Freedom Friday
So what do you think? The CDC says “Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities, large or small, without wearing a mask or physical distancing.” It’s hard to wrap my head around this, after all this time, but reading that statement makes me want to weep with relief. The thing I’m longing for most of all is to stop wearing a mask at work. I’m a massage therapist, and doing a massage- especially deep tissue, which is a workout- while wearing a mask makes me feel like I’m suffocating. The CDC says masks are still required in healthcare settings. I’m hoping we don’t fall into that category because we don’t work with sick people. My boss however, may feel otherwise. We will see! Anyway! Exciting days ahead. Meanwhile, here are a couple good podcasts from the week: “Sleep is not a disposable luxury– it’s a non-negotiable biological necessity.” This Rich Roll podcast about sleep. It’s long- three hours- but worth it. I listened to it over the course of several days. Rich interviews sleep expert Dr. Mathew Walker about every aspect of sleep- why it’s so important, what happens if you don’t get enough, and steps you can take to improve your sleep. I liked the part where he said the optimal sleep temperature is around 65 degrees (because I always want the house colder than my husband at night) but not that part about caffeine (noooo! I love my afternoon glass of iced tea!). Anyway, I’m highly motivated now to get more sleep- I’ve been working on it. Jason Fitzgerald has been killing it lately with his podcast guests. Yet another great one about strength training for runners. As a matter of fact I’m seriously considering buying Kevin Carr’s book, Functional Training Anatomy. I’ve mentioned that I want to change up my strength routine, and I like what he said about multiplanar exercise. Since running is all about moving forward, we need to spend some time moving side to side. I’m also incorporating more single-leg movements. We’ll see how it goes! And one last thing. Friday is our takeout night, and my usual choice is Chipotle. Last week I decided to branch out and get Blaze pizza. Blaze has the option of vegan cheese and all sorts of vegetables. WELL! When I got home with the pizzas I was extremely displeased to find they had left two toppings off of mine- kalamata olives and arugula. Sure, I still had a couple sad looking vegetables- onion and green pepper- but the olives and arugula were big things to leave off, flavor-wise. Needless to say I’ll be back to my beloved Chipotle tonight. How are you feeling about the new mask news? Excited? Apprehensive? Do you get enough sleep? – I was getting between 6-7 hours a night, now I’m getting 7-8. Baby steps!
Anatomy of an Long Run
In my last post I talked about my great long run on Sunday, and promised to share more details about what made it special. While planning the post, however, I realized that I should make a distinction between doing long runs as part of a training plan, and the type of run I’ve been doing, which I would call more of an “adventure run.” To me, an adventure run is where I get the idea to run a certain route, like from my house to the beach or to explore a new trail. Then I typically spend some time getting my long run up to the required distance and working out the logistics, e.g. figuring out how to get water and working out a drop-off or pickup, if I’m not going to begin or end at my house. My run on Sunday was a point-to-point run on a levee trail which skirts the Everglades. I’ve only explored parts of this trail- the entire trail is a 62 mile loop. I arranged for my husband to drop me off at one entrance point to the levee, and ran from there back to the access point closest to my house, and then home. I estimated the run to be 14 miles and it came out to 14.5- close enough! This was one of the best long runs I’ve ever had, and one of the reasons was that I finally fueled and hydrated properly. My normal routine in the morning is to get up and drink 16 ounces of water with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. I do that every morning, and then I get myself out the door is quickly as possible after that to start my run, eating nothing. I know most people eat before long runs, but I’m just not hungry that early. A couple weeks ago, Jessie posted about her pre-long run routine, and said she starts the morning with a glass of water and Nuun. AH! That makes much more sense for a long run day! I also ate an orange right before starting my run. WELL. Those two thing made a huge difference. The third thing that has made a huge difference is carrying water in a hydration vest. In the past I’ve relied on water fountains, or hidden a water bottle along the route, but neither of those things gave me as much water as carrying it in my vest. The vest I have is the Orange Mud HydraQuiver single barrel, and it holds one 24 oz. bottle of water. So here’s how the run played out. 6:30 I was at the starting point on the levee. I had already consumed 16 ounces of water with Nuun, and an orange. My phone said the temperature was 72 degrees, but honestly it felt a little cooler to me. The sun was starting to rise to the east, but I was running south and the sun wasn’t high enough yet to start heating things up. I listened to a podcast about a woman who ran a 240 mile race- I know a lot of people wouldn’t listen to a podcast during a trail run, but as I’ve mentioned, while my trail is beautiful (in its own way) there’s not a lot of varied scenery or terrain. Plus, I love running along while listening to stories of other people running. The first five miles went by easily- I drank water at every mile, and ate my first Gu at around 5.5 miles. It was the Cold Brew Coffee flavor, which has 70 mg of caffeine. Yes, that’s a lot!!! But I absolutely love the kick it gives me. Normally I’ll take one caffeinated gel during a long run, and my preference is the espresso Hammer gel, which has a more reasonable 40 mg of caffeine. The Gu Cold Brew was a special treat. I ran the next five miles on that caffeine high, still feeling great although the sun was high in the sky now. At mile 10 I took my second Gu, which was NOT caffeinated. 70 mg is enough for one run. I also was finishing up my water bottle, but when I got off the trail at around 12 miles, I had another water bottle hidden. (Orange Mud also makes a double barrel version of my vest, with two bottles. Contemplating that for the future!) At this point I had turned east and was heading home- right into the sun. Normally a challenging situation on a Florida morning in May, but there was also a headwind. It would have been super annoying if I had a time goal, but I didn’t so I just leaned into it and enjoyed the breeze. Also at this 12 mile point, where I left the trail and headed home, my podcast had ended and I switched to music. I love listening to music for the last 2-3 miles of a long run- it really gives me some extra energy. After 14.5 miles, I arrived at my house. Of course I was happy to be done running, but I also could have gone farther. I had energy for the entire run and never had to pull out any mental tricks (mantras, step counting, etc.) to get me through it. I know there are people who wouldn’t use gels for a run of this distance, but as I said, my only goal for the day was to enjoy myself. I’m not trying to teach my body to burn fat as fuel or anything like that- I just wanted to keep my energy up the whole time. So there’s the story of my latest “adventure run.” I have another one in mind, but it’s 17-18 miles so I probably should do one more long run in between first, to get up to the distance. Do you do long runs for the fun of it, even if you’re not training for anything? Do you use gels? How often do you take them?
