Eugene Half Taper Pt 1 (Eugene Half Week 7 of 8) Apr 15-21

ICYMI, on April 13, I made an arguably (smart? stupid?) choice to spend one of my days in Philadelphia driving 2+ hours to a local community 15K so I could get one more race experience in before Eugene. (Originally I was going to run the Prospect Park 10 Mile in Brooklyn on Sunday April 14, but my conference talk got moved and when I knew I wouldn't be able to make it back in time, I had to shift to a Saturday race.)

While the race itself was generally a good experience, the drive back was not kind to my knee. By the time I finished running, it was a bit stiff and achey, and then after three hours sitting in the car driving back, it was a bit swollen and not too happy with me putting weight on it. I had planned to run seven easy miles that Sunday the day after the race, but when I got up that morning I knew it was absolutely NOT happening.

Thus, the theme of week 7 became, "For the love of god, Angela, don't wreck your knee again." Thankfully, being just two weeks out from the race, all the work was already done, and as we recently learned, extra rest is almost always only going to help you.

In case you missed it:

Eugene Half Week 1
Eugene Half Week 2
Eugene Half Week 3
Eugene Half Week 4
Eugene Half Week 5
Eugene Half Week 6

 ~*~*~ 🦆🦆 Eugene Half Marathon Week 7 of 8 🦆🦆 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 16 miles

🐌 Easy: 12.25 miles
🐎 Fast: 3.75 miles

⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 76.6% vs. 23.4%. 

Blue = daily strain, red/yellow/green = daily recovery

James Joyce Ramble 10K Week 1 of 4

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

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

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

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

Rotie! A fantastic stop! Highly recommend.

LOOK I'M TRYING OK?

OK, so. Attempting to revive the blog is definitely reminding me of some of the reasons why I gave up a couple years ago! I've probably started five or six posts since the last one, but I have so little time for it that by the time I next sit down to write, my most recent draft feels woefully outdated. Then there is the fact that we went on A FOR-REAL, ACTUAL VACATION for these last three weeks, so obviously there wasn't much happening in the way of running or blogging. We actually booked this vacation two years ago, before it was rescheduled twice. Things were not looking good in Portugal in the spring, but then by late summer the Portuguese government managed to work some kind of miracle, and by the time we left for our trip the country was ~90% vaccinated.

[Related: AMA regarding international travel in These Unprecedented Times^TM.]

Sunset in Sintra, Portugal

In Which SF Road Warrior Lives Up to Her Name

So, hey! It's 2019 & the holidays are over & there's some kind of 10K on February 3??? Time to start doing some running, I guess!

Happy Mexican New Year from me & my hunky boyfriend!

Happy New Year from Don & his massive biceps!

Although, I'm not gonna lie, I'd planned to start last week when we got back from Mexico, but that plan sort of fell through. How so? Let me count the ways.

GIT. 'ER. DONE. oh and drink wine.

So I know I totally said last week that I was going out of town for the weekend, ergo no long run, & that was fine. But then it was Friday, & I was planning my day & when I would fit in an easy 8 or whatever before we left, & suddenly part of me was like, "BITCH, ARE WE DOING THIS OR NOT?" I was working from home for the day, so I decided that when I got all the laundry & packing & work done that I needed, I could spend whatever time was left running, and if there was enough time for a long run, then I would effing do a long run. And lo and behold, I got everything done by 3, which was really JUST enough time to fit in the 13 miles called for on Sunday, so off I went.

I would love to tell you that this run was pure magic from the very beginning but oof. Those first few miles were rough. Between a) four days of consecutive running (which I haven't done in a while & was only doing because I knew I wouldn't run on the weekend) and b) my previous long run having been only five days ago instead of the usual seven, my legs felt dead and heavy. Since I count my weeks Monday to Sunday, this was only a 33.5 mile week, but in the last seven days, I'd actually run 47.5 miles, which is like full-on marathon training mileage for me. The fact that I'd run twice this week in thinner, lighter shoes had also left my feet & lower legs feeling a tad beat up. Add to all this that the Mission sunshine deceived me (AGAIN), and no sooner had I hit the Lower Haight than I was shivering a bit in the drizzle & fog & wind & thinking seriously about heading back home to trade my tank & shorts for something warmer.

