I’ve Missed You

Hello. I’ve missed you. The “you” here is this blog, everyone else in blogland (I’ve been reading/skimming, but also absent from commenting), and being more creative in general.

By the end of marathon training, I began to feel completely overwhelmed and out of control. Running and fitness began dictating almost every part of every day, especially in my peak weeks. Scheduling a 40 mile week? Egads. On top of that, I’m also in a local production of Cabaret (woooo come watch me be a skanky Nazi), so I lost a lot of both social time and personal time. It was too much for me to handle. And as sad as I am that the marathon is over, I’m sort of glad I have more time back in my weeks.

Oh yeah, that whole Chicago Marathon thing ;) I did it! I’ll write my recap later today once I download my pictures. I’m sure you all know most of the race details by know, like how disgustingly hot it was. I’m ecstatic to have finished. Plus, I totally have motivation to PR on my next(!) marathon.

Know what else I’ve missed terribly while being consumed by training? COOKING. I made up for it by doing my own cooking marathon yesterday. The end result: apple butter, pumpkin chowder, kale chips, butternut squash red curry, southern kale and beans, and red wine & pear sorbet. “Elated” does not begin to describe how I felt. Also: kale chips are addictive. Proceed with caution. Or don’t. Because it’s kale.

And just for fun, here I am absolutely hamming it up for the cameras in Chicago. Face says “wheeee look I’m running!” brain says “fuuuuuuuuuuu”

Here, There, Everywhere

The past week has been filled with my longest run ever (15 miles), a bachelorette party, a bridal shower, an amazing Chicago Marathon fundraiser that surpassed the charity goals for myself and my training partner, and allergies so bad I was knocked back on the couch for 12 hours on Monday. Did I say past week? I meant to say that all of that happened in 4 days. Yowza.

I haven’t talked about my little backyard garden in a while. I gave up on the cucumbers. Something happened to the plant that caused the vegetables to grow in odd, bulbous shapes. Gardening fail. I managed to make a few jars of pickles before the purge. The tomatoes, though… oh my goodness, we can’t eat them fast enough. I pick about a cup of cherry tomatoes per day, and a couple big tomatoes each week. Since I haven’t had much time to cook lately, these tomatoes are either prepared the easy way (hello, caprese salads!), or are given away to family and friends. The peppers are slow to grow, but delicious when ready. And the fairytale eggplant are almost ready to be picked. The carrots have a little while to go, but their green tops are getting tall.

Speaking of food, I’m about two thirds done with The Omnivore’s Dilemma aaaaand I’m basically thisclose to almost completely omitting supermarkets from my food-purchasing life. Ideally I wouldn’t have to buy from supermarkets anymore, but let’s be honest. They’re necessary now and again. Though I have been discovering more farm stands and markets near my house, so hopefully soon I can become less reliant.

As I mentioned above, I’ve been knocked down by allergies this week. That means I didn’t run Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday. Ouch. I went for a good 4 miles last night and had to stop at 2.5. My chest was in so much pain from coughing that I either couldn’t breathe, or kept coughing as I ran. As much as I wanted to complete the 4 miles, it’s more important to rest up and be healthy for the 16(!) this weekend. As a result, I’ve made Vicks vapo rub my BFFL.

I’m giving 4 miles another attempt right after work. Bring it.

100

There are 100 days until the marathon. Uhhhhh wow. Tomorrow we hit the double digits of the countdown, and I have my first double digit run since March. And unlike last week, I plan on actually running the whole thing!

My legs are still pretty sore from the track on Tuesday. I think I really didn’t stretch well enough and I am so paying for it. Last night I took it easy and did strength training instead of running my club’s weekly 5K. Though I did hang out at the 5K finish line with the other volunteers and socialized for a while afterwards. I can’t wait to actually run the 5K with them!

So my strength training plan… I kind of love it. The trainer I met with broke down each major muscle group and gave me different exercises to do for each group. 2-3 times a week I do 3×10 of each exercise with 30 second rests between sets.

