hello!

Hello there!  It's December now, whoops lol.

Fitness update:  I ran the Philly marathon, completing my mission to run 3 halves and 3 fulls this year.  I feel like the mission was accomplished once I signed up.  Next year I will set the bar a bit higher as far as attainability, i.e. I will set goals that I know I may fail at.  Actually one of those goals is to run a sub 4:20.  I also want to PR my 5K, 10K, and run a sub 2:00 half.  And there are my 2015 goals lol.

Another thing I really want to work at is staying in running shape in between training sessions.  Normally I train for a marathon, run the marathon, get incredibly out of running shape, repeat.  The first day of marathon training is usually a 3 mile run and I usually struggle through that run at an incredibly slow pace.  I'd like to not start my next training plan that way.  I think a good baseline level of fitness is 8 miles.  When I can run 8 miles easy, I race well.  So this is the goal.  I am learning that this may not be as difficult as I think.  After Hartford, my training really slowed down (work and traveling), but I was still able to break 4:40 for Philly.  Anything less than 4:40 is a good run for me.  And after Philly, I had another small hiatus, so I expected to run slow for the 15K (9.3 miles) I had this weekend, but I ran a really good pace, 7 seconds per mile faster than the 10 M race I did when I was training.  Again I'm seeing that it doesn't have to be all or nothing.

Best of luck with your goals for 2015!

the rambling that comes from running on fumes

The other day I wondered if I was in the best shape of my life.  I decided I am close.  It's a difficult thing to define, though.  What constitutes best shape?  Is it lowest weight (no)?  Is it PRing in a race? Is it overall fitness?  Is it body fat percentage?  Hard to define, as is everything.  But I'm just going to continue on this journey until I can definitely know.  And then I will continue again...

On Saturday I ran the Hartford Marathon.  All summer I envisioned that it would be beautiful.  I didn't look up much because it was raining.  I love running in the rain so I was excited about the forecast.  Unfortunately I didn't really pay much attention to the temperature; It was in the 40s and 50s.  My legs (quads) definitely went numb.  A skirt was not enough.  I felt that I ran strong, especially at the finish.  I still have not run a marathon without stopping, but I'm getting there.  I definitely wasn't crawling across the finish line.  I ran the last 3 miles very strong, the last 2 I was flying.  I would bet i ran sub 9's.  I can't confirm because my Garmin mistook my wet sleeve for my finger and deleted all of my history around mile 23 :-/.  Anyway, the race felt really good.  I never walked more than a few minutes, and I think that bodes well for my next.

Oh, I did something a bit whacky and ran a half the next day.  New York Road Runners is the best thing that ever happened to my running, seriously.  The Staten Island half was Sunday and when I realized this earlier in the year, I felt a strong desire to run it anyway.  It is part of the five borough series and I wanted to run it.  I asked my more senior running friends for advice and one of them told me to go for it, that I'd be fine.  Lots of people do the Goofy Challenge at Disney (a half followed by a full), so I figured this would be similar.  With respect to recovery, maybe a bit more risky, but 39.3 miles in two days is 39.3 miles in two days.  So I signed up.  My friend told me to take the races easy and run happy.  I ran the marathon in 4:33, which is about "average" when I'm properly trained pending weather.  I bag checked protein so I could start the recovery right away.  I was a bit stiff on Saturday, but noticed that once I was moving I felt fine.  I figured worse come to worse I would just walk parts of the half.  It went better than I expected though!  When I ran the first mile, I felt painfully slow, but I looked at my splits later and it really wasn't.  I think I felt each step a little more than usual, but overall it was a good race.  I actually never stopped in spite of the hills.  And when I got to mile 13 and realize I could break 2:10, I went for it.  I finished in 2:10:01 lol.  I have a bit of pain in my left knee, but I am fairly sure it is not cause for concern; I think after running a marathon (and a half) something ought to be sore lol.  I'm resting up this week, though, as I always do the week post marathon, so we will see how it feels next week.

The body is a phenomenal thing.  We can do anything if we just try.

Happy resting.

Marathon week!!!

Why I love Serena Williams

I have found myself discussing this frequently as of late, so I've decided to dedicate an entire blog post to it :o).

I love Serena Williams.  I am inspired by her athleticism.  She's a phenomenal athlete and seems to be getting better with time.  She makes it very easy to be a fan.

