I Have To Feed Myself Now?

As many of you know, in addition to being a grad student, I live/work in an undergrad dorm, which means during the school year I get to eat 14 meals a week in our lovely dining hall.  But now it's summer, and I'm on my own for the whole feeding myself thing.  I've managed to get this far by a) going home for two weeks where my parents still feed me and b) cooking eating dinner with S most nights since I've been back.  But I'm not going home again until mid-July, and I just dropped S off at the airport for his 10-day cycling tour of Scotland, so now I'm really on my own.


One of my goals for this marathon training cycle is to put more thought and effort into my nutrition and hydration strategy instead of only focusing on logging miles.  For now, the goal isn't really to lose weight (although I certainly wouldn't mind that) but more to make sure my body has what it needs to get to October in the best shape I can be in.


First, it's confession time.  I'd love to say that I've been amazing about starting my day off right with a healthy breakfast, but lately breakfast has seen a lot more pop tarts than steel cut oats.  Normally I try to save the pop tarts for days when I have a race or a long run (since they give me a sugar boost and are easy on my stomach), but opening that little foil packet and firing up the toaster has definitely become a daily occurrence.    So one of my goals for next week is to fire up a big pot of steel cut oats and actually eat them.  Or at least finish off my box of Honey Nut Cheerios.

What I plan to have for breakfast

What I actually have for breakfast

Breakfast temptations aside, lunch is usually my biggest struggle.  I really don't like deli meat sandwiches and I got bored with salads, so I usually end up hitting Chipotle or snacking on cheese and crackers and fruit.  Today, I made some awesome deviled egg salad.

Hard boiled eggs, yellow mustard, light mayo, salt, pepper, and paprika

I put the egg salad on a toasted whole wheat English muffin to make an open-face sandwich and had some chips and salsa on the side.

For dinner, I pulled out one of Omaha steak burger patties that have been sitting in my freezer for a very long while and threw it on the George Foreman (currently competing with the crock pot for my favorite appliance).  I heated up some baked beans, sliced up what was left of a cantaloupe, and made a salad.  And of course finished off an open bottle of sangiovese.

Just ignore all the clothes on that other chair ...

The salad had baby spinach, broccoli, carrots, cranberries, goat cheese, sunflower seeds and homemade salad dressing (olive oil and apple cider vinegar with some seasoning).

I swear there was a lot of green stuff under the cheese crumbles

Klaus is very helpful when I cook.  He really likes to get involved.

"Getting involved" = keeping the couch warm

Ok, back to they Olympic trials!  And probably a few bites of Bunny Tracks ice cream.  And then hopefully early-ish to bed so I can get tomorrow's 6 mile pace run in before it gets too hot.

Any suggestions on quick, easy-to-make meals for runners?  I'd especially appreciate any breakfast or lunch suggestions!

B.A.A. 10K Recap

Last race recap for June!  On Sunday, I ran the B.A.A. 10K with S and a few grad school friends.  I'll be honest -- three races in three weeks was a lot for me.  I was definitely NOT excited about this race when I went to bed on Saturday night, and I was even less excited about it when the alarm went off on Sunday morning.  But once I was up and dressed and met the others outside on an absolutely beautiful morning, I started to feel a little better.

I'd only run 5 miles on Saturday, and the weather wasn't supposed to be too horribly hot, so my optimistic goal for this race was to break an hour.  My more realistic goal was to beat last week's 10K time.  I also wanted to focus on keeping my pace fairly constant over the course of the race since I noticed that lately I've been fading hard in races and in my day to day workouts.

This was the first race I've run that didn't have a pre-race packet pickup.  They mailed us our bibs and we were supposed to pick up our race shirts on-site before or after the race.  I'd brought a gear check bag, so I decided to get my shirt before the race since I figured the size options might not be great by the time I crossed the finish line.  I now have three size small adidas B.A.A. shirts, and they're all too big on me, so this time I opted for the extra small.  I really liked the shirt design (especially compared to some of the bright yellow 5K shirts!) and it fits pretty well, but I can barely get my giant head through the tiny neck hole!

