The thing I miss most about running, well aside from absolutely everything, is the flexibility that comes with it. No matter what your day has in store for you, you can pretty much always figure out a time to squeeze a few miles in. Because one of the best parts about running is the fact that you can do it anytime, anywhere— from home, from work, in the morning, afternoon or evening. Doesn’t matter, and that’s amazing.

Since I’ve been hurt I’ve been restricted to gym schedules. If I want to go to Body Pump, I better clear my schedule Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturdays at very specific times of day. And if I miss one class I have to wait several days to try again, and in the meantime, resort to something mind numbingly dull, like the elliptical or stationary bike. Given how unusual my schedule has been this month with work, it’s been a real pain. I certainly never thought I’d miss early morning runs, but man, I miss them a whole lot right now. So for those of you who are tempted to hit snooze every morning when that alarm clock goes off for that run of yours, embrace it. It’s so much better than not doing it at all.

Now for a few random things:

I love the first few days after grocery shopping when you have all the fresh and amazing produce to eat for every meal. P.S. What’s the trick to telling when a peach is ready to eat? This one had the same texture as an apple. It was super disappointing.

These are a few of my favorite girls.

And a couple of my favorite boys. (I love how blurry Riley’s tail is, he’s a very happy pup.)

Also a desperate plea for help: Does anyone know how make blisters heal super fast? That one on the bottom of my toe is getting quite uncomfortable.

This weekend was pretty fun. It included a wine-induced trip to Marathon Sports where I bought a new pair of running shoes with gift card that had been burning a hole in my pocket since Monday. I decided to take the plunge and try the Brooks Pure Cadence. I’ve never run in them before, but they seem similar to my New Balance 870s except they’re even lighter!

Of course after strolling around the block in them my itch to get back to running increased 1000x. So yesterday, after much discussion with S and the voices in my head, I decided to give running a shot again.

It went pretty well. I decided to do 2 minute walk to start, followed by 5 minutes of running (at whatever pace felt ok, which turned out to be about 9:20s) and then 2 minutes of walking to finish. It wasn’t painful per se, but it did feel awkward. I felt almost lopsided. I don’t think I was in pain, it’s just my left foot felt so inflexible in comparison to my right. Oh, and I’m also suffering from a nasty little blister on the bottom of my left big toe right now, so that hasn’t helped anything. But! I was pretty psyched with myself and I’m hoping to try again a couple more times this week.

Of course I followed it up with an Epsom Salt bath (so much better than an ice bath) and I iced my foot afterwards. Then I threw on some compression socks, stretched, foam rolled, and crossed my fingers that I’d wake up feeling ok in the morning. And, I have to say, I feel pretty good today. The blister is still tender and causing problems, but I think the tendonitis is at ease. If my luck holds up I might try again tomorrow!

This will probably be one of the only times on this blog that I ever brag about my talents (or lack thereof) in the kitchen, but I really feel like this is a recipe worth sharing.

I use the term “salad” loosely, because the amount of lettuce (well, arugula) that actually goes into this concoction is minimal at best, but I think that’s what makes it so delicious. Just a quick overview of what you’ll need:

• A healthy spoonful or two of cous cous at the bottom (we usually use this kind). We’ve also used quinoa too, and that works just as well.
• A couple handfuls of arugula/kale/spinach
• Chopped: bell peppers (red, green, and yellow), cucumbers, avocado, and my boyfriend for some stupid reason ruins it with tomato too
• 1 cooked sweet potato (I usually add a little bit of butter to it)
• Top it off with feta cheese and some pepper
• If you’re feeling crazy and ambitious you can add meat to it. Sticking with that whole minimal effort movement, we sometimes spice it up with a rotisserie chicken

I’ve found that this is the PERFECT meal to have after working out. It not only requires little-to-no effort to prepare (crucial for when you have RUNGER) but it’s also so healthy and filling that it gears you up for a speedy and efficient recovery.

What’s your go-to meal after a run/workout?

Happy, happy Friday! Here are a few random things from this week.

My new favorite socks. They’re from Pro Compression. Keep your eyes peeled, they normally have some sort of sale.

I’m finally, FINALLY able to walk far enough that I can commute to work normally and not always rely on a ride. This was my first walk back and I was pretty excited about it.

We get our new couch TODAY. We’ve been couch-less for a couple of weeks now, which was pretty convenient for when we decided to paint. Not convenient for much else though.

Tug-of-war is now part of my nightly routine. I usually lose.

And it seems he’s bored of winning.

Enjoy your weekend!

This isn’t really a post about running, but I wish it was.

Because this new app is amazing and perfect for us runners as the days are getting shorter and shorter. It was designed with college students in mind but it’s great for anyone who lives in a major city that gets a little nervous walking home at night. Through it you can have a friend accompany you home, virtually. The way it works is you select the friend(s) you want to “walk” you home and they’re sent a link to an interactive map where they can track your progress. If you stray off the path, fall, are pushed down, start running (this is the only reason I don’t think it’d work for runners as-is) or your headphones are pulled out, the app detects the movement and asks you if you’re ok. Then you have 15 seconds to hit a button within the app to confirm you’re a-ok. If you fail to do that, or you’re in real trouble, the app turns into a personal alarm system and projects a loud sound to scare away criminals or assailants and it also gives you the option to instantly call the police. At the same time this is happening, the app will also notify your virtual friends and then they have the option to call the police and disclose your location, or call you directly.

