs release their stored energy and propel you forward through a burst of energetic return (REACTION) from the Action/Reaction Technology^TM."

(Can we just agree for a moment that running shoes have gotten OUT. OF. CONTROL?)

So yeah. I kind of wonder if my hollow-Action-Reaction^TM-membrane-chambers hooziewhatsits have developed a leak & that's why I get the little whistley-farting sound every time I toe off. I try not to run in these shoes around other people. It gets awkward.

2) My Roga shorts don't fit as well when I'm rocking more bootie than usual. Again, don't get me wrong; I love these shorts. They are they only ones I trust not to rip the skin off my thighs after 26 miles. But I tend to vacillate now & then between svelter & curvier versions of myself, and right now I have a little more bootie going on (while my mileage this month has been unremarkable, my cheese consumption has been AWE-INSPIRING) and the Rogas are just not made to accommodate a curvy rear end. They bunch up at the top and pull around the seams. (One of legs actually keeps popping inside out.) Thankfully, this is a temporary situation; while the vacillation is normal, I will be glad once I've gotten a few more solid weeks of marathon-worthy mileage in & my favorite shorts are no longer trying to contort themselves off of my body.

3) Sea salt scrubs & running don't really mix. I love scrubs. I am the queen of exfoliation. Recently I picked up a delicious lemony-smelling one from my local hippy-dippy grocery made with sea salt. The first lesson I learned? Don't use the salt scrub after a run. I'm pretty much always missing skin somewhere, and it turns out the phrase "to rub salt in one's wound" is only partly figurative. I'll be going back to the sugar scrubs after this, I think. Ow.

In seven hours or so I'm getting up to drive to Napa, where the plan is to jog ~7 easy miles & then run the half at a pace somewhere between long run pace & marathon pace (& maybe a few miles towards the end at marathon pace, if I'm feeling good). This will be the first time I'm going into a race intending to run much slower than race pace from the beginning, so it'll be interesting to see how hard or easy it is to keep my race day adrenaline under control. Especially since I'd been pretty excited about actually racing this one (sigh). Ultimately I know I'll be happier that I used this week for mileage & a solid long run instead, though.

Goodnight, all!

I'm Sorry, I Can't Read Your Blog This Week

As you can see, I am kind of busy.

Busy doing the kinds of things one traditionally does the week of her/his black belt test. Like fighting Jesus. And snakes. And punching people in the nuts.

If you point out that I could've used the time I spent on this post reading your blog, I will totally punch you in the nuts.

You *and* your snake.

News of the Restless

This is one of those kinda-sort-of-a-post-jk-not-really posts. I don't have much to post about lately that seems terribly interesting to people besides me, but here are some more-and-less random thoughts that you might find entertaining and/or amusing. Or not. It's kind of like "interesting roulette" up in here.

1) Apparently I'd forgotten that one of the reasons I run regularly is because I like to be able to mentally and emotionally function. There hasn't been much running lately. And thus there hasn't been much of what you can really call mental & emotional functioning, either. I like to not think about this & the way to not have to think about it is by running. Being hurt blows.

2) Getting up super early & driving somewhere to do an activity you find unappealing is great & all in theory, but when I stop and think about it it turns out that those are all the things in life I suck at rolled into one. Trying to deal with them in the midst of OMG-crazy-town-holiday-work-travel-prep was pretty much the last nail in that particular coffin. What I'm trying to say here is that the number of times I've been pool running this month = 0.

3) In spite of this, I am apparently so awesome that I can win races without even running the whole distance, or even running the entire distance I did travel. But seriously, considering the recent lack of running, it was a very, very healthy thing for me to a) do some expressly forbidden running b) with awesome people c) on a pretty route that I'm not so sick of looking at that it makes me want to stab my eyes out. Thanks, XLMIC & RoseRunner (& good to briefly see you too, Jen!). :)

While being fast enough to pose a legitimate threat to RoseRunner is a fond pipe dream of mine, it must be noted that she ran *at least* twice as far and nearly twice as fast.

Apparently the camera was not where I thought it was. Don't ask me how this is possible.

4) I have finally joined the 21st century & purchased a smart phone. My device of choice is the HTC One X+. My boyfriend refers to it as "the new sexy," but I would not know since it is the only smart phone I have ever had. The only draw back to it as far as I can tell is that it is the size of a small elephant, but based on all the different phones I looked at it seems like that's just how smart phones these days are made. In a nutshell, I chose it because 1) I get a discount on AT&T, 2) I'm all about open platform, 3) 4G LTE, & 4) 64 MB internal memory. Plus all the reviews I read were spectacular. So far, no complaints. Also I'm totally turning into one of those people who reads Facebook on the BART because I can't bear to be bored for seven minutes.

5) Praise the Lord, Brooks has taken the Launch off the chopping block!! I'd heard rumors to that effect, but they had them on sale at the CIM expo so I asked the reps what the deal was & if I should be stocking up. Their response? Stock up. The Launch is history. LIARS.

I would also like to note that in response to my profession of love for this shoe, one of the guys said, "I keep hearing people say that but I don't see anyone actually doing anything about it. No fan mail, no Twitter campaigns..." In retrospect I have decided that he probably did not actually work at Brooks & stole the shirt off the real guy for cheap thrills.

I'd pretty much decided reviewing the Launch was pointless, but now I clearly need to do one.

6) New Year's Plans? HELL YES.

Pasadena, I will see you & your sexy self in about ten days.

7) It sounds like I may have a black belt test coming up in the not-too-dim-and-misty future. And the answer is yes, I am kind of freaking out about that.

In case you've never been to a black belt testing, it's pretty much like this. Just kidding, this is obviously from a recent holiday party. Seriously. It's from a recent holiday party.

8) We went to Symphony Hall last Sunday to see the Count Basie Orchestra. I bring this up so I can post a picture of myself looking relatively normal for once.

Don said I looked like a vampire. I said that was his own fault for dating someone who looks like a vampire.

Hope your December's going well!