February 21, 2012

Yesterday was the Lost Dutchman Marathon. A race that is, by all accounts, completely awesome. A race I was registered to run in, but had to miss due to an injury. I was sad to miss it, but have decided that this injury was an awesome reminder about how important balance is from the powers that be.*

I’m not the world’s most balanced person. I struggle with work/life balance quite a bit (though in my defense, I really like working, because I really like being good at things I do) and my first year as a runner was unbalanced. I over-trained, then under-trained. I spent zero time strength training. Basically, I was (am) a typical novice runner with one marathon under my belt and major goals I’ll never reach if I don’t get more balanced.

Seeing a physical therapist has helped tremendously in both identifying the problem (weak hips, weird gate) and helping me tackle it. So, even though my tendency is to see the worst in every situation, I’m finding the silver lining here. I think I mentioned once that my running mantra is pretty much just “thank you” so in that spirit, here’s are five things this injured runner has to be thankful for:

  • My foam roller. For reals. It hurts to use but it’s a good hurt. And it’s actually working. The muscles in my quads and near my knee are decidedly less lumpy than they were three weeks ago.
  • Listening to “Hips Don’t Lie” while strengthening my hips. Hip exercises are embarrassing, but kind of fun. Just like Shakira.
  • Beer. Since I don’t have to run long on Sundays right now, I can actually drink it on Saturday nights. I have to start ramping my miles back up in a few weeks and Lent begins Wednesday, so this pleasure is short-lived but I’m still grateful for it.
  • Running for an hour today without pain. Felt amazing and is proof that PT does actually work. 
  • Learning the fundamentals. When I like something, I get really nerdy about it, so of course I’ve nerded out about running. I read everything I can about it and while there’s a lot out there about barefoot running (or not barefoot running) and form, there’s very little about how to strengthen and take care of the muscles that actually do the work while you run. I’m grateful for the chance to learn now… especially since strong muscles are a key part of good form.

 

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* Am I the only nerd that automatically thinks “Angel” when I say “the powers that be?”

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February 13, 2012

Happy Galentines Day!

Galentine's Day gifts

These heart shaped pies were making the rounds on all the blogs this weekend, so no need to re-hash the recipe here. (Just click the clicky if you want to know how to make them yourself.)

Instead I just want to quickly celebrate Galentine’s Day, a holiday given to us by my hero Leslie Knope. To be honest, I’m no Leslie. I don’t have the energy to make my gals a self-portrait mosaic out of the glass from their favorite diet soda bottles. But, I DID have time to watch Practical Magic and make these pies for three of my favorite Portland ladies.

(By the way, Practical Magic is a movie that is absolutely impossible to watch without shame. I feel like even my cat is judging me. Oliver mocked me mercilessly for the entire 90 minutes it was on. So, you guys, I promise that I this weekend I also watched The Graduate.)

I’m not a Valentine’s Day hater by any means. I actually really like it and I’ve only had one truly terrible V-day in my life (it involved an Applebee’s…whoops!) and in retrospect, I brought most of that one on myself. BUT, I love the idea of taking time out to celebrate the gals who keep me sane.

Just like Valentine’s Day is a totally made up holiday that’s still a nice excuse to do nice things for your significant other, Galentine’s Day is an even more made up holiday, that’s an awesome excuse to celebrate the fact that lady friends are the best. And probably more likely to appreciate heart shaped baked goods.)

It was REALLY hard to take a photo today without looking like a crazy person, so this is the best I could do.

 

 

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February 12, 2012

A runner’s inner monologue

Somehow, it’s been almost a month since my last post. Whoops!

I mostly attribute that to the fact that I’m officially injured and focusing more on physical therapy than logging miles these days. I have the most cliché injury possible – my IT band.I’m only allowed to run tragically short distances – no more than 30 minutes a day – for the next month.

I did get in a pretty amazing run a few weeks ago, between injuring and then re-injuring myself.

I was in Phoenix – a city that I love (or at least, it’s filled with people I love), and a city that also fills me with a tremendous amount of anxiety. There’s a reason I always drink too much when I’m there.

Normally, I stay at a hotel in central Phoenix, about 2.5 miles from my first apartment. Not my first apartment ever, but the first, I guess the only, place that was ever just mine. On my first day in town, I decided to run there. I’m glad I did – it was a good remedy for the weird feeling that always settles in my stomach as soon as I land at Sky Harbor, that doesn’t go away until I’m home again in Portland.

