Quick Update on Migration

It seems that I am 98% migrated from WordPress.com (what you’re reading now) to WordPress.org (where runnerunderpressure.com is now). However, a few glitches remain and from statistics on this site, it seems that some people are still seeing the old site rather than the shiny new one. To fix that, clear your internet cache and bookmark (or whatever you do to find me) runnerunderpressure.com again. Similarly, subscriptions simply didn’t migrate properly so if you were used to getting my posts in your inbox, you may have to resubscribe on the new site (right hand side) to get that to work. Finally, comments on .org are more strictly monitored than on .com and a few of you ended up in spam (sorry Ryan!!). I’m monitoring those closely now to get it all back on track, but if you aren’t showing up, just shoot me an email and I’ll hand enter your name.

I’m giving it another month but then I’ll be permanently inactivating the WordPress.com site so should you encounter a 404 error in March, that’s what happened! Sorry for the nuisance and thanks as always for reading. If you’re in Boston, sorry about the snow. If you’re in the Northeast, stay warm over the next 24 hours! This is undoubtedly a winter for the history books.

Remembering 9/11

Joe and I were talking last night on our way home from practice about whether today would be hard for our girls. Coaching is much more than just planning workouts and when things that we can’t explain in the world or community happen, we try to be prepared for what the girls might be feeling or experiencing beyond just the confines of practice. Most of our runners were very young when 9/11 happened; our freshman were less than a year old. I’ll be interested to observe how they remember today.

I was a freshman in college in New York when 9/11 happened. I remember waking up for class and showering and just as I was walking out the door, seeing a scene on TV that looked like a movie. Things slowed down/sped up from there and classes were canceled shortly thereafter. Since a huge number of my classmates were from New York City and most of my friends from the summer camp I worked at lived in Manhattan, the rest of the day was a bit of a blur. I don’t know if I ran that day. Like most people (I think?), I was glued to the TV and just trying to check in with friends. As the days went on, I was back to running because it is the only way I know to make sense of the senseless.

Among the things from that time that I will never forget is the following quote from a friend, sent in an email on the evening of September 11th, 2001:

“In times like these, there’s nothing to do but hold the people you love a little more tightly.”

It still rings true.

Good Eats: Fennel Apple Salad and Black Bean Sweet Potato Enchiladas

Fennel Apple Salad

One of the beautiful and challenging things about a CSA is that you get foods you’ve never cooked with (or sometimes never heard of). We’ve ended up with two bulbs of fennel this summer and although I love fennel, I’ve never worked with it before. The first time, I just roasted it on the grill with garlic. The second time, I was determined to use it in a more creative manner and found this recipe from the Purple Foodie.

Fennel Apple Salad

I made this salad to go along with pork tenderloin on the grill and it was the perfect companion; my only suggestion would be to not mix the salad until just before serving. I tried to prep too early and the mixed greens were a little soggy.

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Enchiladas

We got a ton of rain here today, which had me in the mood for comfort food. I’ve had these enchiladas on my list for a while and although I made significant modifications to this recipe, I was thrilled with the results.

Sauteing the filling together

My modifications were:

1. Tiny Spice Company Beri Beri spice instead of Chili Powder (we were out)
2. Cooked and cut sweet potato (I refuse to grate anything)
3. 1 cup of Cabot Pepper Jack cheese
4. 14 corn tortillas (I prefer them to flour)
5. Skipped the scallions and frozen corn

Enchilada sauce in the blender and the incomparable BeriBeri seasoning

These enchiladas were AWESOME. Enough spice to be interesting without burning the roof of your mouth and filling enough for even the hungriest house.

Piping hot!

Love a filling meal on a rest day. Double power!

Do you have a CSA? Weirdest item you’ve ever received? What’s your favorite summer side dish?

Good Eats: 5.20.14

I used to LOVE shellfish (crawfish boils, shrimp cocktail, shrimp etoufee…I digress) but developed a serious allergy to shellfish in my early 20s and haven’t touched it since. This leaves us with shellfish’s fishy cousins. Neither Will nor I are crazy about fish but we know it’s great for us so I’ve been testing out lots of recipes over the last year to find ways to fit salmon, tuna, tilapia and swordfish into our lives. This week, we test drove two recipes and both were pretty tolerable.