Clearly I should be a fashion photographer

The course was mostly a straight out-and-back route along Comm Ave from Boston Common to the Boston University campus.  It turned out to be a sunny, warm, morning so I was really grateful for the shade early and late on the route.

Soure: baa.org

At first I was worried that I would get bored running out-and-back, but watching the runners going the other way turned out to be a great distraction.  I think I picked up the pace a bit when I saw the leaders flying through mile five or six while I was still coming up on the 2 mile marker!  After we turned back onto Comm Ave early in mile 3, I started looking for S coming the other way, which kept me occupied for a while.  I didn't think there would be so many guys in bright orange t-shirts!  Before long I saw him cruising through mile 4 and gave him a little shout out to get his attention.

Having aid stations every mile really broke up the course for me -- I walked through every aid station but ran the rest of the course.  I tried not to run too hard on the first half, slowing it down a bit when I glanced down and saw paces in the 9:00-9:20 range.  At the turnaround, my heel started to hurt.  Bad.  For a minute I thought I might have to walk most of the second half of the race, but before long the pain was manageable and I kept cruising.

I started to get pretty tired in the last mile, and was extremely happy to see the last aid station right after the 9K mark.  I was even happier to see S cheering for me right after the aid station, which gave me the boost I needed to pick up the pace for the last half mile.  S made it across the park to cheer for me one more time in the homestretch, and I crossed the finish line with an official time of 1:00:59.  I was really happy to come in under 1:01, for which S gets all the credit -- I definitely would have taken a few more seconds at that last aid station if I hadn't seen him and gotten my butt in gear!

I was especially happy with my splits -- officially 30:38 for the first 5K, 30:21 for the second 5K.  Definitely didn't fade in this race!

Still getting used to this new nike+ interface ...

I picked up my medal and some very yummy post-race snacks and headed to the Boston Common carousel to meet up with the rest of the group (they all had great races, too!).  The T ride and walk home were pretty painful thanks to my hip and heel, but I made it back in once piece.

Post-race on Boston Common

After a handful of ibuprofen, some time on the couch, and a shower, I was feeling much better.  So we decided to go on a little Sunday afternoon adventure and took Klaus to the SoWa Open Market.  For lunch, we hit up the Bon Me truck in the market's food truck court.  S and I split a three cup chicken sandwich, and each got some "tea deviled eggs" and Thai basil limeade.

Forgot to take a picture of the actual food -- oopsie

After lunch, we wandered around and checked out the market stalls, where I picked up a set of coasters and a trivet for my new apartment.

Who has a bright orange storage trunk coffee table?  This girl!

But the best find of the day was definitely this amazing chocolate chip cookie.  Probably the only cookie I've ever had where the cookie part was just as good as the chocolate chip part!

C is for cookie that's good enough for me!

After SoWa, we went into Harvard Square to pick up an antenna for my awesome new tv and then spent the rest of the day watching tv (Olympic diving trials, Secret Millionaire, and Extreme Makeover: Weightloss Edition, I know you're jealous).  S also made this awesome creamy, cheesy orzo recipe I found on pinterest.  I mixed in some peas, because in my opinion peas make pretty much any kind of pasta better.

I even have placemats because I'm classy like that

And that's it for my exhausting but very fun Sunday!  Time to start thinking about today's recovery three miler ...

Race Against Hate 10K Recap

A few weeks ago, my sister convinced me to sign up for the Race Against Hate 10K while I was home visiting the family.  If you haven't heard the (tragic but inspiring) story behind the race, you should check it out.  I was a little hesitant at first, since this would involve returning to the scene of my first ever 10K, which I ran two years ago.  But when I found out my mom and S (my boyfriend, who was flying out to Chicago to help me drive back to Boston with Klaus) were both on board for the 5K, I couldn't hold out anymore.  Since my training plan has a long run and a medium-distance pace run each weekend, I opted for the 10K.

A brief recap of the 2010 race: it did not go well.    At that point I had run one 5K (after which I lost my breakfast on the pavement in Copley Square), and had vague ideas about eventually racing longer distances (I believe the words "Disney Princess Half" had come up a few times), but basically had no idea what I was doing.  My mom and I ran the 10K while my sister ran the 5K.  It was a warm, muggy day and I struggled through almost the entire race, eventually finishing in 1:16:02 for a 12:14 average pace.  This also put me more than six minutes behind my mother, which she doesn't like to let me forget.

