It doesn't take much to rock my world

I decided to take a rest day today after running 42 miles in less than 48 hours this past weekend. Truth be told, my legs didn't really feel like they needed it, but this is the last week of JFK training before I begin my taper and I'm not taking any chances.

I was giving myself all sorts of pats on the back for running so many miles and then I checked out Kristin's blog, who is also training for JFK, and saw she ran TWO freaking 20 milers this past weekend. I'm reaching that point of training where it's almost over and I'm panicking about the race  and comparing myself unfavorably to every other JFK hopeful, so I nearly convinced myself to run another 8 miles Sunday night after work, but I talked myself down.

Since I didn't run today, really the only thing I have to talk about is food and upcoming races. I made a new recipe for dinner tonight, Coconut Milk Lentil and Wild Rice bowl. It's been firmly established that I'm a major weirdo in terms of my palate, so Eric is my gauge when it comes to evaluating recipes. He is chowing it down happily right now. No picture, because I didn't make it for looks.

I like to find new recipes to cook every week, but during the school year I get busy and that ends up actually happening more like once a month. I used to abide by a strict rule when searching for recipes: if I didn't instantly know what aisle an ingredient would be in, the recipe was dead to me. I'll spend hours chopping vegetables but I'll be damned if I'm going to visit customer service at the grocery store.

This recipe not only had things that I didn't know what aisle they'd be in, but it had an ingredient (Mirin) that I had to Wikipedia just to find out what it was. Normally I would have immediately rejected the recipe. Once again, Wegmans came to the rescue. I used their app for the first time. It tells you what aisle to find things in, AND includes a picture. Obviously I'm living a sheltered life and need to get out more, because this rocked my world.

I may not have bothered to check the elevation map for Fire on the Mountain, the 50K I'm running on Sunday, but of course things were ready to go on the dessert front. I found a recipe for candy corn ice cream weeks ago, and since that combines two of my favorite things on the planet, it was a done deal. 

When I sign up for races, I always googlemap the location first to see how far away I'll have to travel. I don't know what went wrong for Fire on the Mountain, but I just realized that it's two and a half hours away, and I need to be parked at the finish and on a bus to the start by 6:30 am. This means that my wakeup time has crossed the line from "super early in the morning" to "bedtime for college students and people my age who aren't lame like me". Some people have wisely suggested getting a cheap hotel room, but I really hate to sleep anywhere but my own bed, so I'd rather just get a few hours of quality sleep instead of a full night of tossing and turning. 

How often do you make new recipes, and are you willing to seek out strange ingredients?

Do you get training envy/regret after seeing other people's workouts?

Weekend highs and lows

I'm having a completely lovely weekend, but nothing is perfect. There are two main lows of this weekend.

1. Working at my second job both Saturday and Sunday. It's a great job but let's face it, no one wants to go to work on their two days off.

2. Having to work on a paper that's due Monday.

The list of highs is significantly longer. 

1. Eric cleared up his sinuses using Kari's husband's genius suggestion of a Neti pot. I supervised to make sure he didn't drown, and watched as everything from his nasal passages ended up in the sink. Marriage can be so romantic. This wasn't really a high but I thought the picture was funny and wanted to include it, and I also wanted to let any young ladies who are in a new relationship know what they will have to look forward to down the line.

Please try not to be jealous of our amazing apartment bathroom.

2. Carolyn gave me this awesome bottlecap that she got for me because it sums up my life in six words. 

3. There was a tornado warning Friday night and I survived. I'm pretty sure the panic attack I had took at least 3 years off my life, but it didn't hit us.

4. I got these new UnderArmour shorts on sale for $8, then took a self timer portrait in them after my run with my feet pigeon toed so my thighs don't touch, like a proper blogger.

5. Emily and my college friend Shane came to visit and brought some sweet gifts. Shane brought me a huge bottle of my favorite upstate NY wine, which will now be my light at the end of the Fire on the Mountain tunnel next weekend. 

Emily made and brought these delicious cookies, which are basically peanut butter in the middle of chocolate peanut butter dough. So good.

She provided the photo as well to tempt me until she arrived.

6. I tried white sangria and crab nachos, and both were a wonderful addition to the already long list of foods and drinks that I enjoy.

