Riled Up Runner

A New Milestone

My boyfriend may be in Costa Rica this weekend doing all sorts of fun things that are bound to get him killed–from unlicensed scuba diving to waterfall repelling to dining with cannibals, only one of which I made up–but my solo New York City weekend promises to offer something perhaps even more exciting: my first ever 30-mile week.

I realize a 30-mile running week means virtually nothing to any experienced competitor, but for this novice athlete, it marks a major milestone in my drive to become a marathoner. Initially logging just 4.5 miles during my first seven-day stretch as a runner in January 2011, I’ve since boosted my stamina more than six-fold in a little over a year. I’m not really one for late-night infomercials, but a six-fold stamina boost sure sounds like the kind of thing you’d pay for with four easy payments of $19.95.

“I would like to have a product that was available for three easy payments and one f-ing complicated payment! We ain’t gonna tell you which payment it is, but one of these payments is gonna be a bitch. The mailman will get shot to death, the envelope will not seal, and the stamp will be in the wrong denomination. Good luck! The last payment must be made in wampum.”

– Sir Mitch Hedberg (1968 – 2005)

What’s that? You demand at least one Mitch Hedberg joke be included now in every future blog post? Done and done.

Of course, my planned 30-mile accomplishment is fully dependent on my completing a scheduled 9-mile long run tomorrow, which is fully dependent on my ability to decline what I expect will be a very compelling argument from my roommate to go out for drinks after a screening at the TriBeCa Film Festival tonight. Go ahead, Liz. Give it your best shot.

Now I usually end (or start, or pepper throughout) my posts with gratuitous photos of anonymous puppies, but since there will soon be a new addition to my nuclear family, I might as well share the good news – and photographic evidence – here. Much to my sister’s and my insurmountable jealousy, my kid brother is now the proud owner of his very own golden-doodle, Keira (right).

She will never replace our one and only (dog) love, Ellie, but I’m excited to watch her try.

phone 050 — Eleanor Roosevelt
(Dec. 3rd, 2002 to Feb. 18, 2011)

What’s in store for you this weekend? If you live in NYC and don’t want me to have to run 9 miles all by myself tomorrow, I’ll give you one good guess.

Back on Track

Sometimes the temperature grazes 80° for the first time this calendar year and your mom offers to buy you an ice-cream cone. Sometimes you go to a gorgeous Southern wedding and you can’t pass up the mounds of barbeque beef brisket vying for space on your plate. Sometimes your little (grown-up) brother doesn’t want to share his box of Cheez-Its, which – in proper sibling fashion – only makes you want them more.

Sometimes all these things happen the same weekend. Or perhaps I should rephrase: Sometimes you return home to New York from an excursion to Maryland to find you’ve gained three pounds in as many days.

In years past, whenever I’d go on a “healthy eating spree,” one weekend of caloric debauchery was enough to see me throw in the towel and revert back to my earlier ways. I’ve already ruined my diet – I’d say – so I might as well test that all 6 burger options at Shake Shack have the same meat-to-bun ratio. You know, for science.

That kind of thinking didn’t get me anywhere (or more accurately, it got me here) because it was fatalistic, short-sighted and – pardon my French – le dumb.

But now that I’ve finally given up on short-term fixes in favor of what I hope will be a lifetime of nutrition and fitness, a weekend off the wagon no longer carries the same weight. I ate both the chocolate and the vanilla wedding cake on Saturday night – I said to my slightly hung-over self the following morning – so I’ll just stick to oatmeal and coffee at the hotel breakfast buffet, even though they have all the free sausage a carnivore could hope for. When you’re thinking long-term, it’s easier to bounce back from a few days of bad habits, Episcopal guilt and all.

That said, I’m still using this weekend’s free-for-all as an opportunity to revisit my goals and recommit to some of the healthy practices that helped me drop 30+ pounds by this time last year. For example, I’m taking a page from my girl Tara’s book and trying to pack my own lunch four out of five days this week. I’m also recording everything I eat over the next few days in a drive for mindfulness. And I’m not sneaking any more rest days than Coach Hal allows as I enter Week 8 before my most important race of the season. I even upped my Monday 3-miler to a 6-miler just for good form. Who knows? If I sneak in one extra, unscheduled mile by Sunday, this may even be my first ever 30+ mile week.