Yep; unless it's below 50 (and it almost never is), I am running in shorts & a tank top.

I've run through much worse, though, and the idea of backtracking through blocks and blocks of traffic lights was significantly less appealing than just putting up with the weather & heading onwards to the tree-lined & relatively uninterrupted trails of the Panhandle & Golden Gate Park. Still, given how sluggish & tight I felt, I was not entirely sure I was going to make it all the way to 13 miles.

And yet, my heart rate stayed remarkably low, even up hills, and I kept seeing split after split a solid 30-40 seconds faster than those heart rates usually correlate with. Once I crossed into the Park, everything started to click into place physically, and for a little stretch there I was consistently seeing heart rates in the 130s (I shoot to stay below 146) and sub-10:00 splits (I've been averaging between 10:20 & 10:50 for the most part).

I love this city.

The hardest part by far was mentally dealing with doing a long run on a weekday. I've gotten much better at handling the boredom & monotony, but part of that I think has to do with knowing when it's coming & mentally expecting it. Despite how good and fast and easy this run (eventually) felt, some subconscious part of my brain definitely started rioting a little when I passed six miles, then seven, then eight and OMG ARE WE STILL RUNNING IT'S FRIDAY WHYYYYYY ARE WE STILLLLL RUNNING?!?!?

In a few weeks I'll do a more detailed post on all the low heart rate stuff. If there's one thing I can say about it, though, it's that it requires patience, discipline, and consistency, and sometimes it can be frustrating to feel like you don't really see much of a difference from day to day. (Fine that was four things. It is my blog & I will count as I please.) But what I can also tell you for sure is that on Sept. 21, I did my first low heart rate run of 8 miles at 10:15 pace with an average heart rate of 161, and Friday's 13 miler was at 10:12 pace with an average heart rate of 141. So.....progress?

Anyway, I got my long run in & headed off to Paso Robles guilt-free, where it was 85F & sunny.

Chillin in the Denner warehouse. Pretty sure this is the closest I will ever get to a bottle of Saxum.

For the first time ever, our visit synched up with the "Garagiste" Festival, which is an annual wine expo they have every fall for super super small producers making less than 1,000 cases per year. ("Garagiste" being a slang French term for super-small French winemakers making & selling small lots of wine out of their garages.)

We had a few tips on where to stop & found some fantastic tiny winemakers making some delicious stuff:

Copia

Kaleidos

We also got some spectacular sunsets at our hotel Saturday night.

You know it's a classy joint when you can walk to Carl's Jr.

WEEK OF 11/3-11/9

Grand Total: miles

* 33.5 easy
* 0 x 45:00 strength workouts

We could talk about all the myriad reasons why I did not make it to the gym for strength work even once this week, but let's be honest, no one cares but me & excuses are boring.

When I was teaching, this was my go-to phrase. Seriously, NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR IT.

Monday: a.m. stretch & roll / p.m. karate

Last week didn't seem all that hard and Sunday's long run was mostly unremarkable, but by the time I got in bed Sunday night a few places in my legs were aching so badly it actually kept me awake for a while. This made me think that maybe they needed rest more than they needed a bunch of squats and deadlifts and plyometrics, so I spent my Monday morning gym time stretching All The Things & reacquainting myself with the Lacrosse ball (which I've been ignoring because nothing's felt particularly tight until now).

Tuesday: 8 easy

Uuuuuugggghhhhhh eight epically miserable miles on the 'mill before work, thanks to evening work stuff. I'm pretty sure this was the longest run I've ever done on a treadmill and I wanted to stab myself in the face for almost every second of it. My feet were killing me for the first four miles and it was BY FAR the slowest and highest heart rate run I've done since I started all that low heart rate business in September. (At one point I was sure I must be running 18 minute miles.) I know it's indoors on a treadmill so you can't really compare it to my other runs which have all been more or less along the same route (not to mention the accuracy of the treadmill), but what is absolutely objective is the sheer amount of unadulterated ass that was sucked by this run. I hate treadmills and I hate running in the morning. Let us never speak of this run again.