7. I finally earned enough points at Panera for a free Pumpkin Spice Latte. These are fantastic even when you pay for them, so I bet you can't even imagine how good a free one tastes. 

The running portion of my weekend could really be included on the highs list, but since this is supposed to be a running blog, I'll give it its own category.

1. Friday

 I had one of those runs where everything just clicked. My training plan (which I've been very loosely following) called for 9 miles, with 3 two mile intervals at half marathon pace. I ran to the track, and aimed to do those six miles at about 8:15. My splits ended up all being faster than that: 7:39, 8:04, 7:56, 7:42, 7:33, and 7:38. I ran home, and even though I was crunched for time, I just couldn't resist tacking on one extra mile. My last mile was 7:29, which is practically my 5K PR pace, and this was on my hilly street, not the track! My overall pace was 8:03, aka my ten mile race PR pace. 

2. Saturday

My friend Matt, who is also training for JFK, joined me for a 20 miler. We ran nice and slow, averaging a 10:15 pace. The notable thing about this run was that 20 miles didn't seem scary, or even like a big deal. The run flew by, and while my legs were tired at the end, by the time I went to work I felt like I'd never run. I don't know if this state will be permanent for me, but fingers crossed.

We didn't feel like we wanted to run another 30 after this, however.

3. Sunday

Finally, a day where I wasn't running in 90% + humidity. I woke up and knew as soon as I checked the weather that I was about to have a great run. My legs were all like "20 miler yesterday? what 20 miler?". I ran 12 miles with no music at an average pace of 9:05 in my hilly neighborhood, and even finished up the last mile in 8:24. It was glorious. 

That brings me to 64 miles for the week, which I didn't think was possible for me the week after a marathon. Next week will (hopefully) be my highest mileage week of JFK training, and then it will be time to taper for the race - insane!

Lame question, but I actually want to know, what were your weekend highs and lows?

Supportive friends

As I mentioned yesterday, I have one last race before JFK - the Fire on the Mountain 50K, a week from Sunday. With my two marathons, I wasn't able to truly give in to the "this is a training run" mentality, and still pushed for sub - 4 times (although if I'd done terrible I would have claimed them to be 100% training runs). Hartford could have been run harder, but I'm glad I didn't, because returning to normal training this week has felt fine.

With FOTM, my plan is truly to use it for a training run. Usually when I say there's no time goal, it just means I have a secret time goal, but this time I really couldn't care less what time I come in. I even decided at work last night to run the day before, so I can really get one last hard weekend of running on tired legs in before I taper.

I felt this email exchange is helping to elevate me to true ultramarathoner status. I recognize I have a long way to go, but baby steps count.

Perry ran the dreaded Stone Mill 55 miler with me last year (much faster, and waited for hours for me to cross the finish) and for some strange reason he's subjecting himself to that torture again this year. He seemed to have some sort of ESP, and knew that I'd spent the day incredibly stressed over grad school and busy working at both of my jobs, so he was nice enough to share this with me.

When you see those grey boxes indicating that the hills have grades, it means you're screwed, am I right? Particularly at that one that appears to begin around mile 20? 

I'll just walk whenever I need to, and keep in mind that I'm running it for fun. Because leaving the house before 4am on the weekend is always the start to a fun day. Abbi and Shelly are running too, so at least I'll see some familiar faces!

Right before I went to bed, Kara was nice enough to remind me that in 2008, it snowed the entire time during JFK and people were pulled from the course for hypothermia. Just to give me a choice of what to panic about that night.

Yesterday, I did a 9 mile run. The first six were easy, and the last three were at marathon pace (8:59, 8:56, 8:28). I've drastically reduced my ipod use during my runs, but I've gotten really addicted to the Maze Runner books and just started listening to the second one on this run. I know I can't rely on any of this at JFK, but at this point in training, I'll take anything that gets me out of bed to run. This morning Lily and I ran an easy 6 miles together. I know complaining about the humidity has been done to death, but it's mid October, why am I still dealing with more than 90% on my morning runs?

Let's all have a bitch fest, what's stressing you right now?

