I Think My Coordination is Off

I believe in karma. I believe that things happen for a reason. I believe that putting off a morning run til after work feels like a fine idea when I'm a snuggly and comatose in my bed in the morning, but seems significantly more stupid as the day goes on. Yep - picking myself off of the pavement during my evening run definitely feels like my morning run is smiting me.

When I woke up on Thursday morning, I had a moment of weakness. The church bell chimes of my alarm clock rang promptly at 5:50, and I wanted no part of it. My running outfit was already picked out, my Shuffle was charged, but I couldn't help but succumb to the undeniable force of extreme comfort my new bedding provided.

Thanks, Crate & Barrel bedding sale! Photo courtesy of Crate & Barrel - totes not my apartment.

I reset my alarm for 6:40, rolled back over, and took a glorious morning nap.

I didn't skip my run entirely for the day - I decided to do it after work. You know, around 6pm on the brink of a snow storm.

I'm full of all sorts of good ideas.

I also decided this would be an awesome time to conduct a pacing experiment, too. After running with my Garmin for a week, I noticed that it was clocking me almost 40 seconds slower than my iPhone app had been tracking me. So today was the day when I decided that I would run with both my Garmin and my Nike app - and see if there was any truth to my observation.

I was only going out to run about 3 miles - a simple out a back route on the bike path along the lake. No extraneous variables to throws off the stats of my statistics - just a simple paved path.

It was definitely a chilly run but nothing out of the ordinary. But by the time I turned around at mile 1.5,  I noticed some frost collecting on my cheeks and eyelashes, and finally I had the wherewithal to realize that at wintry mix of sleet and hail had started.

A photo of the snow storm that followed that wintery mix.

Since I only had a little more than a mile to finish my run, I channeled Nicki Minaj's "Starship" that was pumping through my headphones and tried to push hard to the end.

And then time seemed to go faster than I thought it could go, while simultaneously going slow enough to see myself completely outside of that experience. Before I knew it I was hurdling forward and the only thoughts that went through my head were, "I have a race in a month!" and "What am I going to tell work?"

I hit the pavement with some sort of expletive coming out of my mouth, and I only managed to break my fall with my left wrist and forearm.

I must have tripped on the metal strip on the bridge to help prevent the pavement from cracking when water gets into tiny cracks, freezes, expands, melts, and then eventually creates potholes. Yeah, I probably slipped on once of those icy little suckers. 'Cause otherwise I would have just fallen down for no reason, which is so not cool.

See that dip in my pace? Just picture me lying face down on a bike path wiping gravel and sleet ff of my face. 

Once I assessed that my left hand was sore from catching my fall but that my limbs were intact, I started up again and tread back home with more careful footfalls.

Unfortunately, my pacing experiment failed since I didn't stop my Nike app when I fell. I did manage to stop the timer on my Garmin, though - the things you do when your life flashes before your eyes. Yes, I realize I'm being dramatic. Deal.

Don't worry - I'm convinced that there is something off about the Nike app and I will do my best to conduct a controlled experiment in better conditions next time.

I feel crazy lucky that I didn't actually hurt myself when I fell, but it was definitely a wake-up call to always go above and beyond when it comes to running safety. Yes, I wear reflective gear when it's dark or dusky outside, and I tend to bring a little cash when I go on long runs, but  there are definitely days that I head out with nothing more than my apartment key. Makes you realize that the person who may have had to pick me up off the bike path might have wanted to know my name and who to call if I couldn't tell them.

Have you ever fallen on a run when you were out alone? Do you always run with ID? Are you willing to admit that you are as uncoordinated as I am?

Wednesday Things

1) I just discovered that Every. Single. Season. of The Biggest Loser is on Netflix. I'm mildly emabarassed by how excited I am about this. For as much as I love Dolvett, I'm doubly excited because all of these past seasons have my fave lady - JILLIAN.

2) I have decided that given the recent trend in my male friends sending me photos of their culinary pursuits, I'm going to be hosting a Boys Bake-Off. Matt sent me this picture of the Arroz con Pollo he whipped up from scratch, and Josh sent me the second picture of his homemade coffee cake! And you remember the cheesecake chips, right?

I'm proud.

So very proud.

3) I haven't shared something awesome from Yahoo! recently, So here it is. I really like this appalling cover letter. I sent it to my family and my sister replied, "That kid stole my cover letter! Damn him. Sorry guys, I was waiting for the right time to tell you that I can bench press double my body weight..."

She can be funny sometimes.

4) My parents are coming to visit on Friday!! I'm thinking they must love me if they want to visit Wisconsin in February. I plan on taking them ice fishing. Just kidding. Maybe.

5) I'm really not much of a shoe girl, but I may be a running shoe girl. Work-appropriate shoes don't come in neon. These Brooks PureCadence are headed to my doorstep as we speak.