And that kind of accomplish warrants an ice-cream cone.

How do you get back on track nutritiously/fitnessly/navigationally after straying?

Picture Perfect

I’ve never had such delusions of grandeur to think myself a good-looking runner, and this past week’s top trending Internet meme (I sincerely apologize for using that godawful word) has only solidified that understanding.

You’ve all seen this, right? Men want to be him, women want to date him and sports photographers want to capture him in a glossy 3×5: the Ridiculously Photogenic Guy.

(Disclaimer: I don’t have distribution rights to this photo, but spreading joy to the masses in the form of handsome digital images can never be wrong. Right, lawyers?)

No one looks that good in race photos, particularly me. While RPG and his windblown locks were making history last week, the rest of us runners were struggling to put one foot in front of the other, let alone flash a killer smile toward the race photographer. If I’m lucky, I’ll finish a race with one sweat-drenched, muscle-fatigued photo like this one that I should be embarrassed to even be posting:

And that’s a good one. More often than not, my race photos make me look like a parched Fievel Mousekewitz passing mirage Tiger in the Wild West desert. (1991 feature-length cartoon reference? Yes, please.) In addition to confirming the Internet has great taste in men, RPG proves that the rest of us normal people have no place being photographed on the race course.

Or so I thought. I had a bit of a cheering squad near the finish line of this month’s Colon Cancer 15K, including my nice boyfriend, his sweet mama and his very talented photographer father. Turns out, all you need to capture a good race photo is a personal paparazzi! I’m not claiming to be the next RPG, but these stills sure beat my usual mugshots:

And now, watch me run away.

What’s your trick for post-worthy race photos?

Sweet Home Alabama

This week, I visited the alma mater of my No. 1 all-time running hero.

Can my No. 1 all-time running hero be a fictional character? Yes? Ok, good.

Like most well-rounded athletes, my running idol wasn’t just a runner – he was also a student, a soldier, a ping pong ambassador, a shrimp boat captain, an accidental peace activist, a millionaire, a father and the title character of a 1994 historical blockbuster. That’s right – my favorite runner of all times is Forrest Gump.

In addition to being the best movie ever, full of tear jerker moments like (spoiler alert!) when Lt. Dan and his magic legs make a surprise appearance at Forrest and Jenny’s wedding, Forrest Gump is also the original source of my own personal running mantra:

“From that day on, if I was going somewhere, I was running.”

I may not be planning to cross the United States on foot three times over after Robin Wright walks out on me, but like Mr. Gump, now that I’ve discovered running, I see little reason to travel any other way. Take a scary subway/bus combination through Harlem to get to a Randalls Island soccer game OR run five miles directly to the field? I’m going with the latter every single time. If I’m going somewhere – and if it’s not totally socially inappropriate to show up sweat-drenched – you can bet your weight in shrimp gumbo I’ll be running there.

Inspired by my afternoon in Tuscaloosa (whose impetus was actually work-related and not solely an excuse to blog about an 18-year old movie), I returned to my hotel in Birmingham last night ready for a run. But as nice as Alabamans may be with their “sirs” and “ma’ams” and “have a good day now, y’alls,” when I asked the front desk if there was anywhere to run in the neighborhood that I didn’t need a car to get to, they looked at me like I had two heads and/or voted for Obama. “We don’t have those newfangled sidewalks in Birmingham, ma’am,” my biased recollection of the hotel receptionist told me. “It’s best if you just work out in the hotel fitness center. Have a good day now, y’all.”

The hotel fitness center comprised one occupied treadmill and an exercise bike from the 60s, and since I couldn’t bear to pass up an evening run in the southern spring weather, I ignored her well-intended advice and ventured outside for a sidewalk-free run anyways.