Like it never happened

I forgot to mention how I did on my Hartford goals. I went into the race with two goals, to not hate the race like I did at the Marine Corps marathon, and to come up with a Halloween costume. I loved the race, so I nailed #1. Unfortunately, I have no ideas for a Halloween costume. Please help me here.

I decided to make Monday my rest day for the week because my left knee had that "I ran 26.2 miles on uneven roads" feeling to it. Unless you've had that experience that last sentence probably sounded insane, but it's real, I swear. 

Usually when I skip runs I spend the time either sleeping or laying on the couch, but this time I managed to put away the four loads of laundry that Kari was nice enough to let me do at her house. If people want the pleasure of our company, we have to offset gas costs somehow, so the most obvious way is to use their washer and dryer for free. We're such classy guests.

Tuesday morning I did a 7 mile run. I expected it to be super slow because even though I'm not at all sore from the marathon, it usually takes me a few runs to feel back to normal. I surprised myself by running at a 9:09 average pace, like the marathon never happened. I'm not sure what to attribute this to - the sports massage? The post race run? Compression? The red velvet s'more brownies? Half a deep dish pizza the following day? Hard to say.

With both my fall marathons out of the way, it's time to commence JFK 50 freak outs. My run today was filled with thoughts like "who in their right mind signs up to run 50 miles?". Just one month from today, it will be the eve of the big event, so get ready for a month of freak out posts. Of course, one month from today I'll be extremely busy watching vampire on vampire violence, so JFK won't even be on my mind.

Say what you want, Jacob's abs are hot

There's nothing like a good race to make you want to sign up for a billion more races. I still have the Fire on the Mountain 50K in two weeks as my last pre-JFK race, but I'm already looking at the spring. After spending months and months focusing on 50 miler training, I get anxious thinking about life afterwards. I really want to focus on training to PR in a marathon. My 3:59 at Hartford wasn't easy, but it also wasn't a hard effort, and I definitely had more in the tank. I want to see what I can do if I focus on speedwork and actually taper.

Of course, before all that I will be taking a nice long break from training and or running after JFK. In fact, I'll be taking a break from all movement other than spoon to mouth for at least 24 hours post race.

I need Halloween ideas....seriously.

Do you get anxious about what will happen after your goal race?

Hartford Marathon Recap

Two sub-4 marathons in 13 days. I feel pretty good about that. I barely snuck Hartford in, finishing in 3:59:19.  But I made it.

Eric and I got on the road immediately after work Friday to drive to Kari's house in Connecticut.  I was almost as nervous about the drive as I was for the race, because we needed to go near New York City and most of my experiences driving anywhere close to that area have been filled with horrific traffic. We lucked out though and made it there about 10:30pm. Kari let us in and then immediately went to bed. I used that opportunity to do a quick snoop around her house before going to bed myself. 

Saturday morning I stumbled into the kitchen at 5am moaning "WHY is this our hobby?", which made a great first impression on Kari's husband Mike, as this was our initial meeting. After I got over my disgust with myself for my bad choices, I put on my race clothes and sunscreen, and drank my tiny allotted amount of coffee. I crammed into Kari's car with her, Mike, Eric, and Emily to drive the hour to Hartford for the race. 

It was freezing at the start, right around 32 degrees. It sucks while you're waiting but awesome to run in, so I'll gladly take the suffering.

Looking good in trash bags and reused space blankets

Right from the start, Kari and I felt better than we had at Wineglass. We were able to talk instead of just huffing and puffing trying to breathe, a huge improvement. Kari even told me at one point that talking to me was better than miserably slogging through miles, which I took as quite a compliment.

The course was mainly flat, only a few small hills here and there, which was fantastic. It went through all sorts of pretty small towns, and the changing leaves gave me the true "it's fall and I'm in New England" experience. There was some fun crowd support and we even got to hear Gangnam Style, so the race was a win all around. 

I had my sister's Garmin set to just show distance so I could run by feel. We kept up a pace that felt comfortably hard for me until mile 17 (most were in the 8:50-9:15 range). We slowed down a bit to a pace that just felt more comfortable at that point, more like 9:20ish.