6) I understand that we are not speaking. I am speaking to you. Or...writing to you. One day I'll just post an audio file of me reading my post so that I am actually speaking to you. It'll be practice for when I have to record the audiobook for my memoir, It's Normal to Answer Carrie Bradshaw's Rhetorical Questions Out Loud (and other normal weird things).

7) That title is still in the works.

8) I tried to play this word even though I was certain it was only a real word in Harry Potter. I was so wrong that I got 54 points.

squib (n.) - a firework consisting of a tube filled with powder that burns with a fizzing noise.

9) Hey men, how do you know if a tie is too skinny? How do you what ties go with what shirts and what shirts go with what suits? The Art of Manliness has all sorts of cool man wisdom.

Okay talk to you later bye!

Racing Lessons

The Madison Winter Festival was this weekend, and unfortunately the weather didn't exactly cooperate. It was so nice outside that they literally had to make a snow path around the capitol for the cross-country skiing events.

Yep - that's grass over there. It's unreal how warm it has been here.

One of the Winter Festival events was a 5k race, and I was pretty pumped to run.

Read the post at The Yellow Tandem Bike >>

Running Pains

It's a scary moment. The moment when you're in the zone, in full stride, as if the ground is propelling you forward, and Ouch!

Something tweaks, bends, pinches, or shoots a stinging pain right up into your brain. This isn't a full-blown injury - rolling on the path hoping the cyclist who just whizzed by you will turn around and make sure you aren't left for dead - this is the pain that sets off a circular inner turmoil of what do I do now?

This happened to me on Sunday and it's been weighing on me for the past three days. At around my halfway point - about four and a half miles in - I was jammin' to some D. Guetta and then a shooting pain came from under the arch of my left foot up the right side of my ankle. And I panicked.

Here's what went through my mind in the following 10 seconds.

Crap. What happened? Nothing happened. Then why does my foot hurt? I'll just keep running. I'll run it off. Yeah, that'll help. It's not helping. This is like that time freshman year when I pulled this same tendon when I did yoga for the first time. I should go to yoga tomorrow. Except the mean yoga teacher is there on Mondays. You think the minimal running shoes have something to do with it? I do have pretty flat feet and they really don't have any arch support. But the Born to Run guy said that minimal shoes would help my feet get stronger! Oh! I think it's feeling better now. I freaked out for no-OUCH! What am I going to do? I have a race in a month! But I should be in okay shape if I need to take a few rest days...but what if it doesn't get better? No it will get better. Should I buy new shoes? maybe new shoes will help. There is a shoe buying guide in this Runner's World...

And so on. My brain's a scary place.

And then I took two days off. I tried really hard to be nice to my foot. I iced it, I wrapped it in an Ace bandage, I iced it again. By yesterday morning I was feeling pretty good, so I decided to go out for 2, maybe 3 miles to see if it felt okay.





I wore my "traditional" running shoes hoping that the extra cushioning and support might help my foot out. And my foot was...fine. "Fine" being that I could definitely feel that it was still sore, but it wasn't anything that I couldn't power through.

So my question is, where do you draw the line?

I'm running the Movin' Shoes Frosty 5k in Madison on Saturday - so I'm going to cross train until then. A little elliptical, definitely some yoga, and then (fingers crossed!) my foot will feel solid on Saturday morning. This also means that I don't have a long run for another ten days, which should be plenty of time to get my foot back in shape. I just want to make sure that I don't overdo it and turn whatever this is into a full-fleged injury.

And definitely still planning on crushing the National Half Marathon. Justsoyaknow.

Have you ever had a pain that was on the brink of becoming an injury? How did you deal with it? Have you ever had to wear a blue boot? Did you also love that Disney Channel original movie Brink?

Run for a Cause

Hi! This weekend I was thinking that it might be good to explain a little bit more about the race Dad and I are running on March 17.

Yep, we're running the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon in D.C.

Pretty. Crazy. Psyched.

This particular race was a seed I had planted in my dad's head around Christmas when we were running together and it was pretty up in the air when I would be seeing my parents again. We all got spoiled by the South Bend reunions that happened on an almost bi-weekly basis in the fall, and now we were hard-pressed for reasons to cut out of work early on a Friday to go eat food in a parking lot.

Fast forward to about a month ago, when Dad finally convinced himself that he would be able to run the race, and the I logged on to the website only to find out that this particular race was sold out. Yep. Sold. Out. And no, they weren't selling entries on Stub Hub.

My dad being the brilliant guy he is figured that there had to be another way for us to run this race. He did some searching and found an amazing team that is running on behalf of a charitable organization - the Organization for Autism Research.

I am now doubly excited about running this half marathon because I'm running for a reason outside of my own accomplishment. This race is providing me the opportunity to raise money for an awesome organization, run with a team, and to support research in an area where so much more research needs to be done. 