Looking a little nervous pre-race

Pretty solid race photography from Dad!

Post-race, looking like I'm about to hurl.  Wouldn't be the first time ...

This year's race went much, much better.

Pre-race -- looking good!

Pre-race -- looking weird ...

Given Sunday's 9 miler and the very hot, very humid weather on race day, my goal was to come in right around 10 minute miles, and that's just what I did, finishing with an official time of 1:02:34 for a 10:05 average pace.  But the splits show that I faded pretty hard (even if you discount a slightly wonky first mile split):

The course was pretty, going through part of Northwestern's campus and along the lakefront, but a little bit brutal when we ran the same mile-long segment of Sheridan Rd three times!  Also, the mile markers were all over the place, which was a little confusing -- based my watch, mile 2 was very long and mile 4 was very short.  Going into the race I was a little grumpy about the fact that I was running twice as far as anyone else in our little group, but it was totally worth it when I saw Katie and S cheering for me from the sidewalk on the home stretch.

It ended up being a good day for everyone!  Mom ran a solid race, Katie ran her first sub-30 min 5K, and S ran under 21 minutes, good for third in his age group!

Post-race, with banana peels

Wednesday Mileage Report

I finally finished moving everything from my old apartment to my new apartment yesterday, which means it's time to catch up on my backlog of blog posts!

Blogging is way more fun than dealing with this mess

Last week's workouts:
Mon - Cross training 12 hours in the car (now that I have Klaus I drive home instead of flying)
Tue - 3.09 mi @ 10:58 pace (GA)
Wed - 5 mi GA  Took the day off hoping to fend off some developing injuries
Thu - 3.06 mi @11:20 pace (EZ) 
Fri - Rest
Sat - 5.26 mi @ 11:13 pace (MSD)
Sun - B.A.A. 10K in 1:00:59

Klaus enjoying the car ride from Chicago to Boston

This will be my first week of the training cycle with no race planned!  I'm kind of looking forward to settling into the weekend routine.


Here's the plan:
Mon - Cross training moving moving moving
Tue - 3 mi GA
Wed - 6 mi GA
Thu - 3 mi EZ 
Fri - Rest
Sat - 6 mi MP
Sun - 11 mi LSD


And now for the injury update ...


My patellar tendonitis seems to be getting better, or at least not worse (knock on wood), but as usual, that means two new injuries have popped up.  During the North Shore Half a few weeks ago, my right hip started to hurt, especially on the uphills.  The pain hasn't gone away since then, and usually kicks in 2-3 miles into my runs.   It also wakes me up in the middle of the night, resulting in lots of rolling around and kicking to try to find a comfortable sleeping position.  Not fun.  I've also been having some serious heel pain for the first time ever.  For a few days last week, I could barely walk because the pain in my right heel was so sharp.  I scrapped Wednesday's run to try to rest it a bit, but I don't think being on my feet moving all week helped much.  Halfway through Sunday's 10K the pain was so bad I thought I was going to have to walk the rest of the race, but I ran through it.  Which was fine until after the race, when I could barely walk home from the T thanks to the combined heel and hip pain.  Now my heel is mostly numb, which scares me even more.


Any armchair diagnoses from my fellow injury-prone runners?


Only 15 minutes until they turn my building's water back on for the day!  I love construction.

North Shore Half Marathon Recap

This is almost two weeks old now, but I figured I would right it up anyway.  Since I know you all love my sweaty, disgusting super flattering race photos.  Spoiler alert: the one-word version of this race recap is "ouch".

I signed up for the North Shore Half in May, a few days before I left for Reach the Beach.  I was grumpy about going into the relay injured and slow and wanted another race to look forward to.  Yes folks, this is how my brain works.  "Injury got you down?  Sign up for a half marathon that's only a month away!"  It seemed logical at the time.  I had great memories of the course from running with my mom (her first half!) last year, and figured a nice, low-key half would be a good way to kick off this cycle of marathon training.  Plus, I love running races at home because I can count on my awesome parents to drop me off at the start, pick me up at the finish, and oh btw watch my puppy while I'm out on the course.