The first was Salmon with Sriracha sauce with Lime, which I served with brown rice. Because I am not Gwyneth Paltrow and don’t have time to zest a lime, I skipped that part. We both agreed that this was a great recipe that we’d make again, maybe with a more exciting rice dish on the side.

Simple ingredients, delicious sauce.

The second was a Tilapia Wrap with Mango Pico de Gallo. Apparently I DID channel my inner Gwyneth because I decided to make the salsa on my own instead of buying it. The store bought stuff was all sugar and salsa isn’t that hard, so I chopped everything up and let it sit overnight to make a great salsa. If I did this recipe again, I’d add jicama or something else crunchy to augment the almost-mushy consistency of everything else.

Homemade salsa! Can’t wait to make some nachos to finish this up.

Final product. I added cheese. Because it’s not a taco without it.

Finally, I made a dish I’ve been wanting to make for AGES. One of the best parts of marrying Will was inheriting literally 30 of the nicest runner boys as friends. The one who told Will that he’d better marry me or he’d regret it his whole life is Terrance, a giant blonde teddy bear who happens to love all things Buffalo Chicken. When I saw this recipe, I pinned it for the next time T comes to town. I like to spoil everyone with food, it’s a huge fault of mine. Since he hasn’t been up in a while, I test drove it for Will and I on Sunday night. DELICIOUS. It is not a light recipe by any means, but we added a salad and called it good. I did cut the recipe in half in terms of hot sauce, ranch and cheese and it was still plenty good.

Healthy ingredients list. And yes, that’s Frank’s in Ketchup Style. Buy it now.

The final product, perfect for reloading after a long run.

In other food news, Trader Joes finally came to Burlington! Will had never been so I dragged him on opening day and stocked up on essentials like baked tofu, soyaki and of course, Cookie Butter. One of those items did not last the weekend.

What fish dishes do you like? Where do you find your recipes? Favorite Trader Joe’s item?

Week in Review 4.21.14 to 4.27.14

The first week after vacation is always rough but it’s made better by the week starting with the Boston Marathon. This was actually one of my best weeks of running post-surgery. I’ve been working on stretching A LOT and my hips and pelvis feel much better, although much of that is due to Dr. Kevin. I’m looking forward to my rapid exponential taper, however, which starts tomorrow. I don’t have a lot of fitness to spare for next Saturday, so I’ll need legs as fresh as possible. I also haven’t taken a cut back week since I started running, so it’s overdue.

Monday: Off Day, sick. Prorated 7.

Tuesday: 8.28 miles normal pace but felt AWFUL.

Wednesday: 5.2 miles with strides after. Still felt horrible and achy.

Thursday: 8.22 mile up-effort with Joey. Warmed up then 4 by 1 mile at 7:20 (her tempo pace) with 90 seconds in between. Felt nice to run a more normal pace. Hard to stay on her effort and not drag us towards mine.

Friday: 5.75 mile recovery run with Watson in the Intervale. Felt so good. Arms at the gym in the afternoon. Planned to aquajog with Will but the pool was packed.

Saturday: 6.1 mile run with the Girls!!!! Weather was atrocious but it didn’t matter because the gang was back together post surgery/babies and Boston.

300 Core Routine after.

Sunday: 15 miles easy with Joey. It’s her last 20 miler and I wanted to get something a little longer in case this bib for VCM comes through.

Total Miles: 55.5 miles.

That mileage total is almost respectable!! This coming week will be a down week, as will the few days after the Classic, but then I’ll be aiming for a new mileage point of 60 miles through the beginning of summer race season. I did a really good job on nutrition this week. More on this in a later post, but I recently realized that I wasn’t doing a good job of fueling my body and refocused on that in the last week. I didn’t so as great a job on lifting. It’s hard to fit it in with this new class, but I need to find a way to continue with it. Still need to add drills into pre-workouts and some more structured workouts, but it can wait until after the Classic.

One of my favorite ab routines, courtesy of Pinterest.

Raynaud’s express on Saturday. Come on Spring!