Wednesday: afternoon 6 easy / p.m. karate

Sometimes I forget until I'm having kind of a schlubby day that the whole exercise-endorphins-mood enhancing effect is a real thing. It wasn't a bad day, per se, but it was definitely kind of a gross-feeling, meh kind of day up until the run. It was a pretty darn good one, I felt great, & after I was kind of stunned for a minute when I realized I actually did feel like a thousand times better. And on a Wednesday!

Thursday: 6 easy

This run was like a miniature version of Friday's long run--a little uncomfortable at the beginning, but eventually, awesome. (And with almost the exact same pace & heart rate to boot.)

Friday: 13 long

Saturday/Sunday: Paso

Theoretically I was supposed to start adding in marathon goal pace runs this past week, but what with cramming in four consecutive weekday runs and technically hitting 47.5 miles over a seven-day period, I decided it was maybe smarter to put it off for a week. So NEXT WEEK, you guys, I'll have some goal marathon pace updates for you.

no but wine, music, & realtors are basically the same as running right?

This week was going pretty well until the weekend. Which is not to say the weekend was not awesome; just that I completely failed to think ahead & plan my running around the awesome, so 18 weekday miles + 17 weekend miles turned into 18 miles total & that was all she wrote.

At least the week day miles were good ones. I now have four weeks of base training down (er....sort of. Not sure these last two really count, but hey, you do what you can do), eight more to go. Right now I'm planning on two more weeks of all super easy running, & then beginning to add in some goal marathon pace miles (although early-on I suspect it may be more marathon effort than goal pace) on Tuesdays.

I will now recount for you the Things I Learned This (zero-mileage) Weekend.

• Wine tasting in Napa is hard, even when you pre-plan. This is part of why we never go there & instead stick to Sonoma & Paso Robles. Yes, there are places you can drive right up to without an appointment, but most of them suck and/or are full of dumbass bachelorette parties in monogrammed sequin tank tops & penis hats (which...I suppose still technically sounds as sucking).
  
  One of the only normal-looking pictures we would take all day. We did not take it because we were super excited about taking pictures in the barrel room. We did it because the guy pouring assumed that we *obviously* wanted to take pictures in the barrel room & we did not want to hurt his feelings. (It seemed to make him really happy.)

• Even at the good wineries where you have to make appointments, some jackasses will still do their tasting & then light up a ciggy twenty feet from where the rest of us are just starting. (Don, sarcastically, as we sniffed a lovely merlot: "Hmm...I get hints of smoke & some tobacco notes..." Me: "I mean I know it's French but it's not THAT French." Lovely woman doing our tasting: "Excuse me while I go regulate up in hurrr." Bitches, man.)
• If you're making an appointment at a Napa winery & you don't want the wine n00b song/dance/tour/FiveDimensionalExperience, you should tell them in advance; otherwise they might spend an entire hour explaining to you how wine is made & what it means to be in a wine club & try to impress you with aspects of their winemaking & club that are entirely par for the course.
  
  Charter Oak. They also have some gorgeous art here.

  
  Good wine here but I could have done with less talking / more drinking.

  
  This is my "They-just-made-me-punch-down-the-fermentation-tanks-because-it's-authentic" look.

• Go to The Terraces. You have to make an appointment. They are cool as hell there & won't care if you start taking punchy selfies because you haven't eaten in six hours. Oh, and the wine is excellent as well.
  
  We weren't even drunk. Just punchy as hell.

• Remember that everything takes longer than it's supposed to at fancy appointment-only-Napa wineries & work this into your food planning ahead of time. Originally we'd planned to hit two wineries, stop for lunch, hit the second two, then head home around five, leaving me enough time in the evening to get my run in. As it was, we spent the day sprinting from one appointment after another, inevitably running late, so by the time we left our last stop, we were all desperate for food & just ended up having dinner in Napa.
  