I love a lot of other things about her too.  I remember when I was younger, and she and Venus started gaining fame, I heard so many racist and rude comments about her and her body.  It's sad to me that for some people she, as a woman, is just reduced to what she looks like, regardless of how powerful and strong she physically is.  But such is the world we live in.  I actually find her body very attractive (though again, her athletic ability is FAR more important and relevant in my opinion), and it is actually quite similar to my own.  Beauty can take many forms, and to me strong is beautiful.  The mass that many black women naturally have is different than so called "standards" of beauty that society generally holds.  But it's great that Serena is different and yet beautiful in her own, unique way.  It's a very positive thing for young girls with our shape to see and love.

I love her for her passion.  I know there are many frowny faces regarding her behavior at times, and that's understandable.  There are many athletes I can't get into because of what I perceive to be their character.  But I am inclined to believe that her actions mostly always stem from her passion for her sport.  She was just as elated to win her 18th Grand Slam as she was her 1st.  And she is equally frustrated when she loses.  I think this is a great character trait.  And for those times she has clearly gone overboard, I can forgive her.  We forgive people all the time for things much worse, and we should.  She's human too.

I love her for believing in herself.  She is the minority in a sport of majorities, but she believes in herself.  This is something that obviously resonates quite heavily with me (I am a black (and female) mathematician.  We are few).  I often talk about how being the "only" is constant silent reinforcement that you shouldn't be there.  "No one else like me has succeeded in this.  Why should I think that I will?"  But she does.  She gives it her all anyway.  And because of her, there are countless other people who are letting her show them that they can succeed too.

I love Serena Williams.  May you be as inspired by your favorite athlete <3.

New month, new chance

I love the first of the month, and not just because of Bone Thugs 'n Harmony.  To me the first of the month is a new beginning, and a chance to strive to be better.  Better than the you you were last month.  I find new month "resolutions" way more effective than new year's.  I find I can accomplish much more if the end is in sight, and I believe most people can do just about anything for one month. Chalk it up to ADD, it's just easier to stay focused for the short term.  This is why most people are over their new year's resolutions by February.  I encourage you to regularly set short term goals.  Ask yourself, how can I be better this month than I was last month?  Then do that ;-).

This month one of my main focuses is sleep.  I have very odd sleep habits.  I am both a morning person and a bit of a night owl, which makes for disorganization.  I get up really early to work out and then work all day, and by the time i get home i am convinced I am beat.  Sometimes I am, but i am noticing i'm never too tired to do fun stuff, just adult stuff like prepping my gym bag for the next day and washing dishes.  I think if i kept a regular sleep schedule i could differentiate actual exhaustion from excuses.  To help me with this goal, I bought a Fitbit.  I was hoping it could tell when i was sleeping (e.g. when I doze off while watching tv), but it actually requires you to push a button when you climb into bed, and then push it again when you climb out.  I am thinking that this may serve its purpose anyway.  Before it arrived I was hoping I would find that all my cat naps + the few hours of sleep I get each night would add up to 6-8 hours.  But I am thinking that developing the habit of climbing into bed with purpose, and then climbing out is a better aim.  It is quite a bit of data, and a lot of it is data I already have.  I downloaded the app this morning, and laughed at myself when I realized that about 98.7% of the 4000 apps I have are somehow related to fitness.  But I suppose it is a good obsession to have.  Anyway, we will see how useful I find it.  Hopefully I'll at least catch some better zzzz's.

Here's a photo from the weekend which my friend titled "muscle butts" lol.  My favorite part about making fitness a part of your lifestyle is that you can hop into a swimsuit at a moments notice and be content with the photos that surface afterwards.  Earlier in my journey, swimsuits required preparation, angst, and sometimes really extreme eating practices.  I'm glad those days are behind me.  Hope you all had a good Labor Day weekend.  Back to the grind :-/.

Pull ups (and some post workout rambling)

I am still in love with Crossfit.  I understand why it's a cult.  I love (endurance) running, but I'll venture to say that strength training is my true love.  There are some lifts and auxiliary movements that I am very good at.  For example, I think the clean and jerk is one of the most complex movements.  It's not so much that it's difficult to do, but it's very difficult to do properly, as it is composed of a million little pieces that ideally are all performed correctly.  Today the class was small so my movements got a lot of personal attention from the coach.  I enjoy the challenge of trying to incorporate all the pieces.  Unfortunately (fortunately) I am strong enough to pull of the movement without perfect form, even with the average weight, but the idea that I will be able to lift even heavier once I have the form down is pretty exciting.