Upper Body
Biceps: biceps curls, hammer curls
Triceps: kickbacks, overhead extension, pulldowns
Chest: pushups, chest fly
Shoulders: overhead press, forward raises, lateral raises
Upper Back: reverse fly, bent over row

Lower Body (not many exercises here, since they’re worked out while everyday walking/running)
Quads: squats
Hamstrings: deadlifts
Glutes: walking lunges

Core
Abs: crunches, leg lifts, rotations
Lumbar/Lower Back: superman, back extension, “bird dog”

By the end of summer I am going to be so toned I can’t even

Hopefully tonight I’ll be able to do an easy 3 miles and let my legs recover. It’s an absolutely beautiful 70° day… no excuse for not running!

In other news, I picked a cucumber from my garden yesterday morning! So of course I had to have it as a snack last night. I’m officially spoiled by fresh garden produce. Nothing like it :)

Happy July!

(via tumblr)

Hydration Ridiculousness

I am such a thirsty runner. And as I’ve mentioned before, my sweat basically has the salt content of ocean water. So I’ll bring fluids with me on pretty much any run over three miles. For anything over 5, I take Gatorade Endurance/Pro/whatever they’re calling it now to avoid cramping.

Now that I’m about to have a double-digit run almost every week from now until October (holy crap!), I need more than just my 22oz Nathan handheld. I’m thinking about getting a belt as well, which would definitely provide enough fluid for me, but would it look ridiculous? My question is this: do you ever look at runners and think “hahaha who needs that much equipment? What a poser.” I know, I shouldn’t care at all what other people think. I need more fluids than most, so I should just carry what I need to stay healthy.

At what point do you think to yourself “Woah, that person is using way too much gear!”? And at what point do you think “I don’t care, check out all my gear ;)”?

I have my first full track workout session tonight. I’m REALLY hoping it’s out of the 80s by then. Then again, nothing says “fun” like full-sun fartleks!

More Power To Ya!

I love hearing motivation from strangers while running. I got fist pump and today’s blog title shouted to me nearing the end of my 3.5 miler. It definitely helped the last 0.1 :)

June has been all sorts of busy:

Saturday 6/5: Went to go see Conan O’Brien here in Boston. Oh man I can’t wait until his show is on TBS. The whole show was hilarious. Reggie Watts was the opener, and Dropkick Murphys came out and played a few songs with Conan. After that I went out with some friends until just a biiiiit too late.

Sunday 6/6: Birthday time! I’m 24 now. Eep. I missed my long run. Not too concerned!

Monday 6/7: I won a party at a local pub and spent most of my night having regrettable bar hot dogs and super large beers. And I wonder why my run on Tuesday sucked…

Tuesday 6/8: Hit snooze for 45 minutes because hell no I wasn’t getting up at 5am that day. Running? No thanks. That’s a lie; I packed my running things and did a sluggish 3 miles in the city. It just felt terrible. And can we talk about how awesome the Glee finale was last night? After the horrible Funk one that aired the other week, I’m so glad to see some decent writing back in play. Hopefully the second season will have a stronger plotline than the back 9 did this year.

Today 6/9: I finally signed up for my local running club! They do track/intervals/hills on Tuesday nights, and a 5K every Wednesday. This works well for two reasons: 1) I get to meet more local people/runners, which is never a bad thing, and 2) group evening runs = NOT GETTING UP AT 5AM ON THOSE DAYS. I’m a little excited about that, can you tell?

Tomorrow 6/10: My parents are taking me to a belated birthday dinner at one of my favorite Italian places. They have a dish called ‘zuppa di pesce‘ which is clams, mussels, shrimp, scallops, calamari and lobster over linguine. Hello there, delicious. It’s meant for two people, but it’s most definitely two “Italian” portions. Aka it’s a huge dish. My dad and I will definitely devour the whole thing anyway.

This Weekend 6/11-13: I’m heading up to Portsmouth with one of my friends to meet up with Big B and run the Market Square Day 10K! I’m really looking forward to this weekend.

Oh, and if you want to take a look at how I’m coming along with my marathon mileage, check out my Google Doc here.