  Dinner time. Still punchy.
• Everything about buying a house is scary & complicated. We officially started interviewing realtors this week, & the Sunday meeting that I assumed would take maybe an hour actually took two. At that point it was only about an hour & a half until the piano fundraiser we were going to, which isn't even enough time for half a long run once you factor in shower / travel time.
• There is this awesome organization in San Francisco called The Center for New Music, founded & run by a musician friend of Don's from college (and whose wife, coincidentally, is a teacher that I worked with a couple of times before I even knew she was connected to Don). You may remember that in a past life, I was a composer/singer/musician, so discovering this place was a huge treat.
  
  Less talking more piano.

  

• Plan your eating plan your eating plan your eating. By the time we left the concert, we were starving again, & after stopping for food, we didn't get home until nine. Weekend running thwarted again.

When I have an imminent race I'm pretty darn good at mercilessly putting a fence around my running time, and God help the man/woman/child/natural disaster that tries to get in my way. I think what I'm finding now is that I've got to start being a little more ruthless in that way, even though I'm not *really* training for anything right now.

WEEK OF 10/13-10/19

* 18 miles, all easy
* 2 x 45:00 strength workouts

Monday: afternoon 5 easy / p.m. karate

Normally Monday is my post-long run rest day, but since there was no long run on Sunday and the intensity of karate workouts has been less reliably lately depending on who is there, I decided to get a few easy miles in before class, just for the sake getting in SOME physical activity. And then, surprise! A pretty decent workout at karate as well.

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

I love you, fog. Our love is meant to be. I hear that Chicago song in my head every time you're near.

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

Thursday: a.m. massage / p.m. 6 easy

Friday: Rest

Friday was one of those bizarre days where I flew to LA at 8:30am & then back 12 hours later, so not really much time for anything except work.

Saturday: Napa

Sunday: Realtors/concert/near-starvation

I SWEAR I AM ALMOST DONE WITH THE RUNSAFE POST. It's getting posted this week if it kills me.

Eat/Drink/Run

I spent yesterday evening at RunSafe, which I promise to do a post about sometime soon. It will probably take me a few days to write it, though, so in the mean time, let's talk about what I did last week.

This weekend was awesome because our alliterative dinner club had our "O" dinner:

Old Fashioneds

Oaxacan Old Fashioneds

Olive tapenade three ways, with olive loaf crostini

Orvieto Classico x 3

Ono ceviche

Octopus ceviche

Soup f(l)ight: Oxtail, Onion (French), & Ogwissimin

Optimus cab blend & O Bastardo port for dessert

Osso Bucco

Osso Bucco, orzo, & Optimus

Orgeat creme brulee

(Homemade) oreos & olive oil ice cream

The damage...

TO FOOD!!

Have I mentioned I love my friends? Because I do. Almost as much as I love food & wine.

RUNNING:

Like I said in a previous post, I haven't done true, honest base training in a looooong time, and my last experiment with low heart rate training nearly drove me insane because running so slowly was so uncomfortable biomechanically and so frustrating psychologically. For those reasons, I fully expected to find myself fighting off a deep & abiding hatred of Operation: All Ur Base Training within the first week.

That hasn't happened, though. Whether it's because I'm a more experienced runner or just a wiser, more mature person in general now, I've developed a completely different outlook on the whole thing. Yes, my first few runs where I slowed everything down definitely felt a little strange physically and kind of weird in terms of form, and yes, I had some of those same, "This is sooooo easy. Does this even count as exercise?" thoughts.

As I've kept with it, though, instead of continuing to struggle to keep my pace super easy and my heart rate low, it's gotten significantly easier. In two weeks, I've gone from running a 9:42 pace & thinking, "OMG seriously, I CANNOT POSSIBLY run any slower than this" to averaging in the 10:20's & 10:30's (& even seeing the occasional 11:00 split) and thinking, "You know, this actually feels pretty good." For the most part that has corresponded to average heart rates in the low 150's & even high 140's sometimes, which I honestly did not think would ever happen.

Of course, the thing about working on the aerobic stuff is that you actually can run too slow and end up just wasting your time, so I've been trying to pay close attention to my effort level and be sure that my breathing and effort level stay in a place that does actually feel like doing work, even if it's significantly less work than I'm used to. I had really thought that getting down into the mid-tens might flirt with that wow-this-really-feels-like-nothing zone, but it turns out that the slower I go, the more the decrease in effort seems to taper off.

