5 Friday Favorites
Happy Friday!!! I’m sharing my five current favorite things today. Favorite accomplishment of the week: I finally made an Irish Soda Bread that didn’t suck! I used this recipe. I left out the egg, made “buttermilk” out of oatmilk and apple cider vinegar, and used Earth Balance spread for the butter. It was delicious! My very picky daughter even liked it- she described it as “a non-sweet cupcake.” Victory! Favorite article of the week: Steph Bruce talks about her experience with plantar fasciitis in this article. I like how it’s called “How I Got Rid of my Plantar Fasciitis…Kind Of.” Good to know that even the pros deal with this! She goes into a lot of helpful detail about what it’s been like for her and all the exercises she’s doing. Her description of waking up in the morning and literally crawling to the bathroom brought back memories… and made me realize that while my foot still isn’t 100%, it’s way better. I no longer have to crawl (or hop) first thing in the morning! Favorite Friday dinner: Friday is Chipotle night! Pictured is my usual meal: a bowl with cauliflower rice, tofu sofritas, vegetables, pico de gallo, salsa, guac and lettuce. It’s so, so, so good! Maybe not the healthiest dinner ever due to the vat of salt it contains, but I love it. Favorite run of the week: A run in the Everglades as the sun was rising! My husband joined me for this one- he’s off of school for spring break this week. Favorite quote of the week: Have a great day! In the words of Steph Bruce, “I got this, you got this, we got this!”
Focus on Form
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! And happy almost-spring! That means it’s also almost my birthday. My birthday is March 21st and I always get happy when it coincides with the first day of spring- unfortunately, this year spring starts on the 20th. Still, birthday plans are being made! But first… What happened with all those pies? Here they are! Two deep-dish pizzas, one apple pie and one coconut cream pie. You can tell they’re all homemade, ha ha. The coconut cream pie is from this website and is vegan AND keto! I don’t follow a ketogenic diet (obviously) but since I don’t eat sugar, occasionally I’ll make myself a keto treat. This pie was really yummy- or I should say IS really yummy. I’m still making my way through it. I know- the website has a weird name (“Big Man’s World”???) but he has some good recipes. The deep dish pizzas were delicious! Notice the line of “sausages” on one of them. Since for this kind of pizza the toppings go under the sauce, this was a line showing me where the Beyond sausages were. Beyond sausages are vegan but they’re so, so meaty. I don’t like them, but my husband and son love them. They got a whole “meat” lovers pizza, plus half of my veggie one. They eat more than I do. Okay, let’s talk about form! Last week I listened to this Strength Running podcast which was called “Tension, Impact Force, and Energy Return: A Running Technique Masterclass.” All sorts of great information here, and the guest, Shane Benzie, recommended that if you want to work on your form, take some videos of yourself running from all different angles. Then you can analyze them and see what you need to work on. For the running pictures on this blog, I take a video of myself and then pick a frame where I look good (ha ha) and screenshot that. When I do these running videos I treat them a little like strides, where you really focus on form. So picking a good picture isn’t that hard. However! A couple times lately I’ve just taken videos of myself running without focusing on form- I just let myself run “normally.” Ahem. This was an eye-opening experience, and I have photos! Here’s the first beauty: Granted- there were plenty of shots where I did look much, much better than this. I picked the absolute worst one. And this was on my ten mile trail run so maybe I was a little tired. But still- my body WAS in this position for a moment while I was running- and that’s a huge problem. (Btw I also love the look on my face- I was actually enjoying myself but you wouldn’t know it!). Get ready for the next one: It’s hard to tell from just a screen shot, but watching this video in slow motion made it clear that my left leg, especially, is crossing over my midline. I never, ever would have thought I was doing these things during my runs, but the camera doesn’t lie. No wonder I’m having foot issues. I really have some work to do! Do you work on form? Ever analyze videos of yourself running? Does your form look like you imagine it to be?
Weekly Rundown- Triple Pi Run!