Weekly Rundown- It Was Awesome
Hello and Happy Mother’s Day! I actually have mixed feelings about Mother’s Day, because I know that it’s not a happy day for everyone. I remember the Mother’s Day after my mom died, I just felt awful. If you’re not excited about this holiday, here’s a post by Anne Lamott that might help. Happily, I’m in a good place now and have a wonderful family who are busy making this a nice day for me. The mug at the top of this post was my present, and I love it. I also got in an amazing trail run and do not have to cook any meals today (the best present of all.) But first! I’m linking up with Kim and Deborah for the Weekly Rundown… Monday Always a day off. Tuesday Very easy four mile run, followed by Gauntlet Plank workout. Wednesday Five mile run with some speed work thrown in- two mile warmup, then 8×200 at 5k pace (although God only knows what that is at this point… I went by feel) with 200 jog recoveries in between. One mile cooldown. Thursday Lower body strength work. I did squats, deadlifts, and a lunge matrix which included curtsy lunges, something I don’t normally do. Boy, did this come back to bite me. I’m seriously re-evaluating my strength training routine. Read on to find out why… Friday SUPER SORE. Well, okay. That’s what lifting weights does to you- I get it. A very creaky four mile run. The soreness subsided as I was running but was back in full force as soon as I stopped. Afterwards I did my “ten down” pushup routine, which comes out to 55 pushups. Saturday This is getting annoying. Still sore. Even more sore, possibly. Did a very slow three miles, followed by a few planks. This soreness is really unpleasant during the day as I’m going about my normal activities. Sunday STILL. SORE. Not as bad, but come on- I’m doing a long run. I don’t want to start off with sore legs! But that’s what I did and actually the run was one of the best long runs I’ve ever had. It was 14.5 miles point-to-point on a packed gravel levee that skirts the Everglades. My husband dropped me off at an entrance point, and I ran back to the access point closest to our house, then ran home. Anyway, I’m going to write more about it this week because I did some new (to me) things that helped make it a great run. I know fourteen miles isn’t extremely long (just kind of long) but it’s challenging in that it’s completely un-shaded, with no water available and to be honest, not a lot to look at. The entire trail looks basically like this: It’s beautiful, but there’s no change of scenery or terrain. So, it has its own challenges. That’s it! I hit 30.5 miles for the week, which feels like a nice milestone. I hope everyone is having a great day today! Did you do a race or long run? Anyone going out to celebrate, or having family over?
Ode to the Long Run
Don’t worry! I’m not going to write poetry- that would be horrible. But I do want to give some love to my favorite aspect of running, the long run. In my last post I talked about the Running Rogue podcast, “Church of the Long Run.” While it was filled with practical information, I was a little disappointed that he didn’t talk about the mental, emotional, and, well… spiritual side of long runs (since the word “church” was in the title, after all.) I was definitely glad to hear about all the physical benefits of long runs, but for me it’s also the emotional highlight of my week. I promised not to write poetry, but I am going to quote the beginning of a poem called “Aristotle” by Billy Collins. “This is the beginning. Almost anything can happen.” … That’s how I feel at the beginning of every single long run. It’s not like a shorter run, where you can categorize it simply- it was a good run, a bad run, you felt light, your legs were heavy… for a long run you might feel all of those things in the course of the run. You might get lost, or fall down, or see some wildlife… I love to look down the road or trail before I start and think “almost anything can happen.” My long runs have gotten much more adventurous since I discovered a nearby trail. Up until a year ago I would have said there were no running trails near me. No, there are NO TRAILS… other than this gigantic 100 kilometer trail literally within RUNNING DISTANCE OF MY HOUSE. In my defense, I only lived here for sixteen years before discovering it. Ha ha… seriously, in my defense, it wasn’t until last year that an access point to this trail suddenly appeared. One day I was running along and I saw a new path, which I decided to explore, and in a very roundabout fashion it took me to the trail. In December of 2020, someone set an FKT (fastest known time) for this 100k loop, of 9 hours and 45 minutes. I’m not up to that quite yet, but I have been waiting until my long run is long enough to run from one access point to the next. The only problem is, getting home afterwards… or getting someone to drop me off at the farther access point… muahahaha. When my husband asked me what I want for Mother’s Day, I told him just one thing- for him to get up at 6 am and drive me fourteen miles away to the trail access. Yes, some people have breakfast in bed on Mother’s Day, or get a massage. All I want is to be dumped off at dawn on a trail, to make my way back home, alone. I CAN’T WAIT!!! I have my hydration vest, my gels, and my Squirrel’s Nut Butter. I’ll be all set for this fun adventure. It will be epic! I hope… you never know. Almost anything can happen. Do you love long runs? Would you rather do a race or a long run? – i thought about doing a race on Sunday, but didn’t want to miss my long run.