Bricks in the Foundation

I’m almost 4 months out from surgery. When stated that way, it makes it seem like I should be back to normal, cranking along at mileage and handling speed workouts. I’m at about 50 miles a week but workouts are casual and recovery is long.

I’m only 4 months out from surgery. Stated this way, it seems like I should still be rebuilding and resting between hard efforts. In the context that I haven’t even regained 50% of my tensile strength, this is probably a better way to phrase things. I’m having a flawless *knockonfuckingwood* recovery. I ran on time. I’ve been able to build my miles with minimal pain. My ankle looks good. My scar looks good.

I’m still thinking about things from the perspective of the first sentence. I’m getting frustrated when easy days aren’t easy. I feel left behind as friends and competitors get faster and faster. I’m anxious about racing in a week and a half when I haven’t done anything more than striders and progression runs.

Katherine and I have adopted a new phrase this spring. After suffering a fairly significant injury last April, Kath is finally back on the roads again which was perfect timing for me. We started with 4 mile jogs, plodding around through slush and snow at almost 10 minutes a mile. In the last 6 weeks, however, we’ve progressed to 8 mile regular runs and 12 mile long runs at about 8 minute pace. As we are prone to do, we occasionally whine about not being faster and the other is responsible for uttering the phrase “bricks in the foundation” or “today is just another brick.” It’s our way of reminding the other that this is a long game and that every day we’re out there running, we’re closer to our goals. And we’re right. Success in running requires extraordinary patience and doesn’t happen overnight. It happens over months and years of base mileage, of lifting in the gym, of stretching after runs, of fueling oneself with good food, of sleeping enough.

Build on.

How do you encourage yourself when you’re rebuilding?

What are you hoping to add to your running foundation this year?

Week in Review 3.31.14 to 4.6.14

I’m in DC this week for a conference, so late getting this out. The best part of getting a little farther south is that I got to run in shorts and a tee shirt both days and enjoyed the sun. It’s rainy here today but looks beautiful for tomorrow, so I’ll head out for as long as I can before I fly home.

Monday: 8 mile run. New shoes starting to feel better. Still clunky first mile but starting to feel smoother.

Tuesday: 6.2 mile run.

Wednesday: Off day.

Thursday: Little interval workout with Joey. 4 by 800 at ~3:10 to 3:20 pace. Felt good. Nice day out! Total run of 7.2 miles.

Friday: 5.1 mile recovery plod. First day post surgery where I’ve really felt awful. Did an abbreviated full body lift.

Saturday: 10.5 mile run around DC. Easy pace. Still feeling punky. Core at night.

Sunday: 5 mile run on the Georgetown Towpath. Feel GREAT! Hard to convince myself to not do a second run.

Reflection: 41.9 miles for week. Glad to be getting used to what 40 miles per week feels like. I’ll be moving up to 45 miles this week. Somehow it felt like a busy week and I didn’t do a great job on the extras. This week will be similarly busy, but hopeful I can at least do some at home workouts to supplement. Excited to start doing more structured workouts.

Share this:

I see odd things at the gym every day. Sometimes it’s clothing choices. For example, can someone explain the cutup cotton tee shirt that shows off the sports bra? More often, I see people doing exercises that make little physiological sense. I recently said to Will that I wanted two “red cards” per workout, where I could ask a stranger what body part they thought they were working out. Nevertheless, this article cracked me up. It still doesn’t explain backwards Stairclimber, however.

What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen at the gym lately?

Wondering Wednesdays

I love this blog, but sometimes generating new content can be tricky. In some ways, I used it as an extended training log for me to look back over when I need motivation or information on what workouts worked/didn’t work for me. In my optimal world, it would also be useful to other runners. I love reading other people’s blogs, both for motivation and for reassuring me that we’re all in this together. It would be SO helpful to me to know what you like to read about so I can plan more useful/desirable content. In the past, I’ve reviewed physiology articles for Saturday Smarts, shared training logs on Sunday and reviewed new products as they come into my life, but I’m open to any and all ideas.

Thanks for your help!

Long Weekend Recap

Aqua jogging glamour, a long run for Will and two beautiful running pitbulls (even if Tinker only runs around the house).