Kara says I have a special gift for being extremely, annoyingly perky in the last 6 miles of a marathon (she's experienced this with me 3 times) and I didn't disappoint in this one. At mile 22, I felt really good, so Kari and I split up. After the race, she told me she was thrilled to get rid of me. However, while writing this blog post I texted my BFF Carolyn, who I ran my first marathon with, and she stated for the record that she did not hate me at any point.

I blasted some Whitney and felt great. I was on a serious runner's high (it's real, I swear). Everything was wonderful and I loved life. My last four mile splits were 8:24, 8:11, 8:24, and 8:29, and my final .2 was at a 7:20 pace. By far my fastest miles of the race.

So glad we redeemed ourselves with a great marathon for both of us!

Eric literally did zero training for this race. He does extremely intense workouts at his gym several times a week, but hasn't done any running other than sprints in between other really hard things like lifting tires and stuff. My dad, aka this blog's most popular writer, was nice enough to get him a race entry for his birthday, and his number one goal was to beat the 3 hour cutoff. He finished in 2:55 doing the walk/run method, felt great, and enjoyed the race.

The backdrop is like our medals!

Once we rounded everyone up, we took a group pic, changed in a parking garage, and took our classy sweaty asses home.

Kari's car now smells delicious

In her never ending quest to get me to move to Connecticut, Kari threw down her trump card and invited her sports masseuse friend over to give us all massages. She had a table and everything. I've never had a sports massage, mainly because I've been known to cry over the level of pain equivalent to a paper cut, but I couldn't wimp out with everyone watching. It wasn't as bad as I thought, and afterward I felt like a new person. We all did. Best plan ever.

Immediately after massages, Kari and I got baking. We made red velvet s'mores bars. They were even better than they look and sound.

As tempting as it was to just eat the whole pan with a spoon when no one was looking, I crave salty food like crazy after a race, so Kari and I went to pick up Thai food for everyone. We felt good enough to take a little walking tour of the town while we waited, which is a true testament to those massages.

When we got home, I busted into my wine, plowed through my curry like my life depended on it, and recapped all the gory race details with everyone while watching Saving Silverman. We almost fell asleep before dessert, all decked out in our compression gear on the couch. Just kidding, maybe everyone else did, but skipping dessert would have to be over my dead body.

As Eric and I climbed in to Kari and Mike's gloriously comfortable guest bed, Eric was disappointed that we were going to bed so early, "like 10 or 11 o'clock, right?". I told him it was close. It was 9:06 pm. Have I mentioned that I'm even more than a party animal than usual after a marathon?

In the morning, Kari and I took her dog, Bungee, to the beach to do a recovery run.

Seeing the ocean excites me every time.

It was crazy windy, but we managed to do 3 miles at a 10:15 pace. I've only run the day after a marathon one other time, and this was significantly less painful. After the six hour drive home, we were both a bit stiff, but eating an entire deep dish pizza between the two of us really helped. 

So that's it for fall marathons for me - next up, the Fire on the Mountain 50K in two weeks!

Final Hartford Marathon Preparations

What is it about telling yourself you can't do something that makes you want to do it so bad? The only thing that makes me want to do something more is if someone else tells me I can't do it.

I posted that I was going to avoid dessert and excess sugar yesterday, but there was cinnamon toast crunch at breakfast (at school) so I brought some home and had it for dessert. I will fight anyone to the death Hunger Games style if you try to tell me that's not the best cereal on earth. However, toast = carbs, and I'm 99.9% positive that I read in one of those weight loss magazines at the gym (Self or something) that cinnamon is good for reducing inflammation. So I'm good. Also, it was way less sugar than my mom's famous chocolate peanut butter pie which is what I ate both nights of the Wineglass weekend.

In other marathon preparations that I've failed at, I skipped my day before the marathon run. I did it for the first time at Wineglass, and my legs felt great. So I took Thursday off, intending to run Friday, but have I mentioned how comfortable our bed is? I could probably write an entire blog post about how much I love it.

Source: lolsotrue.com via Nicole on Pinterest

So, whatever, I'm honestly not worried about it, sleep is important as well as running. There's evidence that running is slightly more important when preparing for a marathon, but I'll get back to that next week.

