How running long miles can alter how you think
16.59 miles. This is officially my longest run to date. I've been following the Fleet Feet Carrboro/Durham full marathon training program, inching past the half marathon training distance with an additional mile each week on the long run. 14 miles was an iffy distance for a long distance PR - there has been the occasional half marathon race or training run that tracked a little long and flirted with fourteen. Fifteen miles was a definite distance PR but it didn't feel that substantial. But 16.59? When the watched screen popped up "New PR! Longest distance!" I grinned - indubitably, yes, that's my longest distance and I just crushed it.
How running after something can make you feel alive
Sometimes when running with the training group I get this desire to sweep the pack. There's something about being at the back, chasing after everyone else ahead. Maybe I've always loved to chase things: to chase after butterflies, to chase the dogs as they sprinted through the woods like a pack of wolves, to chase a soccer ball up and down a grassy field, to chase after goals and dreams. There's something about the chase - of realizing there's something there ahead of you, to aspire to, to chase down and become. We all need that vision. We all need that something to chase.
My (current) favorite books about running
If you love running and you love reading there's a good chance that eventually you'll end up reading books about running. There is so much to say about running - from the poetic to the scientific to the sometimes dry litany of training tips - and it's no surprise that running literature, while not a huge niche, at least has a deep bench. I started reading books about running by way of audiobooks. There's not much that will hype you up more about running on mile 8 of a long run than listening to all the benefits of running or all the love elite runners have for the sport. Check out my favorite running books I've read and the books I want to read!
A list of trails and greenways to tackle in spring 2018
My friend Kelly (an excellent mentor captain for Fleet Feet running group, Fresh Air Fitness coach and organizer, the awesome gift organizer for Duke Children's Hospital, and the founder of First Pages) is doing something epic this summer: she's running the Bryce Canyon ultra-marathon. She's tackling the 50K course, a rough trail race covering 31 miles in the national park. I am super excited for her and a little envious - I have such a love for running and for hiking, so combining the two and doing trail running just makes sense, so I eagerly volunteered to accompany her on some trail runs. To help her train we've come up with a bucket list of local trails to run.
How to determine what variable is your weakest link in training
The gear-changing workout is all about listening to your body - knowing when to push it and what you need to do to recover. It's knowing your limiting factor. Your limiting factor may be a variety of variables, but if you can identify that limiting factor you can train mindfully and effectively.
1 mile. 4 cookies. 4 glasses of milk.
Well, I have officially blown my running streak. The goal was to run a mile every day from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day, but something about the Holiday Mile did me in. The concept is simple: 1 mile, 4 cookies, 4 glasses of milk. You start the race by gobbling down a glass of milk and a cookie, and then you run a quarter mile. Stop, eat a cook and drink a glass of milk, run a quarter mile, repeat until the mile is done. The holiday mile will either make you or break you...and it definitely broke me!
Two miles. Uphill. In the snow. Both directions.
Okay, so that was a more accurate description of my hike this weekend rather than my run, but it's pretty close. This weekend McCrae and I escaped to his aunt and uncle's mountain cabin outside Sparta, NC. We had an...adventurous...time getting up to the cabin via the Blue Ridge Parkway (which was closed) and private roads (which were gated and locked) and icy vertical drives (which apparently popped one of our tires), but we made it and we spent 4 days in the cabin together and didn't want to kill each other (#romancegoals) Of course, mountain cabin vacation or not I had a running streak to maintain! So I did an out-and-back down the private gravel road to the cabin.
What do you say when you haven't been blogging in a while?
Possibly the hardest blog post is the one that comes after a period of silence. Was it writer's block? I'd argue no because I still have been writing *something* but just not posting. I'm not the type of person who forces herself to write if I'm not ready, but usually just staring at a blank page with a pen in my hand is sufficient enough inspiration, although what I write about may not be exactly relevant. And so, derailed and uninspired, I have been struggling with guilt and inertia.