And it was terrifying. Not only do they not have sidewalks in Birmingham, but they don’t have shoulders (the street kind, not the attach-your-neck-to-your-body kind), meaning I was literally running on the main street as Ricky Bobby and friends zoomed around me. Fearing for my life, I darted into a commercial park and resigned myself to just run laps of a giant parking lot when out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a trail head.

It turned out to be a man-made trail that looped around a man-made lake that backed up to a dozen man-made office buildings, but it more than got the job done. I ran the loop three times for a total of 3.5 miles, only stopping (three times) to tiptoe around a very hostile goose and his hissing goose girlfriend.

I survived their attacks, but only barely and perhaps by trudging through a patch of poison oak. Well played, Alabama geese.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

It Takes Two

I’ve long known that a lot of things in life are better with a buddy (See: spooning, wheel-barrow races and porterhouse steaks) and as of this weekend, I can add one more to the list: racing.

A bit of a lone wolf when it comes to my running routine, I rarely log training miles with a partner, and when it comes to actual races, you and Orphan Annie can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be crossing the start and finish lines alone. Racing solo has never been an intentional decision, but doing otherwise demands the unlikely probability of finding a friend with the same race goals who is registered for the same race who actually wants to run with you. With just a handful of running friends in the city, the racing-buddy stars had not yet aligned for me, leaving me to complete every race in my brief running career to date satisfied and proud but utterly alone.

That is, until Saturday. Enter Adam, stage left.

A speed demon with a sub-21:40 5K PR under his belt, Adam honestly should not have signed on to run with me at Saturday’s Scotland Run 10K. But coming off some injuries and wisely opting to take his first NYRR event in moderation, he agreed to keep me company as I ran my second Central Park road race in as many weeks.

And it couldn’t have been more awesome. Although we probably could have run a bit faster if we weren’t exerting so much energy chatting the first three miles, I’d wager the benefits of racing with a partner far outweighed the negatives, at least for me. (Adam, I’m not sure what you got out of this partnership besides my leftover bagel, but let’s pretend the benefits were mutual.)

Usually, when I feel tired during a race, I slow down. On Saturday, when I felt tired, I slowed down, Adam charged ahead and I had to spend the next mile catching up – keeping me on course to meet my pace target, which would have been well out of reach if I’d slowed down on my own. Likewise, when Adam sprinted ahead in the final stretch, I may not have been able to keep up, but seeing him pull ahead lit a fire – albeit a smaller one – under my feet, too. With the added motivation of a running companion, I was able to slice a full 1:48 off my last 10K time, earning me a solid new PR of 50:58. Not quite as impressive as Adam’s 50:27, but I’ll take it.

Hey New Yorkers, anyone else down for some non-solo miles? Like Adam, you might also walk away with a fancy keepsake like half a gnawed on bagel. Tempting, I know.

The Power of Protein

Let’s pretend this post is an honest appeal to see my readers introduce more protein into their diets and not a thinly veiled excuse to share photos from my Easter egg dyeing party last night. Agreed? Good.

When it comes to running nutrition, most athletes are all about the carbohydrates, and for a good reason: carbs are our muscles’ primary fuel source, and after logging mile after mile on our feet every day, our muscles get particularly hungry. From spaghetti to sweet potatoes to Cadbury Cream Eggs by the dozen (don’t judge me), carbohydrates are an indispensible part of a runner’s diet, and should make up the bulk – some 60 percent – of one’s daily caloric intake.

In fact, my guidebook for running a four-hour marathon goes so far as to suggest I start each day during marathon week with a breakfast of bagels. That’s right – not bagel, but bagels. I assume the author means two, but I’m planning to read that “S” a little more liberally. Sixteen doctor-authorized bagels, here I come!

But I digress. This post isn’t about chewy, delicious and utterly unparalleled New York bagels. It’s about another key nutritional building block in a runner’s dietary arsenal: protein.