Eg: Running at 5K pace is incredibly hard for more than a very short amount of time. Slowing down by 1:00/mile feels way, WAY easier--as in, I can run maybe ~5-6x as far. Slowing down by another 1:00/mile feels somewhat easier, but the change is less dramatic. Slow down by yet another minute per mile, and it's maybe a little easier, but not by all that much. So running slower and slower does feel easier, but the more I slow down, the less I feel the change.

You know what, I communicate best in math. It's like this:

Please excuse the weird axis scaling as I was just
not willing to spend more than three minutes on this.

I kind of feel like maybe I got so used to the moderate discomfort of running 8:00-8:15's that my brain decided, "Oh, this is what making an effort feels like," so when I first slowed way down, I felt like I was barely doing anything. Over a couple of weeks, though, I've gotten re-sensitized to it, so that I actually can feel the aerobic work I'm doing at a 10:00-10:30 pace. Yes, it's much more comfortable, but it also does still feel like actual running and putting forth quantifiable effort.

WEEK OF 9/30-10/5

* 28 miles, all easy
* 2 x 45:00 strength workouts, plus some extra push-ups/crunches here & there

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

Tuesday: 6 easy

I was supposed to do 6 x 0:30 hill sprints Tuesday, but it was hot as the devil's balls & I was just not feeling it.

Wednesday: a.m. strength work / p.m. "karate"

I did go to karate but I felt so exhausted & out of it that I barely did anything. Not sure why.

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

Decided the best way to fix the exhaustion was to sleep an extra hour. Still hot => I continued to wimp on the intervals for the rest of the week. :P

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

Thursday night I got a grand total of about 3 hours of sleep, which, since I did not trust myself to drive a car on the freeway, translated into working at home for the day & also no 7 a.m. strength work. I did do the run, but given that it was STILL 85+ (and this was after delaying as long as possible to let the temperature drop), it was still not particularly pleasant.

Saturday Rest / crazy "O" dinner party

Sunday: 10 long

Yes, it was only ten miles, but time-wise it was an hour & forty-eight minutes. Since this is normally what it would take me to run 12 miles, it actually kinda-sorta felt like a "real" long run. It also felt pretty good, though, so I think next week I'm ready to bump it up to two hours.

#allthebooks #allthewine

It has been So. Nice. Lately to run whenever I feel like, whatever I feel like, at whatever pace I feel like, without any pressure to cover a certain number of miles or complete specific workouts or hit specific paces. Obeying my doctor's instructions to ease back a bit has been no problem, as "whatever I want, whenever I want" has been translating roughly to 6-7 miles a few times a week, which thus far, has all been pain-free. (I actually would kind of like to go for a nice 15+ long run, but I have a feeling that would be pushing it.) On Sunday I ran six miles and found myself happily clocking near-half marathon pace miles near the end; on Tuesday, I felt like lazily running the tough parts of the Bay-2-Breakers course & turned in my slowest (and probably hilliest) run in years. Both of which made me super happy.

As I write this, I'm packing for another quick New Orleans trip; when I get back I'll have my follow-up with the doc, and five days after that it's off to RunSafe, and at that point I assume I will have more to say about running.

In the mean time, I've been indulging in two other equally important parts of life: Books & wine. Which, if you have good ones, it turns out are not a bad short-term substitute for pounding the pavement.

BOOKS:

Let's start with the winners:

2014: The Year of the Classics has proceeded pretty much as planned. There have been books I've enjoyed more & ones I've enjoyed less, but I have to say there's been nothing that I've regretted reading. They've all had some value & been worth my time, which I guess is part of what makes something a classic to begin with.

To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. I don't fully understand the magic with which Lee has woven this story, but somehow she managed to write a sober, poignant, heartbreaking tale addressing some pretty hardcore themes (race, class, gender, family, community, loyalty, justice, rape, murder, and on and on and on) without it being depressing as hell (though I'm sure having the story told from the point of view of a precocious 7-8 year old has something to do with). I've been avoiding it forever because it sounded so dark and depressing, and though it deals with some pretty serious stuff, it's all unquestionably underlined by the ideas of hope, optimism, compassion, and unwavering belief in the fundamental goodness of human beings.