If you have ever been touched by Autism - either in your family, through friends, in the classroom, or simply through stories - please click the OAR button on the right side of the blog to donate to Organization for Autism Research through my page, and follow the link above to check out OAR's website for more information on their research and their mission. Any little bit helps!

Just to let you know that I'm keeping up my end of the bargain, I cranked out 9 miles yesterday which keeps me right on track to run 13.1 miles on March 17. 

My average pace was about ten second slower than last weekend's long run, but I'm still pretty happy with the run. Both Dad and I are shooting for a sub-2 hour finish time, which will also mean that we will both set PRs (Personal Records) for the Half Marathon! So far it looks like we're in pretty good shape to do it! 

The Unglamorous Side of Running

If my subscription to Runner's World has taught me anything, it has taught me that there is a mystique around runners. Everyday, common runners like me find ultra-marathoners fascinating. Non-runners can't understand why some seemingly regular person would forego a Friday night of beer and bars because she's planning on waking up at 7am the next morning and running 11 miles.

I also think that there's an impression that running is glamorous. Books like Born to Run, movies like Chariots of Fire, and inspirational stories that come out of popular marathons like Boston create an aura around running that make it seem like an exclusive group.

Well, I'm here to tell you that it's not glamorous, it's not mystical, and it certainly isn't pretty. All of those inspirational stories are fueled by hundreds and thousands of ugly early mornings when that person didn't want to get out of bed, didn't want to put on sneakers, and certainly didn't have a cute neon outfit to put on.

I'm highly motivated by neon performance wear. Sue me.

So for your enjoyment, here's my list of wonderfully ugly things about running. Try to forget that these things are on my list because they've happened to me. Okaythanks.

1) Spitting
It's hard to run when it's any colder than 50° and not get thick saliva phlegm in the back of your throat. This poses a conundrum - do I just let it hang out or do I do something about it? Well, I can't stand it so I've gotten really good hocking a loogie over my shoulder and also making sure that any stray saliva doesn't create an icy spit string across my face.

I warned you about this list.

2) Snotting
This is certainly derivative of the spitting, but definitely a stand-alone ugly problem. Snot's funny because it comes in so many forms - runny, gunky, you name it. My management technique is borrowed from one of the few things I learned while watching my brother play baseball for fifteen years - "The Field Hanky".

Plug one nostril and then blow your nose over the opposite shoulder. Watch for potentially passing runners so you don't snot all over them in the process. Repeat for other nostril if necessary. This technique should eliminate your need to wipe snot on your neon performance wear.

3) Smelliness
And I'm not just talking about the time between the end of your run and the beginning of your shower. Any runner who runs more than twice a week inevitably has to repeat some running outfit pieces between loads of laundry.

God, I hope this isn't just me.

That means that when the third morning I run rolls around and I go to slip on the same neon green vest that I wore for my past two runs, neither it (nor I) is smelling like a bed of roses. The best word that I can find to describe it is funky.

Let's just say that these are not the mornings that I decide to stand in a crowded Starbucks for my morning coffee after I finish my run. I would never subject innocent patrons to that funk.

4) Chafing
Ugh. The absolute worst. You know they make products specifically for this problem?! I did not.

My chafing tends to manifest itself in the form of a searing red line right where my sports bra band is. I'm normally pretty good anywhere up through six miles, but if I ever go farther than that I get increasingly worse chafing lines there.

I also made the classic mistake of running a half marathon in Florida in shorts without knowing that Body Glide or similar products existed. It's stunning that perfectly comfortable running shorts will turn on you at mile eleven.

My dad also just discussed (in graphic detail) some kind of chafing problem involving leg hair. I will defer to any comments that he chooses to leave on this post, since I have no experience with this problem.

But that's what this post is all about!

PLEASE. What kind of ugly running problems have you encountered? Have you found good solutions for them? I want to hear!!

Running with Stats

So I'm training for a half marathon again, right? I finally feel like I have my stomach under control, I have felt good on my morning runs for quite a bit, and - oh yeah - my dad agreed to run it.

That's Dad and me. Running in Madison. When it was still reasonable to run in shorts and a tank top.

I'm really excited about it, since running has always been one of the things that he and I have gotten to do when we get the chance to see each other. I didn't start running until I was already away at college,  so it's always been a treat for us to run together when we find ourselves in the same place for two seconds.

I'm using the word "treat" very loosely. I think the first run we did together at Notre Dame happened during an 18° day at the tail end of a blizzard. I'm also not terribly pleasant to run with if it's any hotter than 75°.

Like I said, I'm using "treat"relatively.

So Dad got one of those "13.1" stickers in his stocking from Santa, and I think the combination of the challenge, goal, and his brand new Garmin Forerunner prompted him to start texting me the stats from his runs.