I've been thinking a lot about race goals. I can't decide if this should be a training run or a race. Last year, I ran the Baltimore Marathon 15 days before the Marine Corps Marathon, and MCM was pretty terrible. This year, I only have 13 days in between races. Sure, sounds practically the same, but in recovery, two days can make a difference. I think I'm going to just try to stick with Kari, see how I feel, and make a game day decision.

I do have two goals for the race. 

1.  Use the time to think of an awesome Halloween costume (suggestions welcome). 
2. Not be as miserable as I was during MCM.

 

AKA - I should not be making this face.

After work today, Eric and I will be driving up to Kari's house in Connecticut! Temperatures tomorrow are supposed to be below freezing at the start (and a good chunk of the race). But it looks like no rain!

Let's do that trite blogging thing and you guys give me suggestions for how to get myself out of bed to run. My usual ones aren't working anymore.

Pre-race nutrition: the lazy woman's approach

I'm not afraid to admit when I've been wrong, and that time is upon us. I posted a rant once about how dumb it was to claim you don't "see color" (color referring to race, I would never knock the color blind). Apparently, it's possible.

My mom recently ran in to a family friend who had attended our wedding. Of course, she had to show off pictures of my adorable nephew. In the course of the conversation, my mom realized that the friend thought that the baby was ours. 

Now, I'm no geneticist, but I'm fairly sure that this

can't create this.

So, I stand corrected. Now that that's cleared up, let's talk about pre - race nutrition. I would really like to do everything in my power to avoid the terrifying ordeal that I suffered through at the Wineglass Marathon. Unfortunately, I've been unable to pinpoint the problem. 

Tomorrow night is two days before the race, and is typically a carb-loading night. I'll just have the leftovers from Vanessa's amazing coconut "curry" recipe. It's not exactly carb filled, but it is available and all I have to do is put it in the microwave. Also, I'd probably have to throw it away if I don't eat it tomorrow, and throwing food away hurts my heart. 

Friday night I'll probably get a footlong veggie patty sub from Subway. We'll be driving, I'm too lazy to pack a meal, and I've eaten that before other races and didn't have problems. 

I will avoid dessert and excess sugar on Thursday and Friday. I'm not sure if this will help, but eating a super rich dessert the weekend of Wineglass was potentially the culprit. I would avoid eating dessert tonight, but I can't, and I'll tell you why.

While I love my job, of course it's not without it's challenges. 

Source: someecards.com via Nicole on Pinterest

This year, I've been seeing a significant increase in one particular challenge. I've been getting emails first thing in the morning that go something like this. "Good morning! I've made (insert delicious sounding dessert) for the staff! Please help yourself, it's in the faculty room." I don't have my first break until nearly three hours into the day, and by that time, it's either all gone or only the weird nasty looking parts that no one wants are left. Based on the name of my blog, you can imagine how upsetting this is for me. We're up to at least one delicious treat email a week, if not more.

Source: someecards.com via Nicole on Pinterest

Today, I sent my intern to make copies. She came back and said in a serious voice "Mrs. Lindsey, I have to bring you some of this cake that was down there". Well, she's been working herself to the bone for me, even stayed a half hour late yesterday, so was I going to tell her no, I didn't want any cake? Of course not. All I told her was "get a piece that's heavy on the frosting!". 

It was a miracle I was able to complete my math lesson and not stuff my face as soon as she returned, but somehow I made it and now the cake waiting to be my dessert. Sure, I could just not eat it, in the name of the marathon, but I could barely even type that sentence with a straight face.

So here's my marathon nutrition advice in a nutshell: 

1. Eat whatever is readily available and requires the least effort.

2. Avoid foods that cause problems, unless someone brings them to you and they look really delicious.

 Eric is really struggling with his pre-race nutrition. He wants to go with his classic fried koolaid balls for dinner the night before, but they're out of season, and we've made no headway in figuring out what the hell they are.

Spoiler alert - the race didn't go well

I'm still struggling from a total lack of motivation, but I pushed through a 7 miler (9:18 pace) after work tonight. If you're still struggling with taper boredom, read my friend Minch's recent blog post. It made me laugh out loud, and I don't say that about many blogs. Single ladies: he's just as funny in person.

What's your pre-race nutrition plan? Do you avoid any specific foods?