The Black Prism, by Brent Weeks. I'm always a bit wary of starting a fantasy series because there are just so many ways they can go horrifically bad. The Black Prism was a rare treat, though. Sure, there are a few cliched elements (false/mistaken identity, long-lost progeny of important ruler-person swept up into adventures, powerful beloved ruler-person weighed down by responsibilities/dark secrets/unrequited love), but I didn't mind them because they were executed in such unique and fresh ways, which kept things interesting and (mostly) unpredictable. The young, brilliant, wise, gorgeous, powerful, beloved ruler/religious leader ("The Prism") has a sweet relationship with his mother. His long-lost-suddenly-resurfaced bastard is a sassy, chubby, uncoordinated 15-year-old who is too smart for his own good but has a heart of gold. The ex-fiance for whom the Prism still carries a torch is a hot shit, tough-as-nails soldier & one of his personal bodyguards. Book #2 was if anything better; can't wait to read the last two in the series. (Be warned, though - only the first three of four have been published & there's no word yet on book 4.)

The Farm, by Tom Rob Smith. So this book was based on actual events that happened to the author. In the spring of 2009, Smith received a call from his father saying that he needed to come to Sweden immediately because his mom had suffered a psychotic episode & was in an asylum. And almost immediately after, a call from his mother saying she'd just been released from the hospital, everything his father had told him was a lie, that his dad was involved in a criminal conspiracy, and she was flying to London to explain the truth. You might think, well, obviously, this book has to go one of two ways. Nope. Smith keeps you guessing all the way to the end, with a couple of twists I'm happy to say I never saw coming. Ditto with the resolution. A smart mystery, tight writing, fantastic storytelling, and rich, believable characters? More of this, please.

Jitterbug Perfume, by Tom Robbins. After Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates left me rolling my eyes, I wasn't totally sure I wanted to wade any deeper into Tom Robbins. Jitterbug Perfume has become such an iconic book, though, that I felt I had to give it a chance on the strength of the recommendations I've gotten from people who loved it, and I'm happy to say that I enjoyed it. In a lot of ways this is just the type of book I'm looking for when I've been reading a lot of intense, srsbzns stuff -- it's whimsical, irreverent, and overall on the light-hearted side, but still well-written and possessed of a unique, intriguing plot and interesting, well-rounded characters. A quick, fun read if you're in the mood for something a little quirky & irreverent but still clever & well-written.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon. My only complaint about this book is that it was over too soon. Short, cute, & entertainingly written, it's probably just a *little* too serious to properly be called a beach read. A commute read, maybe. Just what I needed to cleanse my palate after Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates.

Books I've read recently & could have done without include Off To Be The Wizard, Madame Bovary, Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates , & The Fault In Our Stars.

WINE:

This rosé:

Kenneth Volk 2011 La Rosa Loca, Paso Robles. If you make to Paso & like quirky, unusual varietals like negrette, blaufrankisch, & cabernet pfeffer, you absolutely must make a stop. Listing for ~$18, it is a bit pricey for a rosé, but the last time we were there was in the fall & they were clearing it out for 30% off or something, which made it pretty reasonable for a good pink. Would buy again for maybe up to $15ish.

This grenache blanc:

Tangent 2011 Grenache Blanc, Edna Valley (SLO). This, you actually stand a chance of finding outside of the winery, and at ~$15, it's a nice find. Don has a co-worker with a connection to the winery, which is where we learned about it; we also drank a bunch of it in Kauai last fall, since apparently every restaurant there stocks it. When we visited the winery for the first time, we found that we enjoyed just about all of their whites, which are equally reasonably priced.

This Italian-style merlot:

Caperone 2003 Merlot, Paso Robles. Italian merlot??? Yes! You won't find it in stores, but you CAN order it online. Caperone is one of the oldest wineries in Paso Robles & makes several lovely Italian-style reds, all of which we really like. Unlike most wineries, they tend to sell bottles with a reasonable amount of age already on them (pretty sure we bought this 2003 in like 2011), and they're STILL only ~$15, with discounts for half & full cases.