To get there I ran past the hospital that was home for my family for a month in 2005. Past a nasty strip club, that I kind of can’t believe is still there. When nuclear war comes, it’s totally possible that just Band-Aides and the cockroaches will survive. Ran past a restaurant that two incarnations ago was a great place to get Belgian fries. Past a storefront, now empty that once was home to a restaurant that only sold soup, that I really wanted to love but knew wouldn’t survive. (Because it opened in June. Soup, in June? In Phoenix? No.) Past a coffee shop that used to be called Drip and now is called something else, where Oliver and I went while I ditched work (sorry Amy!) the afternoon after my favorite date in the history of all my  dates.

I arrived outside my old building. I thought about the person I was there. I love the person I was there, though she was miserable. I know that sounds melodramatic – especially because I was also having a really good time. I learned in the 18 months I lived alone that it’s possible to have a good time and still be deeply unhappy. I made some of my best friends in that time, but I also had terrible insomnia, killer anxiety and also identified way too much with the feral kittens who were born seemingly every week under the porch o of our building. I’m thinking this is just called “your early 20s” right?

At the time I felt so uniquely alone, but am starting to understand as I get closer to my next decade that this is actually a nearly universal experience.

It was neat to run passed that place now. I’m so glad I had that time in my life and I’m so beyond grateful that it’s over.

Strange the runs that stick in your mind. This one wasn’t even long – just under 6 miles actually. But, something about the blend of my current life as a pretty balanced, mostly happy, 28-year-old runner and my past life as a completely freaked out, confused, 23-year-old will stick with me for a long time.

 

 

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January 15, 2012

Apple, pear, cranberry

This pie is dedicated to my friend Leslie, who I haven’t seen in far too long. She used to volunteer with my organization and is someone who I met in my second or third week on the job more than three years ago. She’s one of a small group of women who (perhaps unbeknownst to them) helped my survive in Oregon after my mom’s car accident. In those first few months afterwards, trying to navigate the new realities of my life, she and her group of fellow school-district volunteers made me feel safe, like I had people I could count on if I really needed to.

She’s one of the nicest, hardest working people I know. Turns out, she’s a pie-baker too. We were Facebooking (huh. Just realized I hate that this is a verb!) around Christmas about holiday baking and I got this message from her “three words: Pear. Raspberry. Pie.”

Obviously, I had to try it. Can’t find any raspberries anywhere, so I substituted in cranberries since we had some still frozen from Thanksgiving and then I decided to throw some apples into the mix because we have a kajillion of them and even I can’t eat apples fast enough to keep them from rotting.

Almost done - waiting for me to add the lattice top.

I decided to use the crust I used for this pie because I have way too much whole wheat flour and need to get rid of it. I made a lattice top out of a crust I already had in the freezer.  Come to think of it, this whole pie was kind of centered around using up the random ingredients I have laying around.

Filling Ingredients:

4 apples (use whatever kind you like best. I used Pink Lady apples because that’s what we had.)

4 pears

2 cups of cranberries

1/3 cup agave nectar

1.5 tablespoons of pumpkin pie spice (or some mixture of nutmeg and cinnamon if that’s your style. I needed to use up the pumpkin pie spice so…)

I baked it at 375 degrees for about an hour and it must’ve turned out well – Oliver ate a slice about 30 minutes ago, declared himself “so full of food!” and passed out.

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January 14, 2012

File under: What was I thinking?!

Ok, so next year please remind me NOT to have a marathon to train for in January:

Are you f-ing kidding me with this weather? 

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January 3, 2012

My manifesto – a way to beat the blues.

I’m experiencing a major case of the January blahs. Nothing’s wrong exactly, but I’m cold, I’m anxious, I’m bored and I don’t really have anything to look forward to this month.

I went for a run, but couldn’t shake the feeling. The thought of busting out the flour and making pie crust didn’t excite me today either.

So, to try and shake this feeling off, I took a page from my friend Amy’s book – or blog I guess – and wrote myself a personal manifesto. I feel slightly better now that it’s done, so I guess it worked:

1. I won’t judge you by your job, your playlist or your car. I will judge you by the way you treat crying babies on airplanes, waitresses and stray dogs.

2. Never let your job – the thing you do to keep a roof over your head and food in your belly – become your defining characteristic. People won’t want to talk to you anymore at parties.

3. My politics and my views on religion are complicated, contradictory and unapologetic.

4. There’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure. It’s ok to have a genuine interest in what happens on Teen Mom. As long as you read actual books sometimes too.

5. Speaking of books, I understand Kindle, but I don’t like it.

6. Find at least one thing to get super-nerdy about and go all in.

7. Even though I won’t judge you based on your play list, I feel comfortable saying if your favorite band is U2, we probably won’t have that much in common.

8. If you met me between the ages of 19 and 25 and any of the following things happened: We laid in a hammock and told secrets, or we watched a sunrise, or cried in a bathroom at a bar, or car-danced to ABBA/sang to Mariah without irony, or we jumped into a pool fully clothed, or the worst thing in the world happened to me and you brought me a blanket and then threw me a surprise birthday party …  if any (or all) of these things happened at any point during that time frame, then you know all of the things important things about me. It doesn’t matter if the last time we spoke was five days ago, five weeks ago or five years ago. You are still my best friend. You always will be.

9. Learn to bake a decent pie crust. It’s five ingredients – water, flour, butter, sugar, salt –  you can handle it.

10. Call your mother. Always call your mother.

 

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December 31, 2011

Things I wish someone had told me about the first marathon

Amazing that I crossed the finish line looking this happy, considering how much I didn't know about getting through this race.

The first time you do anything it gets burned into your brain. I remember the first time I drove (with my dad down to the end of Speedway and back, with him yelling at me the whole way), the first time I saw Oliver (at a party I desperately didn’t want to be at) and I remember nearly every single first day of school from elementary school through college. So, of course, I’m going to remember the details and feelings of my first marathon for a long time.

What I’ll probably remember most is how – despite months of training and reading everything I could about running a marathon – I was utterly unprepared for the realities of the race. Honestly, I don’t think it’s possible to be truly prepared the first time you do anything.

That said, there are a couple of key pieces of advice I wish I’d gotten (or actually listened to) before the race and in that spirit, thought I’d share the things I wish someone had told me about running a marathon:

  • It’s really hard after mile 20. That whole “hitting the wall” thing is legitimate. I thought “hey once you hit 20, there’s only six more to go… and six miles is nothing.” Oh sweet, naive Megan of four weeks ago. Six miles are definitely something after running 20. Most training programs only have you train up to 20 miles if you’re a beginner, but in retrospect, I’d advocate a longer training timeline to allow for running the full distance at least once. It would have been nice to know what I was in for. Lacking the time to do that, I recommend doing what you can to get mentally tough as well as practicing meditation so you can calm your mind at mile 20.5 and keep yourself from freaking out. I just read a story about a marathoner who does long division in her head the entire last six miles – so you can try that too.
  • Vaseline. Put it everywhere that you think your clothes will rub. I didn’t think much about how awkward and painful it is to have your clothes rubbing against thin, sensitive skin for hours and hours. As a result, I was the blister queen. I had gnarly foot blisters as well as what I can really only describe as adult diaper rash.
  • Get a heart rate monitor. I didn’t think I needed one since I’m far from an elite runner, but I’ve now learned that doing some good old zone training would have helped me better understand a realistic pace goal and probably would have helped me get in better shape. You don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on the fanciest heart rate monitor out there, but as I get in shape for the Lost Dutchman in February, I’m finding it incredibly helpful to know my minimum and maximum heart rates.
  • Don’t skip training runs. I learned recently that for every week you don’t excercise you lose 10% of your fitness. That’s scary, especially when I think about training runs that I skipped. Granted, I got pneumonia in October which was a about a three-week set back, but after that I have to admit I got pretty lazy about mid-week training runs. I never skipped a long run (when I was healthy), but I did lose a lot of midweek motivation which I think hurt me. It’s easy to talk yourself out of a Tuesday or Wednesday run – “it’s only six miles, how much does that really matter?” – and skipping one, once in a while might not matter, but those skipped runs add up on race day. As I head into the next race, I’m committed to not skipping a single run as tough as that is for me when I’m on the road for work.

And with that… I’m out the door for my last run of 2011. Only 35 training runs left until the next race.

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December 17, 2011

One done

The marathon. I made it. It was incredible, but I have to say also much more difficult than I thought. I’m not entirely sure why I didn’t think about how hard it would be to run 26.2 miles but I just didn’t. I trained (up to 20 miles), I ate well, I read everything I could about getting ready for the race. Sunday morning I was so excited I was actually happy to be up and out the door at 4 a.m. I danced to Michael Jackson at the starting line in the minute before the race started. I just had no idea how weird things get after mile 20, after passing into uncharted territory.

Uncharted territory that looked mostly like this:

That look on my face is pure anger - this is almost to mile 26 and I couldn't see the damn finish line yet.

Before I ran the race, I thought I knew what I’d write about it. Something along the lines of “it was great-I’m so proud-so interesting to run my first race in my hometown” and figured I’d draw some kind of interesting parallel between running a significant race in a town I wanted to run away from for so many years, etc.

But while I was running I what I actually spent the most time thinking about (between lip synching to show tunes and “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” and feeling slightly awed by how beautiful the course was) was how lucky I am to have the family I have. I started getting some gnarly blisters around mile 8, which was way too soon, and to avoid thinking about how uncomfortable that was I just focused on seeing my family sometime between mile 14 and 15. I worked. Look how happy they made me:

I know for certain that I would not have completed the race if not for my family. Around mile 18 I was exhausted and frustrated and wanted to quit. And then I caught sight of my Grammy and Papa on the side of the road, smiling. I grabbed my Papa and made him run half a mile with me and that is honestly the moment that I knew I wouldn’t quit even though I wanted to. From mile 20 on I had a family member with me for at least part of every mile. My dad and Oliver hung in with me for a mile each, my mom jogged with me briefly – but if you know my mom and her background you know that’s pretty amazing. Even my little sis jogged a half mile with me in her Toms. That must’ve hurt.

God, I love them. I love how in my family we don’t do anything alone. When something great happens to one of us, it happens to all of us. Something bad happens, we’re all devastated. It can get annoying, but when you’re trying to do something like recover from a broken jaw (my brother), raise money for your low income student’s prom (my dad), or finish the last six miles of a marathon, it’s pretty amazing.

Hooray mom! (Also, I'm crying in this picture...lots of emotions.)

Despite the blisters, the weird cramp in my glutes (I ran like six miles punching myself in the butt to get it to go away) and the strange mental experience past 20 miles, I can honestly say I can’t wait for the next one. As long as my family is there.

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December 12, 2011

Pies I baked and never blogged

I just ran a marathon. It was amazing, horrible, fun, so hard and by far the most challenging physical thing I’ve done in my life. I can’t wait for the next one (in February.) I have a ton that I want to say about the experience, but I’m tired and weirdly sort of emotional about the whole thing so I think I’d better wait until tomorrow.

In the meantime, please enjoy these pies I baked and never blogged. Work was bananas the last couple month – busy to the point where I honestly didn’t have time to think about this blog. Luckily, I did have time to bake.(It’s my favorite de-stresser activity and I was plenty stressed out so there were pies.)

First off, a pie that I neglected to photograph. I went through a vegan attempt earlier this year – not going so well at the moment – and so I wanted to make vegan pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. You might remember these beautiful babies from October during my bout with pneumonia. Well I turned them into homemade puree via this recipe from No Meat Athlete and then into this pie, also via NMA.

I have to say it was… kind bad. I definitely did something wrong because it was really dark and weird-looking and I also think the cashew butter was just too much. I plan on making pumpkin pie again this winter (my Papa loves it so I’m trying to figure out a way to make it low sugar or sugar-free for him) but I’ll probably use the traditional ingredients. I just couldn’t get the right creaminess. I made it for Thanksgiving and only two slices got eaten. That’s not normal for my pie and super not normal for Oliver and his brother. So – bad pie.

Luckily, earlier in the month for my friend Ren’s annual “friend thanksgiving” I made this apple pie and I was really pleased with it:

I definitely ate the leftovers with my hands the following Monday at work because I'm real classy.

I used my typical extra flaky crust recipe and for the insides used three variety of apples (just seasonal local ones), pumpkin pie spice (just a pinch -weird but good), a bit of cinnamon and some sugar. I really liked the mix of apple flavors and spices. I highly recommend it, but I’ll have to bake and more carefully blog another because I can’t remember all the steps now.

Good pie, bad blogger.

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November 25, 2011

Nacho, helping me stretch.

I hate stretching. Worst thing about running. At least I have a little helper.

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