Crucial for muscle growth and recovery, protein is an important part of any athlete’s diet, particularly during the vital hours of internal repair that follow a long run. According to runnersworld.com, which is hands-down my most visited website outside http://animalsdoingpeoplethings.tumblr.com/, runners who consume insufficient amounts of protein are at a higher risk of injury. Likewise, “military research studies show that Marines who ingested high amounts of protein had fewer medical visits than those with lower protein intake.” I don’t know any Marines, but that sounds like pretty sound advice to me.

Oh wait, I do know a Marine. Shout out to my baby brother!

According to the Runner’s World report, runners are advised to consume between 0.45 and 0.72 grams of protein per pound of body weight every day, giving this runner a target range of about 67 grams to 108 grams. Unless you’re throwing back a KFC double-down sandwich every day at 53 grams a pop, you’re probably going to have to make a conscious effort to elevate your protein intake to the levels your fatigue-strained muscles require. (And if you are throwing back a KFC double-down sandwich every day, kudos! With that breadless wonder also packing a reported 145 milligrams of cholesterol, you must have the world’s most resilient arteries.)

Here are some easy ways to introduce more protein into your daily diet:

Swap out your regular yogurt for a Greek yogurt. I love light & fit 100-calorie yogurts as much as the next calorie counter, but clocking in at just 3 to 5 grams of protein apiece, I prefer to swap in a 140-calorie Chiobani Greek yogurt – and its 15 to 18 grams of protein – instead.
Add a heaping spoonful of almond or peanut butter (6 to 8 grams) into your next bowl of oatmeal/smoothie/icecream. It also works straight off the spoon.
Pretend you’re still a kid and drink a glass of milk (7 to 8 grams) with dinner. Bonus points for chocolate milk.
Think beyond fresh veggies when you’re making your next salad. Add a protein source like canned tuna (about 40 grams a can!), kidney beans (about 15 grams a cup), hard boiled eggs (7 grams an egg) or quinoa (the internet can’t agree on how much protein quinoa has) to pump up your intake and keep yourself feeling full longer.
Throw an Easter egg dyeing party and eat multiple colored eggs for breakfast.

What’s that you say? You didn’t know I dyed Easter eggs with friends last night and you want to see photos? Well ok, I guess I can’t deny the people what they want.

Some attendees act like 14-year-old boys.

What’s your favorite way to sneak more protein into your daily routine?

Colon Cancer 15K, or Why NYC Isn’t as Bad as You Think

If, like me, you grew up in a town other than New York and had access to a household TV, you probably internalized a pretty negative view of the Big Apple from an early age. And why wouldn’t we? From the comfort of our parents’ sofas, we watched Saturday morning after Saturday morning as Gotham City fell into ruin at the hands of its selfish residents, with even good kid Danny Pennington unable to avoid the lure of the Foot Clan.

Portrayed as dirty, self-indulgent and perhaps a bit maniacal, New York City has gotten a bad rap in American culture. To quote Liz Lemon quoting Jay-Z: “Concrete bunghole where dreams are made up; there’s nothing you can do.”

Of course, as a resident of this city for more than three years now, I can recall countless examples to counteract that negative stereotype, and this morning during the New York Colon Cancer Challenge 15K in Central Park, I witnessed one more.

Let me backtrack a bit. This morning’s race – which started at the remarkably humane hour of 10:15 a.m. – took 3,014 runners around two partial loops of the park, including two drives up Cat Hill, before concluding at the Bethesda Fountain.

Never having run a timed 15K before, I knew I’d PR regardless, but I was nonetheless targeting an ambitious race pace of about 8:20 for a total running time of 1:17. Well-rested from the weirdly normal start time and carbed-up on entirely too many pancakes, I imagined my goal – though challenging – was an achievable one. I met up with my friend Leigh-Ann for a pre-race photo shoot, double-knotted my Aiscs and high-tailed it over to the starting line.

Like all NYRR events, the first mile was a cluster-duck of bodies, but Cat Hill successfully dispersed the masses, allowing plenty of room to maneuver without all the elbow-throwing friendly jostling I’ve come to expect in Central Park races. As I made my away around the first loop, I felt strong and fast and – although I wasn’t wearing a GPS watch because I cheaply haven’t bought one yet – knew from the mile clocks that I was maintaining an 8:10 or so pace. Life was good.