This SLO pinot:

Claiborne & Churchill 2009 Pinot Noir, Edna Valley. Another random find on our trip to SLO last fall. I always kind of cross my fingers any time I open a bottle I know I bought towards the end of the day, so I was incredibly pleased when I opened this a couple weeks back to have with grilled salmon. I don't remember the exact price, but I'm guessing it was probably under $30, and any time you can find a solid pinot for under $30, you're doing quite well.

This single-vineyard Sonoma pinot:

Porter Creek 2006 Hillside Vineyard Pinot Noir, Russian River (Sonoma). More salmon = more pinot. This maybe a little trickier to get without visiting the winery and is a bit pricier (apparently the current vintage will set you back $65? Pretty sure it wasn't *quite* that insane when we bought this one), but GOD was it worth every penny.

So yes. A little break from running is survivable with good books & wine. If you find yourself needing one, you now have my recommendations in both categories. :)

MRI Results + The Future

MRI:

Relevant Plot Points:

• On-&-off hip(ish) pain since late July, identical to what I was having last summer leading up to spectacularly crippling myself at M2B marathon.
• Since then, lots of missed workouts/general suckage.
• Friday before Santa Rosa Marathon, my doctor ordered an MRI & made me promise to quit the race if I had any pain & then not run at all after that until we find the problem.
• I started the race but felt sort of tight/"off" with my stride & dutifully stopped at mile 15 when it was clear I'd be risking a bigger injury for a non-PR race. (Race report = here.)

All caught up?

So. I had the MRI last Friday, which was noisy & took a while but was otherwise uneventful. (I didn't have any claustrophobia issues but I TOTALLY see how someone could if that's your particular bugaboo. It is a bit like being in a really noisy white plastic coffin.) On Tuesday the doctor called me back to say that it showed a tiny, very fine not-quite-crack on my right ischium, which was one I had to look up:

It wasn't advanced enough to call a stress fracture, but was clearly a stress reaction of some kind and probably would have headed in that direction had I tried to run through it. As for the cause, well, you get them from any one or more of the same list of 20 things that cause every other running injury on the planet, which means god only knows. Apparently, even though the reaction is in that one bone, pain in the glutes, groin, adductors, hip flexors, lower back and sometimes thigh or even knee as a result is fairly common, all of which I've had at some point in the last 1.5 years. (Apparently pelvic stress fractures are commonly mistaken for adductor strains since that's where those muscles insert, which explains A LOT.)

The good news:

• We have some clue about what was causing the pain.
• The damage is very, very minor and should completely heal in a few weeks (whereas full-blown pelvic stress fractures can take 3-12 months of zero impact to heal, depending on the severity).
• I can still run on it while it heals as long as I keep the volume low, don't do any speed work, and stop if there is any pain with impact. (Currently there isn't.)

The bad news:

• The stress reaction is still a symptom, not the root cause.
• I am probably headed back to physical therapy to try to figure out & address said root cause, which could be just about anything related to moving my body.

One more bit of good news is that I have a RunSafe appointment at UCSF booked at the end of September, so if there is something to be found biomechanically, they should be able to find it.

THE FUTURE:

As disappointing as it was not to be able to run Santa Rosa the way I wanted, having the whole thing over and done with brought with it an enormous sense of relief. Ever since the issue with my hip returned after SF2HM, running has been so stressful. I haven't really been able to enjoy it because even when I've been pain-free, it's been with the stress of August 24th bearing down on me & the constant fear of the pain coming back and/or finishing the race in the same shape as after M2B. Training is supposed to be (mostly) fun & races are supposed to be exciting, but it's hard to have fun with something when you're constantly worrying about it. On Saturday before I left for the race, I said to Don, "Twenty-four more hours & one way or another, all of this will be over." So you can maybe tell what my mindset about it has been for the last few weeks.