I had a really fun week, ending with a “triple pi” trail run. I’m linking up with Kim and Deborah for the Weekly Rundown. Here’s how it all happened. Monday “Always miss a Monday” is apparently my mantra, ha ha. It was my day off, as usual. Tuesday My first pi run of the week! 3.14 miles, followed by upper body strength, focused on pullups. Wednesday Double pi run, except that I forgot to stop my watch and went 6.33 miles. Oh well- I did run 6.28. Plus .5. I preceded this run with squats and deadlifts. Lifting weights before a run is not my preferred order, but it’s just the way it has to be on Wednesdays. But my run felt good, so maybe that sequence actually works for me. Thursday Day off of running. I did more upper body strength, and in keeping with the Pi Week theme, held a plank for three minutes and fourteen seconds. I do not recommend this craziness, by the way. It made me realize I have no desire to be an “ultra planker.” Friday Back to running, phew. Another 3.14 mile run and that was it for the day! I love days when I just run. Saturday I had a dilemma here. I wanted to do another 3.14 mile run, but I knew I wanted to do a longer run on Sunday and my miles for the week were ramping up quickly. Last week was a cutback week, and the week before that I ran 21.75 miles. My foot is still iffy (sigh) and I’m trying to be cautious and follow the 10% rule of adding mileage (more or less.) I decided to walk a mile and then run 2.14, to make it 3.14 for the day. This was fun! I don’t normally combine running and walking, but it was the perfect solution for this week. I still went over the 10% rule for the week (oops) but at least I shortened it a little. Followed this run with Runner’s Touch exercise. Sunday! I love Sundays!!! It’s my only day where I get up and have the morning to myself, since I have two kids in school and work on Saturdays. I went out for my ‘triple pi” run on a beautiful trail in beautiful weather. Now that I know these trails a little better, I was able to drive to a spot last night and hide a water bottle. This run took me right to a Wildlife Preserve on the edge of the Everglades. There weren’t a lot of people around, but there were some bird-watchers. They were probably viewing rare Painted Buntings or something as I barreled past, intent on my own agenda. I was able to run a bit in the preserve before turning around, but the best thing was that there was a porta-potty (which I didn’t need this time, but you never know) and a trash can. It worked out beautifully because I found the water bottle I had hidden the night before, was able to drink it and then RECYCLE IT in their bin! Yay! Then I turned and headed for home. Full disclosure! When my watch got to 9.42, I stopped, took a picture, and then hit “resume.” I still had a little bit to get back to my car, and then when I got to my car I was at 9.85. Who would stop there? That would be silly!!! I made it an even 10 miles. This was the farthest I’ve run since September, when my foot decided to implode. It was an incredibly fun adventure… and what a week. So let’s see… I did three pi runs, a double pi run, and a triple pi run. Tonight we will have our “quadruple” PIE run, where we run to the table to consume two pizzas and two dessert pies. Pictures to follow! Happy Pi Day everyone!
Friday Fun!
It’s Friday! Today was a day off from running, but to continue with the Pi Week theme, I did some upper body strength and then ended by holding a plank for 3 minutes and 14 seconds. Strangely, this didn’t actually fall into the category of “fun.” I’ve been doing the Gauntlet Plank workout. for a while now, which consists of eleven different plank variations. I hold each one for a minute, and take breaks (I don’t do eleven minutes of planking in a row) but sometimes I’ll link several of them together. How hard could it be to just hold a simple plank for a little over three minutes? Well, it was WEIRDLY HARD. By the third minute I was trembling (even my thumbs were shaking.) When I was finally done I looked up the world record for holding plank and you’ll never guess what it is… On February 15, 2020, George Hood set a world record by holding a plank for EIGHT HOURS, FIFTEEN MINUTES AND FIFTEEN SECONDS. I mean… I can’t even… what I really can’t wrap my mind around is the mental aspect of it. This article talks about the mindset coaching he had, and what he visualized during the event. It also described his physical training- for eighteen months leading up to the event, he did four-five hours of planks a day (broken up into three different sets,) 2000 crunches, 700 pushups, 500 toe squats and 500 bicep curls. Oh, and he rounded that out with 30 minutes on the treadmill- HA! Look at that strength-cardio ratio- it’s my worst nightmare. Dana Glowacka holds the world record for females, with a time of four hours, nineteen minutes and fifty-five seconds. This record was set in May 2019 at the International Plank Training Conference (wait- why is there such a thing?) and she’s referred to as an “ultra planker.” And people think runners are crazy. Speaking of ultras… Des Linden has announced that she will attempt to break the 50k world record in April. According to this article, she’ll be aiming for 5:55 mile pace- the current women’s record for 50k is 3:07:20. Since Des averaged 5:26 per mile in her marathon PR, this seems like a feasible goal for her in spite of the fact that it will be her first ultra. But wait! The plot thickens… Des Linden is also the alternate for the Women’s Marathon Team for the 2020 (21?) Olympics. If any of the three women who made the team- Aliphine Tuliamuk, Molly Seidel, or Sally Kipyego- can’t go for any reason, Des will be heading to the Olympic Marathon in August. And Aliphine Tuliamuk just had a baby. Her baby girl, Zoe, was born on January 13 and Aliphine took eight weeks off of running, on the advice of her pelvic floor therapist. Can she come back to run in the Olympic marathon in August? She says “I dream about going to Tokyo and doing things that no one can imagine that I’m going to be able to do, even myself.” Will Aliphine be able to get back in shape to race the biggest race of her life? I’m rooting hard for her! And if not… will Des be recovered from her ultra and ready for the Olympics? So much drama! Do you follow elite runners? I know some people don’t because they don’t feel that it’s relevant to their own lives and training. I like to know what’s going on in the marathon world but I don’t always follow the shorter events.