It’s such a cool idea, I just wish I could use it for running too. How awesome would that be? I usually have to resort to telling someone when I’m leaving, the route I’m running, and the estimated time I’ll be back. Which is fine, since nothing has ever happened to me (knock on wood), but imagine if something had? It’d be way too late by the time anyone found out. Of course this is a problem I have no intention of having, but you just never know.

Is there something like this out there for runners that I just don’t know about? If not, who wants to make this happen with me?

When the going gets tough out there on the road, one of a runner’s favorite tricks is to resort to a mantra, a few words of self-encouragement to power through.  Some of my favorites include:

• “I can do hard things.” — Borrowed from The Hungry Runner Girl
• “The faster you run, the sooner you’re done.”
• “Pain just hurts.” — recently read in Scott Jurek’s book, Eat & Run
• “Give it your all.”

But since I haven’t been able to run, I’ve had to come up with some new mantras to get me through the tough moments on the couch. Some of my favorites here include:

• “Heal now. Run later.”
• “Running will always be there.”
• “The elliptical is fun. The elliptical is fun. The elliptical is fun.”
• “Patience is a virtue.” — First heard by my young ears in the blockbuster hit, The Mummy

Did you use a mantra to help you through your injury? Let me know. I’ll take all the help I can get.  Also this site is great to get your mantra printed on a bracelet.

I suspect every runner does this when they’re injured, but lately I’ve been making all sorts of promises to running that I swear I’ll keep once I’m back out on the road. But instead of risking breaking all these promises (because there are a lot of them, and I’m only human), I’m going to call them “goals.” So in no particular order, here are the goals I’m going to work towards when I’m back to running.

1. I will never utter the words “I don’t want to run today” again, even if my alarm is going off at 4:30am. There are always days when motivation is lacking, but it’s important to remember that we get to run. We should never take it for granted, especially when we’re injury-free.
2. I will always look both ways before crossing the street, and pay extra attention to that sneaky bike lane. This is a good goal even if you aren’t a runner.
3. I will take stretching and foam rolling more seriously. Foam rolling in particular is a necessary evil.
4. I will never complain about a bad run again. Instead, I will suck it up, take it in stride and look forward to the next one being better.
5. I will attempt to have a more positive attitude about obstacles that are thrown my way (I guess I’ll start this one tomorrow.)

That’s it. You heard ’em/read ’em. Now if you can ever come back here to visit, you know what to hold me to.

I’ve been out of the running game for 7 weeks to the day now. And I admit, I’ve been panicking a bit (I know, you’ve hardly been able to tell.) It feels like every hour I paint a scarier scenario than the one before. I’m plagued with questions and uncertainties that keep me up at night. Like, how long will it take me to get back into shape? Will I be as slow as I was when I first started running? Will my stride be completely different? Will I ever be able to run a marathon again? How will this injury affect me in the long-term?

 And really, the worst part is that only time will tell. But until that day when I can finally run again and figure these things out, I’ll be reading this article from Runner’s World on an hourly basis to console and reassure me.

Some important takeaways from it:

There is such a thing as muscle memory, and here’s what someone way smarter than me has to say about it: “The more times you go over the memory now, the longer it will last,” says Amadeus Mason, M.D., of USA Track & Field’s sports-medicine and science committee and an assistant professor of orthopedics and family medicine at Emory University. Which basically means: the more you run before you get injured (or take a break from running), the longer your muscle memory will hold up. Since I’ve been running consistently for several years, I’m really banking on that memory lasting for quite some time.

Then there’s also this: “You don’t just remember how to run-but how to run well. ‘Even after a long break, you’re going to be running more efficiently and wasting less energy than someone who is new to the sport,’ says Adam Knight, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomechanics at Mississippi State University.” 

Lastly, this awesome snippet about coming back to running after time off from professional runner, Lauren Fleshman. “Even if you did nothing for months, you can return to peak fitness eventually. It might take longer, but that’s okay.” (This isn’t in the Runner’s World article, but it can be found in Fleshman’s  training journal.)

So never fear, fellow cripples. We’ll get back to running eventually. And when we do, it’ll be just like riding a bike.

100% of runners hate cross training.*

There are probably a lot of reasons for this, but I feel like the main reason is simply because cross training isn’t running. And running is the best, so by default everything else is simply the worst. BUT, it’s important and since I can’t run right now I’m confined to the world of cross training anyway. So here are some things I’ve tried over the years that I haven’t completely despised.