And that’s when I heard the clink of something hitting the pavement beside me. I initially thought the runner in front of me had just shot back an energy gel and was simply discarding the empty casing in his wake, but a closer look revealed he had actually – and quite unwittingly – dropped his American Express card.

Well, damn it. I thought to myself as I saw him obliviously charge ahead. I’m going to need to go back and get it for this big dummy. I was prepared to kiss my race goal goodbye.

As I turned around to dart back to the card, I was shocked to see at least a dozen other runners doing the same exact thing. We were all out there racing for our own PRs, but when we saw that poor guy’s card tumble to the ground, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that helping out was more important than slicing off a few extra seconds of our own. Another runner was closer than I, so while he swooped down to retrieve it, I turned forward again and sprinted ahead with all the speed I could muster in order to catch up with Mr. Amex. It took about 20 meters of balls-to-the-wall power, but I caught him, tapped his shoulder and quickly filled him in on the situation while the runner with the card caught up. As he handed it off in true relay fashion, the cardless wonder turned to us all and yelled “Good people!”

That’s right, sir. New York is full of ’em.

Call it karma or maybe the promise of a French-fry-filled post-race brunch, but I ended up making up for those lost seconds in the final miles, crossing the finish line at 1:16:26 and maintaining a solid 8:14 pace. And I’m not the only one who PRed today (albeit at non-New York races.) A big shout out to my girls Meredith and Z-Z for logging their own new race records today – and for being good people. New York would be lucky to have you both.

Tell me about your weekend run/good deed/best April Fools joke. Gmail tap, anyone?

Your Golden Ticket into the Marine Corps Marathon

This whole blogging thing is a bit of a parasitic relationship: I, as the blogger, situate myself on a digital soapbox and you, as the reader, are forced to read my narcissistic ramblings/unsuspectingly click on dangerously adorable photos.

But the time has come to change all that. In an attempt to enter a more symbiotic era, I’m going to use this space today to give one lucky reader something slightly more tangible than unsolicited running advice (and significantly less tangible than a bar of gold.)

I’m giving away a Golden Ticket into the 2012 Marine Corps Marathon.

Don’t fret – I haven’t backtracked on my previously announced plans to log 26.2 miles this October in my first-ever marathon. Indeed, within minutes of returning to my parents’ house after securing my own Golden Ticket on March 17, Ethan Hunt and I hijacked a laptop and used my secret entry code to register for the sold-out race. (Too obscure of a reference? No? Good.)

But I wasn’t the only member of my immediate family to cross that 10K finish line and land a coveted Golden Ticket entry code: my sweatily wonderful mother was along for the ride, too.

And despite her clearly non-hereditary affinity for 5 a.m. Body Pump classes, she’s decided a marathon isn’t in the cards for her this busy year, giving me the opportunity to offer her entry code to one lucky reader: YOU. (Or maybe someone else.)

The daughter of lawyers, I should probably mention that winning this code doesn’t offer free entry into the race, but it does give you one of a handful of remaining $92 slots in this highly sought-after event. Golden Ticket registration only lasts through March 31, so let’s get started.

Here’s how this works. There are three ways to enter, and feel free to do all three for three chances:

Leave a comment with a question you want me to answer in an upcoming blog entry (yes, I am actively looking for new ideas. No, I’m not ashamed.)
Tweet this: “@rileduprunner is giving away a Golden Ticket to the sold-out Marine Corps Marathon!” And then leave me a comment telling me you shared it. (Yes, I am on Twitter. Yes, I am ashamed).
Bake me a pie. And then leave me a comment telling me you did it. And then deliver said pie to my inbox (i.e. mouth).

I’ll use a random number generator to select the winning commenter at 5 p.m. Friday. May the odds be ever in your favor!

Well Played, Pittsburgh

Hello from surprisingly photogenic Pittsburgh!