That said, there are some movements that seem nearly impossible.  I have found myself thinking more than once, "how long is it going to take me to do pull ups."  The scaled version of a pull up is a ring row, which still feels like death after about 20 of them.  And so today I find myself reading this.  Because difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week, and you can do anything if you TRY.  Happy strength training!

Crossfit (take II)

Loving crossfit.  You'll recall that last year I tried out a crossfit gym, and it left me... with much to be desired (the times of the limited classes didn't work with my schedule, and I wasn't happy with the varying level of difficulty of each workout- some were too difficult, and didn't have modifications to make them doable, and others were just far too easy).  This was the beginning of an unsuccessful gym search that left me frustrated and gymless, and so I suspended it and focused on running through the winter.  During my hiatus, I found a groupon for a different crossfit and decided to give it another shot.  The gyms are like Subway.  They are affiliated, but each one has different management.  This gave me hope that I would like the second location better.  And I did :o).  No longer gymless.

My gym requires each new member to complete a sort of orientation, and then pass a test to show proficiency.  I really really loved this.  It allowed me to learn new lifts that might otherwise be very intimidating, and taught me how to perform them safely.  They also taught modifications for every ancillary movement (e.g. pullups), so that you can complete every workout without feeling defeated and build up to the true exercise.  And they host social events (though I'm not sure how often), which reminds me of the community feel of my home gym in Austin.  I'm a very happy lady.  Lesson: if at first you don't succeed, try try again.  If you haven't already, I challenge you to find a workout and gym that you love.

Happy crossfitting.

Heartbreak Hill Juice

I bought beets to make this juice a couple of weeks ago but by the time i brought out the juicer one of them had gone bad :-/. So I returned to the grocery store last night, bought the beets, and made this juice today, lol. Beets: 1, me: 5.

Super happy with this one.  Full of color (read things that are great for your body), and delicious.  Highly recommended, just juice your beets quickly!  Enjoy!

best running temps

When we are beginning to run we always think we like warm weather for running.  Then we run in warm weather lol.

I have found myself wondering about ideal running temperatures since my marathon training has been going very well with this polar vortex.  I found this article.  I'm not sure how accurate it is but it certainly looks legit.  It says the ideal temperature for a marathon is 51.8 degrees.  That sounds phenomenal, actually.  Today I ran a quick 5 at 43 degrees.  My last long run was at 28 degrees.  To be honest, it all feels about the same to me.  I have pretty much worn some variation of the same running outfit for the last three months.

(And can I just say that temperature is another negative of treadmill running!!?  So! Hot! Unbearably hot!  I gave up the treadmill about 5 weeks ago lol. #icouldnt so #ididnt.)

Looking at the ideal temps for other race distances, I remembered that there was in fact a time when warm weather was pleasant.  Heat is good for helping to loosen up when running a short distance (vs running a long distance where you have 5-10 miles to do this).  66 is the ideal temp for a 10k.  It seems a bit warm to me.  I need to run some more 10ks, clearly.  I have lost touch with running reality.

Anyway, there's some data for you.  Enjoy.

Whole wheat pancake recipe

I'm not a fan of wheat flour when clearly white flour should be used (e.g. snickerdoodles- stop effing up junk food, people!), but I found a pancake recipe that is actually really good! Enjoy!

Ingredients:
1 cup milk
1 tbsp vinegar (or lemon juice)
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
2 tbsp melted butter

1. Combine milk and vinegar and let mixture curdle.
2. In a bowl, whisk to combine whole wheat flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. Whisk together egg, melted butter, and curdled milk until it looks fairly homogenous and smooth. Whisk wet mixture into dry ingredients, and stir the two together until just barely mixed.  (Pancake tip: you want any visible loose flour to be stirred in, but there should still be plenty of lumps. Stirring out the lumps will make the pancakes tough.)
4. Preheat a nonstick griddle to 375 degrees F (medium-high).  Oil the surface. Add small scoops of pancake batter. Cook for a few minutes, until you start to see little bubbles forming on the surface. Flip the pancakes and cook for a few minutes on the other side, until the bottom is golden brown.