And now it's over. I only ran 16.5 miles (btw, it's pretty entertaining to tell non-runners you "only" ran 16.5 miles, heh) so I didn't have the usual post-marathon physical exhaustion to deal with. Mentally, though, I've been Jello this past week, as if something in my brain went, "Look, we got you through that crap, and now that it's over, we are DONE."

That week saw one bike ride and one karate class, but other than that I've been a complete slacker. I worked at home (read: slept in) most days or went in late/left early, spent hours sitting on the couch reading, and happily abandoned any pretense of eating like an athlete. I read almost no blogs and looked at almost nothing running related. In short, I essentially detoxed myself of all things running, which was exactly what my brain needed.

That week also gave me some time to reflect back on my training cycle and think objectively about it. DNF nonwithstanding, I think I learned a lot and accomplished a lot in those 15 weeks.

For one, I'm proud to say that not once did I miss a workout for a cop-out reason. Yes, I had trouble with my hip (11 workouts) & Achilles (2 workouts), got sick a couple times (2 workouts), had a couple of super-packed travel days (2 workouts), and took a few extra rest days when I was concerned about overdoing things (6 workouts), but not once did I ever say, "Eh, I'm just too busy/tired/not feeling it." Not once. I think this may be the first training cycle where I've really been able to say that.

Also, with the exception of the weeks when I was traveling & the week before the race (where I was busy mentally self-destructing), I've been consistent with my strength work. I think it'll be good to get re-assessed at the PT and/or RunSafe to make sure I'm still doing the right things with the right frequency, but up until that last week, I did not slack.

There were also some bright points to starting & running a good chunk of the race. For one, it gave me some additional practice with managing marathon logistics like clothes, packing, fueling, the whole pre-race routine, etc. I feel like I've run enough 5K/10K/halfs to have all that down for shorter races, but since I run marathons so rarely, it's not something I get a ton of practice with.

For another, the fact that I was in okay/not bad marathon shape, ran 16.5 miles, & then stopped means that at this point, I'm still sitting on a pretty solid base without having wrecked my body. Yes, a lot will depend on how the next month goes, but there exists at least the possibility that in the not-too-distant future I might be able to start training for something farther out with a solid base already in place. (Which, hey! Wouldn't that be novel!)

Obviously, it's too early to start setting any specific running-related goals. But, being a pretty goal-driven person, I can only lounge on the couch with my books and my wine for so long before I need SOME sort of target in my life, if only a small, short-term one. So until I can get back to thinking about racing and training, I have two (I think) very reasonable, very achievable goals for the month of September:

1) Get to RunSafe as healthy, fit, & strong as possible. These appointments are not cheap and I want to be sure I get everything I can out of it. To that end...

• Be very careful with the hip/stress reaction. I want to do some non-trivial running over these next few weeks since the doctor okay'd it, but never at the expensive of letting the injury heal.
• Get as strong as possible. Like I said, I was incredibly consistent with the strength work this summer up until the end of July, so I'm still pretty strong. But if I go in with the same weaknesses and imbalances that I already know I'm prone to, they're only going to be able to tell me things I already know. I want to know what's wrong when I'm at my absolute best.
• Get reasonably lean. Again, I think I was in my best shape at the end of July, but I never managed this summer to really get to what I think of as racing weight/body composition, and since then all the missed workouts/lack of strength work/emotional sabotage/week of mental recovery hasn't helped. September seems like a nice, chill month to focus on that & try to get back into really good shape before I start training for something again.

2) Maintain the fitness (at least in terms of endurance) I've developed over the summer.

• As long as my leg stays pain-free, try to do longer runs with more rest days rather than shorter runs more frequently. (The priority, though, is taking care of my leg.)
• Supplement with time on the bike (particularly short, fast intervals) when I can stomach it. Gaaaaaaaahh...

I am not as strong now as I was at the end of July, but I still have a respectable level of endurance, & if I can hold onto that until I'm ready to pick a race & start training again, I'll be in a much better place than I was in May.

AND FINALLY, because the universe must always maintain a balance between the sucky & the delightful, get thee to White Rock Vineyards in Napa & stock up on some of this.

Quite possibly the best chardonnay I've ever had in my life, and that's coming from someone who generally *loathes* California chardonnay. Amazing.