Surprisingly enough, my knee did not magically get better after Reach the Beach, making long runs difficult.  So I went into this race having not done a run of more than 8 miles since my spring marathon in mid-March (and that 8 miler only happened the weekend before the race).  And oh, by the way, a few days before the race I got this lovely email:

Subject: [READ] Weather Advisory

So given the weather and my lack of training, I decided my goal for the day would be a 2:17, a "safe" 10 minutes over my half marathon PR.

FAIL.

This race was one of the toughest non-marathons I've ever run, up there with my first 10K.  The course was hillier than I remembered.  Despite the relatively tame elevation profile (aside from the Park Street Hill at Mile 7) -- it just never felt like we were running flat.  My right hip started bothering me on the uphills early on in the race, and unfortunately hasn't stopped since.

It was also hot in that weird way where you don't so much feel hot as like your body just isn't functioning properly for some reason you can't quite put your finger on.  Or maybe that's just me.  I kept drinking fluids (and pouring them all over myself) but I couldn't get in a groove and my body just did not want to run.    By mile 9 or so, I could feel my heart pounding even at an 11+ min pace.  At that point, I decided my only goal was to count this as a long run and not do anything that would derail my training.

Turns out, I pretty much combined the 5 mile pace run and 8 mile long run I was supposed to do that weekend after all:

As usual, first mile looks a little suspect -- I think my watch hit 1 mile before the course did

While this definitely wasn't my best race ever (official time of 2:30:43 -- almost 24 minutes off my PR and three minutes slower than running this same race with my mom last year but infinitely more painful) I think it was a good way to start off the training cycle. I checked off my first real long run of the training cycle, realistically adjusted my goals before and during the race so I didn't do anything stupid, and (most difficult for me) accepted my disappointing finish time and moved on.

I was pretty much wrecked for the rest of the day.  Lucky for me, neither of my parents kicked me off the couch when I passed out there for the better part of the afternoon and pretty much let me buy whatever I wanted for dinner at the grocery store (chips with guacamole and salsa plus homemade cheeseburgers -yum!).  Have I mentioned how much I love going home?


Back soon with a recap of last weekend's 10K ...

Wednesday Mileage Report

A little late, since I spent all of Monday driving back to Boston (and all of Tuesday freaking out about how I'm going to move all my stuff into my tiny new apartment), but here it is!


Mon - Cross training = Pilates On Demand
Tue - 3.1 mi @ 10:20 pace (GA) + quick strength
Wed - 5.0 mi @ 10:09 pace (GA)
Thu - 3.0 mi @ 11:02 pace (EZ)  + quick strength 
Fri - Rest
Sat - 9 mi @ 11:48 pace (LSD)
Sun - Race Against Hate 10K in 1:02:34


Wednesday's 5 miler felt GREAT.  First run in a long time that didn't feel hard, despite keeping the pace fairly quick (for me, anyway).  My knee has been holding up ok, but of course that means something else has started to hurt -- this time it's my right hip.  Maybe jumping back into a full training load and adding on my hip-heavy PT exercises at the same time was too much ...


This week: 
Mon - Cross training 12 hours in the car
Tue - 3 mi GA
Wed - 5 mi GA
Thu - 3 mi EZ 
Fri - Rest
Sat - 5 mi MSD
Sun - B.A.A. 10K


I didn't have to alter any of the distances this week, but since Sunday's 6 mile long run is actually going to be the B.A.A. 10K, where I know I won't want to hold back  the pace, I'm going to turn Saturday's 5 mile pace run into a medium distance slow run.  My hip is still hurting bad enough to wake me up in the middle of the night, and spending the day hauling things from one apartment to the other isn't helping, so I'm thinking about scrapping/shortening today's 5 miler.  But I'll probably feel guilty and end up running it this evening (high of 99 in Boston today?!) anyway.


I finally have the photos from the North Shore Half, so I'll post recaps of that race and the Race Against Hate 10K asap.