I made small pancakes (about 1.5 tbsp of batter) and it yielded 14 (3 servings).  They turned out great.  (Each small pancake is less than 60 calories.  And I used agave instead of syrup for a low GI sweetener).

fitness articles i'm reading

1. Interesting fitness resources. I found #3, which supposedly analyzes your level of nutrient depletion, intriguing.  And who doesn't love blender bottles?
2. Some myths and explanations about strength training.  Check out the bad ass in the photo!  [The page this link opens to is not a coincidence ;o)]
3. Clean recipes.  I love that my go to breakfast as of late is hanging out there on the front page :o).
4. Core exercises.  Nine of 'em!  And the second one is like an orgasm in a box.  Ok, no, but it's one of my favs!
5. How to run faster.  Who knew it was as simple as reading this article ;o).  Hope I learn something useful.  There are bucket list items to be crossed off.

Happy running!!

Juicing website!

I found this great resource this morning!  Great for figuring out the nutritional content of your juice recipes, even the ones you make up :o).  Great find!  Happy juicing!

treadmills suck

So today I worked from home.  Why did I work from home you ask?  Was it to get a head start on the day?  No.  Was it to work without interruption?  No.  Did it have anything to do with work at all?  No, no it didn't.  I worked from home because today was the first chance I would have in several weeks to run at above freezing temps (i.e. 33 degrees), and I wanted to take advantage.  That is the definition of a NJ runner, I'd say.

I have actually been doing quite a bit of treadmill running.  If you know me, you know I think treadmills <<<<<< death, however, the limited daylight hours combined with the polar vortex that is this NJ winter is making them pretty much unavoidable.  I don't like treadmills for an obvious and less obvious reason.  The obvious, universal reason is that it makes time pass SOOOO SLOOOOOW.  I just sit there watching each hundredth of a mile pass at a snails pace.

The less obvious reason is that I'm a little bit terrified of falling lol.  I fell doing sprints on a treadmill about a year ago and scraped up my legs.  I'm not a fan of that kind of pain (blisters and chafing, i.e. slow pain i can handle).  So now I have a slight fear of it happening again.

Anyway, I am realizing there are some benefits to treadmill running too.  First of all, when I get tired outside I only have to stop running, stop putting one foot in front of the other.  However, when tired on a treadmill, I must make a conscious decision to turn the treadmill off.  I find that it takes a lot less willpower to keep going on the treadmill than it does to keep going outside.  Also, you can watch tv while running on the treadmill, which is nice (I guess).  But what I really like is this:
http://www.hillrunner.com/training/tmillchart.php
I always run at a 2% incline because I know that treadmill running is easier than outdoor running.  This chart explains it as wind resistance but I actually think it has more to do with propelling yourself forward.  When you run outside, at the end of each stride you must propel yourself forward by pushing off the ground.  However on a treadmill the moving belt does this for you; it drags your foot backwards.  Of course running outside also usually introduces some type of hill work, however minimal.  Anyway, any and all of these things make treadmill running easier, and thus I run at an incline.  My friend sent me this chart the other day and according to it I am actually overcompensating for the lack of resistance.  I have been training harder without realizing it :o).  And it is starting to show!  Today I ran my "long" run outside and though it felt like a relatively easy pace (as long runs should), it actually was quite speedy for me.  So though I hate to admit it, I think the treadmill running is actually helping me work on pace.

Another fun site a friend sent me (every runner needs friends like mine... or to follow this blog I suppose lol) is this:
http://tazrunning.com/SelectRace
It customizes your race pace by mile according to the course elevation of the specific race you are running.  Of course you would probably need to put a lot of sharpie on your arm barring a photographic memory.  (No you don't!  They thought of everything: http://tazrunning.com/PaceTattoos/)

Happy running!

New year, new chance!

It's that time of year again!  There's a lot of resolution bashing going around, but I am definitely all for it.  Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss you will land among the stars.

Here are some more great quotes from my friend and trainer, Barron Jackson:

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed
is more important than any other one thing.
- Abraham Lincoln

Every day is a good day to make a resolution
for beginning a new way of living,
but the New Year's Day holiday provides a good focus
for reviewing our lives and resolving
to live each day with conscious attention.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie


Happy New Year!