Bikram Yoga: So a lot of people think Bikram yoga and hot yoga are the same thing, and they’re almost right. They’re both hellishly hot and they both have “yoga” in the name, but Bikram is different because the hell you experience is consistent from class to class. It’s 90 minutes long, with 26 poses that focus on strength and flexibility. It’s practiced in a room that’s about 105 degrees, and the poses are always in the same order. I actually really liked the consistency aspect of Bikram, because it drastically reduced how many times I embarrassed myself in the beginning. I even caught on within the first week or so. (By “caught on” I mean I understood the general gist of the moves, even though I executed them with the grace of a baby giraffe.) Anyway, the ONE thing I’d caution anyone who was trying Bikram for the first time is that you sweat a lot. I don’t care if you’re Kate Middleton, you don’t “glisten” in this class. No matter who you are, after a Bikram yoga class, it looks like you just got out of a pool (this is NOT an exaggeration). Girls, you know how sometimes after a run you’re like, “sure I can wear this sports bra one more time before I wash it”? Not with Bikram. There are no re-wears, which ended up sort of being a deal-breaker for me because at the time I was in an apartment with coin operated laundry, so you know, laundry is a whole thing. BUT, I will say that during my little spurt of “practicing” Bikram, it did fix my runner’s knee and made me feel insanely healthy, albeit gross, after every class.

Pilates: Unlike yoga, Pilates is focused more on strength versus flexibility, which is why it appealed to me. It’s mostly about building a strong core, but I somehow failed to get a six pack out of it (I’m sure this is the fault of the program and has nothing to do with the wine and Oreos I consume regularly). Despite the lack of washboard abs, I also really enjoyed this class for a long time, too. I stuck with it for nearly 2 years. It’s only recently that I got a little bored with it. It’s slow paced, and doesn’t give me the healthy feeling or endorphin release that I want out of a workout. But it did keep me injury free (minus this little run-in with a bicycle), so I’d still recommend it as a viable option for any runner.

BodyPump: I’ve mentioned my new love for BodyPump in a previous post, but when I first tried it several months ago I nearly cried. It is very overwhelming and fast-paced for newbies. It’s 55 minute long class that uses light weights with a lot of repetition and it targets all of your major muscle groups (legs, glutes, back, chest, shoulders, triceps, biceps, and abs).  If you’re new to weight lifting like I was, this class could provoke tears because the transitions are so fast and it’s just so hard to keep up. But now that I’ve gotten the hang of it and know what I’m doing, I’m all about it. It’s a nice blend of cardio and weight training, and I feel like I’m actually seeing progress. In the right light it actually looks like I might have the beginning of biceps! Since I’m still keeping up with this one I don’t have anything negative to say just yet, other than it will leave you cripplingly sore for several days after your first few classes, so take it easy and don’t plan on washing your hair/lifting your arms above your head at all for at least 2 days.

Cross training is a tricky thing to stick to, but I’ve found that classes are the best way to hold yourself accountable. Because if you’re anything like me, you’re really not going to to do that 7 minute ab routine 3x a week all by yourself.

*This is just a rough estimation based on my own dislike for cross training.

My senior quote was “If you start out depressed, everything’s kind of a pleasant surprise.”* So needless to say I’m not exactly a glass half-full kind of person. But, oddly enough this injury has kind of forced me into toeing the line of being an optimist. Don’t get me wrong—it took me like 6 weeks to start thinking this way, but after a while you just get annoyed with yourself for being so depressed (this is generally long after the point everyone else has gotten annoyed with you) so you’re forced to make a change.

So here are some of the pleasant surprises I’ve had along the way.

You don’t actually gain 100 lbs overnight. I was running 40-50 miles a week and burning through a lot of calories. I could and would eat a lot. Second helpings at dinner weren’t uncommon. So I was CONVINCED I was going to gain weight hand over fist when I stopped running, especially in those first couple of weeks where I really wasn’t able to do much exercising at all. But, somehow I didn’t. In fact, in four weeks I only gained ONE pound. I think this is due to a couple of things. First, when you’re not running, you don’t have a runner’s appetite. It took me a while to learn this lesson of course, but it no longer takes 17 servings of pasta to fill me up. And second, runners are actually pretty healthy eaters in general. So I didn’t really have to alter what I was eating, just how much. That being said, I’m still pretty weak-willed around Oreos. They might have to stay off the grocery list for a few more weeks.

So! While my body has definitely changed a bit (mostly gotten a little more…cushion-y) I’m pretty psyched I haven’t doubled my body weight yet.

You get a lot more time put back into your day. When I was running, it was taking about 1-2 hours out of my day. Now that I have that time back I can spend it doing other things. I can sleep in! I can sign up for a workout class. I can read a book! Or, more realistically, I can watch 4-5 episodes of Parks and Rec while drinking almost an entire bottle of wine all by myself. See, there are perks!

Your muscles begin to forgive you. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I could touch my toes or even straighten my legs completely. UNTIL NOW. I haven’t even been stretching! I just haven’t been running! Getting my foot run over is like the very best thing that’s ever happened to my hamstrings.

That’s really all my newly optimistic mind can come up with. I feel like three is pretty impressive to begin with.

*This is a quote from the popular 80’s movie Say Anything, I’m not just a super depressed human.