Monday Mileage Report

Here it is -- the first weekly mileage report for a brand new marathon training cycle!  I'm using Hal Higdon's Intermediate I plan again.  Hopefully this time I'll make it through without missing whole weeks due to injury.
The general plan is short runs on Tuesday and Thursday, a moderate distance run on Wednesday, a marathon pace run on Saturday, and a long run on Sunday.  I'll be making small modifications throughout to accommodate a bunch of other fun races I want to run this summer.  For this first week, I combined what should have been a 5 mile pace run and an 8 mile long run so I could run the North Shore Half Marathon without changing the weekly mileage.  Oddly enough, that's about how the pacing of Sunday's race went down (unintentionally) but more on that later ...

So, with the modification, here's how last week broke down:

Mon - "Cross training" aka walked the dog and called it a day
Tue - 3.0 mi @ 10:26 pace (GA)
Wed - 5.0 mi @ 10:59 pace (GA)
Thu - 3.2 mi @ 11:06 pace (EZ)
Fri - Rest
Sat - "Rest" but ended up taking the dogs for an extra long walk and going shopping, which meant even more walking
Sun - North Shore Half Marathon in 2:30:43 (Ouch)

And coming up this week:

Mon - Cross training = Pilates On Demand
Tue - 3 mi GA
Wed - 5 mi GA
Thu - 3 mi EZ
Fri - Rest
Sat - 9 mi
Sun - Race Against Hate 10K

Once again, I'm modifying the plan slightly so I can run the Race Against Hate with my mom, sister, and boyfriend.  And by "with" I mean they're all running the 5K and will be waiting around forever for me to finish.  So I'm swapping Saturday and Sunday and adding a mile and change to the pace run, which should have been 5 miles.

I'll post a full recap of Sunday's North Shore Half as soon as I have photos.

And now, since this has been a boring, photo-less post, here's another picture of my adorable puppy!

Klaus demonstrating "rest day"

Hello Again & A Brief Reach the Beach Recap

Hello again, lovely blog readers!  Apparently I'm really bad at updating this when I a) am not training for a major race, b) have something resembling a social life, and c) have a new puppy.  But fortunately for you all, I've just started training for the Chicago Marathon, most of my friends are out of town for the summer, and the puppy and I are getting used to each other pretty quickly.  In other words, I'm back to blogging!

My new puppy, Clausewitz (we call him Klaus)

Despite being a totally delinquent blogger the past few months, I think I've only missed writing about one race: the MA Reach the Beach Relay.  I won't subject you to a leg-by-leg recap (anyone who's talked to me since then has probably already heard it), but I will say that the race was a blast!  The girls were amazing, the race was really well organized, the course was beautiful, and oh, by the way, we were unexpectedly awesome!

My team, Pretty (Speedy) in Pink, got 2nd place in the Women's Open division with a time of 28:21:21 (average pace 8:29).  We went into the race thinking we had a shot at being competitive, but I didn't really know what to expect given that no one on the team had run a long-distance relay before and that we didn't have a roster finalized until about 10 days before the race (and even when we did, it was short two runners).  All I can say is, my girls crushed it!

Official team photo, at Wachusett Mountain before the start

Post-race team hug (thanks to Linda Chao for the photo!)

Thanks to an increasingly angry patellar tendon and the whole puppy thing derailing any training plans I might have had, I took the spot in the rotation that only involved three legs of 3.7, 3.3, and 2.7 miles.  I ran them about as well as could be expected given the shape I was in, and only brought up the team's average pace a little bit.  I don't know exactly how much, since I left my GPS watch at home for this one, but I think I ran the first (mostly uphill) leg at around 10 min pace and the second two at around 9 min pace.  I did have some extra fun with that second leg when my headlamp went out on a random back road around 11pm.

I also learned a lot about captaining a relay team, which I might write about in a later post.  Maybe when I'm putting together a team for next year's race?

For now, I'm looking forward to an awesome summer racing season, starting with the North Shore Half Marathon this Sunday. We just got an email from RAM Racing with a weather advisory, so I've got my fingers crossed the heat won't be too bad!  Back in a few days with the recap.