"7.4 miles this morning."
"9.2 miles today."
"10.14 miles at a 9'23" pace. Felt good and happy I didn't die."


Thanks, Dad. I'm happy you didn't die too.

But all of these statistical reports of his runs made me start thinking that I would want to know my stats too. I couldn't have him leaving me in the dust on race day just because I was willy nilly about my training runs!

The problem is that I'm terrible at getting real stats from my $30 Timex. I don't understand how the lap function works and I inevitably forget to stop my watch when I'm waiting at an intersection, and if I do happen to remember to stop it, I'll almost certainly forget to restart it.

But in the name of stats, concrete numbers, and good ol' competition, I downloaded the Nike+ GPS app to my iPhone and went out for my long run this weekend.

I was pleasantly surprised by my stats. I set out to do a Long Slow Distance run on Saturday, since I do more speed work type things during the week. This speed work is also very informal since, you know, I don't know how to use a watch.

But I was again pleasantly surprised when the Nike lady started talking over my Nicki Minaj playlist saying, "4 miles completed. Average pace - 8'36". 2 miles to go. Average pace - 8'37"".

Which kept me motivated. Especially since my legs were all like, "I feel awesome! I could run faster!" and my stomach was totally silent, which is a rare a wonderfully pleasant treat for me.

It also didn't hurt that it was  GORGEOUS outside. I have no idea why Wisconsin is being so nice to me during my first winter, but I'll take it. It was 45°F during my run. Can't beat that for February 4.

This creek is not frozen in this photo. Mind blown.

So I ran 8 miles at a 8'36" average pace, saw beautiful scenery, and only got one, "Hey there, girl!" from a homeless man.

The homeless man cat call was the only time I forgot to pause my Nike+. Which threw off my average pace by .03 seconds and added that last .12 miles to my distance. I get very flustered when strangers talk to me.

The bottom line is that I think I'm a stats convert. I'm not a huge fan of running with my whole iPhone, since it's significantly bulkier than the Shuffle I normally run with, but I definitely feel safer running with my phone when I go a long way all by myself. Refer to my fear of strangers above. Running with my phone and the Nike+ app is also way easier than trying to calculate my splits on my own. No thanks.

I really like the extra push it gives me to know that I could probably take my pace up a bit when the Nike lady calls me out on being a bit too leisurely, but I also like the ego boost when I check out speedy splits after a "no expectations" run. Getting constant feedback throughout my run makes me more accountable for how much effort I'm putting in, since the numbers will call me out on it later.

And now my dad has to run a half marathon with me, because it's on the internet. Sneaky blogging tricks! Hopefully the carefully tracked data from our training make us happy half-marathoners!

Do you run with a watch or a tracking app? Does it motivate you? If you love your Garmin, do you ever take a break and go for a "fun run" without it? 

Damn You, J.Crew!

A poem.

Read the poem at The Yellow Tandem Bike >>

Morning Muffins

Mornings can be rough.

Especially when the number on your alarm clock starts with a 4.

Especially when you've been waking up every hour on the hour, irrationaly worried that it's 2 o'clock in the afternoon and not 2 o'clock in the morning.

Yeah, that's never happened to me before.

Definitely not last night.

But that's where these muffins come in.

No messing around with scrambled eggs. No fumbling around trying to eat cereal out of a solo cup at the three stoplights you sit at on your way to work.

That's never happened to me either.

These muffins are packed with whole wheat flour, oats, flax seeds, pecans, and oh yeah - apples and carrots.

The fruits and veggies in these muffins totally eliminate the need for oil or butter, too.

The picture of health, I tell you.

And if you wanted to make these muffins come together super quick, bypass the grating step and buy pre-pureed apples and carrots. Sure, the grocery store will call it baby food, but I much prefer "pre-pureed".

This recipe is a canvas for creativity. I used pecans because I had pecans. Prefer walnuts? Use walnuts! Want to throw some raisins in there? Awesome! I didn't have any in my house. Don't want to leave some of your apples chunky? Grate them all!

You make the rules.

So take one of your more leisurely mornings and make these muffins.

Your other mornings will thank you.

Morning Muffins
adapted from Joy the Baker's Gnarley Muffins

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

3/4 cup flax seed meal

3/4 old fashioned oats

1 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 1/2 cups carrots (shredded)

2 apples (peeled and shredded)

1 cup nuts (optional, chopped, spinkled on top - the world is your oyster!)

3/4 cup milk

2 eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Using a wooden spoon, mix together flour, flax seed meal, oat bran, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl.

2. Stir in carrots, apples, and nuts.

3. Combine milk, eggs and vanilla. Pour liquid all at once into the dry/fruit mixture. Stir until ingredients are moistened. Do not overmix.

4. Fill muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake in a 350 degree F oven for 15 to 20 minutes.