There are admittedly a lot of things I don’t like about the City of Bridges, from its touchy-feely quarterback to its stupid yellow towels. But after going on a scenic sunrise run along the Allegheny River Trail this morning, this industrial skeleton of a town has won my heart. And this is why:

No, loyal readers, your eyes doth not deceive you. That is, in fact, a functioning public water fountain along a major running route in March. Check out the plaque if you don’t believe me:

New York is better at so many things, from winning Superbowls to keeping our Greek salads french-fry free (I mean seriously, Pittsburgh?). But for all our undisputed greatness, we somehow haven’t yet figured out how to keep our delicious tap water flowing in Central Park year-round. I never thought I’d say it, but Steel City: I salute you.

Another cool thing about Pittsburgh? Its airport has a full shopping mall, complete with a Nine West shoe store, making flight delays infinitely less excruciating. And sometimes the lady who works at the airport GAP tells you that you look like ‘the pinnacle of health’ and must be a tennis star and stares in disbelief when you tell her you weighed 35 pounds more just 15 short months earlier. Thanks for the ego boost, GAP lady. I salute you, too.

Where have your travels taken you recently?

Luck of the Irish Sprinter

On most race mornings, I roll out of bed an hour before the start time, lace up my Asics and hightail it over to a Central Park starting line, basking in the unrivaled ease and carbon neutrality of my eight-block commute.

On this race morning (and in the 12 hours proceeding it), I took a taxi to New York Penn Station, a train to Baltimore Penn Station, woke up at 4 a.m., drove to a Quantico park n’ ride, boarded a shuttle bus and hightailed it over to a Prince William Forest Park starting line, basking in exhaustion as I tried to dig my way out of a carbon footprint the size of Texas.

But sheer ridiculousness of my commute aside, running in this morning’s Marine Corps Irish Sprint 10K was undeniably worth it. That’s because besides Gatorade and turkey noodle soup and a box of the best post-race snack foods I’ve ever received, all runners to cross this morning’s finish line were handed something even more significant:

This Golden Ticket may not earn me a really creepy afternoon with Gene Wilder and/or Johnny Depp, but it does guarantee me something even more coveted: a spot in the sold-out 2012 Marine Corps Marathon in October! While other would-be marathoners were hitting refresh over and over last week in an attempt to secure one of 30,000 available online slots in the 2 hours and 41 minutes before it sold out, I was sitting idly by, waiting for my St. Patrick’s Day race to do all the hard work for me.

Or so I thought. Turns out, running this morning’s “easy, little 10K” wasn’t the walk in the park I was expecting. Although the course map came complete with comforting phrases like “mostly flat” and “downhill on asphalt” and “free petting zoo at Mile 4,” the vast majority of the route turned out to be a muddy, narrow, uphill trail, complete with rapid mountain lions and strategically placed ninja assassins (perhaps an exaggeration.)

Seriously though: I never before knew roads could go up forever without coming down. Apparently Quantico, Virginia, defies the laws of physics.

Panting and cursing and fending off ninja attacks, I somehow powered through, but I was pretty positive there was no way I was logging a new PR on this challenging course. So imagine my disbelief when I somehow stumbled my way across the finish line as the clock chimed 52:47, a 50-second improvement from my last 10K! I don’t know whether it was the promise of a Golden Ticket and/or green beer at the finish line that kept me going, or whether it was the knowledge that my speedy mother was right on my tail, but I plowed through for a surprisingly strong finish. Or maybe it was just some good old fashioned Irish-heritage luck!

Of course, my chiseled mother crossed the finish line, too, meaning my family now has not one but two Golden Tickets to its name. She says the Marine Corps Marathon isn’t on her schedule this fall, but take one look at this photo and just try tell me she isn’t at least toying with the idea:

I’m now off to downtown Baltimore for another kind of marathon: an Irishwoman’s St. Patrick’s Day bachelorette party. In case I don’t make it out alive, thank you all for your loyal readership.

How are you celebrating your 1/16th Irish bloodline tonight?

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: