Friday Picture Wrap-Up

"You walk so effortlessly."

Or so I was told by one of my coworkers while we were walking together from the subway station to the office. I don't know why this was so amusing to me. At least all this marathon training has made me an excellent walker.

Despite being such an elite walker, my gams have been achy all over. And since the golden rule is "treat your body as you would want your body to treat you" or something like that, I have been easing up on the training. I did a couple of four mile runs combined with three miles of walking. And yesterday I saddled up the doggy and took him out on a two mile run around Fort Greene Park, where there are a few dirt paths and a circling Hawk (luckily Oscar is not a snack-sized chihuahua).

During the run he shared a few running tips with me for springtime training:

1) Poop early on in your run, just to get it out of the way.

2) To avoid getting judged on your running form, pace, or outfit, distract a passerby with your howl.

3) If you experience a slump, roll in a patch of grass to freshen up. 

4) Run very close to people picnicking and maybe they will hand you some food.

5) Visit the wine store near the park on your way home because they have dog treats!

I'm going to start incorporating all of these into my regular runs.

This Friday Picture Wrap-Up is dedicated to my four-legged personal trainer.

Enjoying the sunshine on a mountain in NC

A very distracting howl

 Rolling in the grass feels nice.

A cat makes an okay pillow.

The Devil Went Down to Cape Town

I leave two weeks from Saturday for the Two Oceans Marathon. This doesn't leave me a lot of time left to train. Should I be cramming a bunch of miles in? Should I be tapering? Should I be carbo-loading? Praying? Making a deal with the Devil? After all, it helped Johnny get a new fiddle, so maybe it'll help me finish a long f%*#@ing race in under six hours.

After reading Dr. Ross Tucker's extremely encouraging, informative and easy-on-the-eyes blog on the Two Oceans website, I've decided to maintain these last few weeks (rather than increase or taper) the level of fitness I've gained from the last few months. Doing anything drastically different in my fitness routine just doesn't feel right. Last week I ran the most I remember ever running in one week, 53 miles. When I started training for this race it seemed difficult to get 40 miles a week in, but now 53 feels easy. This week I'm going to log at least 40, including whatever mileage I can get into a 3 hour run on Saturday. I'll rest when I get to Cape Town.

Last night I ran in a free JackRabbit group run 'round Prospect Park. Turns out I really don't mind running with people. I brought out my favorite tank top to run in (purchased from a clearance rack at Target) and let my skin breath a little.

If you're still with me after all that talk of mileage and tapering, here is a recipe for pancakes that I made up this past weekend. A pancake is one of the first things I remember making on my own when I was a kid. (The very first thing I remember making y'all is instant grits, before sitting down to watch Inspector Gadget.) These pancakes require more than adding water and stirring, but they are still super easy. And they are packed with nutrients and fiber, and still manage to be light and fluffy.

Ginger Banana Pancakes
Dry
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup bran
1/2 cup of brown rice flour
1/4 cup flax seeds
2 teaspoons ground ginger
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Wet
1 1/4 to 2 cups of milk (I use whole milk) 
3 tablespoons molasses
1 egg
3 tablespoons salted butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla

1 banana diced and 6-8 dried figs chopped (remove the stems), or  2 bananas diced

Mix the dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl mix the wet ingredients together (start with 1 1/4 cup of milk). Combine the dry and wet mixtures together. Slowly add additional milk until you get a smooth, loose batter. Add the banana and figs (or double the banana and leave out the fig).

Heat a frying pan with butter and make your pancakes. Top with whatever you like. I used honey!

This pancake batter lasts a couple of days, but the next day you'll want to add some additional milk. 

Oscar, get out of my photo shoot!

And just because...

Friday Picture Wrap-Up

Friday Picture Wrap-Up, you are a sight for sore eyes! I am ready for the weekend. A lot of things this week had me feeling anxious and insecure. I found comfort in finishing Nelson Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, in preparation for my upcoming trip. Soon I'll be able to visit the very unfortunately named Robben Island and place Mandela's 27 years of political imprisonment on Robben Island into the context of the struggle of the African people to free themselves from white oppression. It's a heavy book, literally, because it's 638 pages. But I find Mandela's storytelling so uplifting and empowering. Just what I need right now. On an interesting side note to the history of African liberation, not many people think of Nelson Mandela as a runner. In his book he talks of his love of running as a youth, and much later when he was in prison one of the ways he kept his body and spirit in shape was by running in place in his cell for 45 minutes Monday through Thursday.

I've already run 37 miles this week and I'm going to go on a long training run tomorrow. On Sunday I will head up to Westchester to run in the Rockies with Shamala of Live Boulder Run Bolder! 

I bought a new camera for my trip. It's a simple point and shoot (Nikon S9100) with super zooming power (18x optical zoom). I wanted something easy to carry, perhaps even during my ultra, but with some zoom for safari shots so that I don't have to get too close to the lion's teeth. Maybe my photos in Friday Picture Wrap-Up will improve in quality.

This Friday Picture Wrap-Up is all about recognizing thought patterns: 

 

33 Days 10 Hours and 28 Minutes

The good news is that I got my Garmin watch to do other stuff besides tell time. The bad news is that its battery died today at mile 15.  *Heavy sigh*

Five weeks of training are left. Well, four are left if you take into account the last week of "tapering" when I will be in Cape Town, peeping at penguins, climbing Table Mountain during full moon (sounds so pagan) and washing down seafood and carbs with South African wine. I'm feeling like a real runner, particularly this weekend. You know why? I did not let any douchebaggery get in the way of my training. Yesterday, I ran 7 miles, getting some great hill repeats in. I was feeling fairly worked-up, so I blasted M.I.A. through my headphones and pretended to shoot guns in the air all over Brooklyn Heights. You should try this. 

Today I ran for 3 1/2 hours. I'm not sure exactly how many miles it ended up being since the Garmin battery ran out at the 15th mile. Using the watch, I learned that my comfortable non-racing pace is 9 minute miles. I kind of figured that. I still think this is going to be too fast for me during Two Oceans. I'm going to play it safe by aiming for a steady 10:30 pace so I can finish in under 6 hours. This will also give me the opportunity to take in the gorgeous scenery and stop at the refreshment stations. Today, for fuel I took along a peanut butter cliff bar (ate it an hour in) and a cliff power shot (chocolate). I'm not paid by Cliff Bar, btw. I didn't plan on getting thirsty, which is dumb. I ended up stopping at a Dunkin' Donuts in Carrol Gardens to beg for a cup of water. I'm guessing that my sweaty disheveled appearance did not help but my spandexed booty couldn't have hurt. Especially when I went back for cup number two. The run was pretty uneventful. At one point my toe cramped up and I stopped quickly to take off my shoe and massage my foot. A woman with three little girls in pink jackets stopped to see if I was alright and I said I was and that I'd been running for a couple of hours and they all seemed excited by this. The brief massage and encouragement solved the problem and I kept going, guns in tow.