Weekend Race Report
The big race going on this weekend is the
Nature's Path Organic Whidbey Island Marathon and Half Marathon to benefit the
Whidbey Animals' Improvement Foundation and
Return to Freedom American Wild Horse Sanctuary. The course takes place on the North end of the island and runs down country back roads and along the coastline. Ultra Marathon Man Dean Karazes will be the Master of Ceremony for the post event celebration. If you're looking for something to do this Sunday and are in the mood to run 13.1 or 26.2 miles you can still sign up for the race at the Expo at Oak Harbor High School on Saturday. If you're not in the mood for running, you can always volunteer (just sign up at the Expo), or just head on over and cheer on all the runners.
Other races happening around the area this weekend:
Robin Hill 3 Mile & 10K Run. Sequim, WA.
Y Run for Kids 5K. Tacoma, WA.
Trout Lake 5K, 10K & Half Marathon. Trout Lake, WA.
Mt. Si Relay & Ultra. Snoqualmie, WA.
Good luck to everyone racing this weekend!
Epic Fail
Looks like I won't be back to running in time for the Whidbey Island Half Marathon. My injury seemed to be getting better last week, and I was even able to run a mile last Saturday without any pain. However, when I decided to give it another try on Monday I ran into some problems. My run Monday just didn't feel right, it didn't hurt exactly, but just felt slightly off. Not to mention at one point my hip started to feel kind of numb. So I went back to the doctor yesterday and she referred me to physical therapy. Meanwhile I won't be running the Mercer Island 10K this weekend as I'd planned. I asked her about my chances of running Whidbey Island next month and she said it didn't look like it would be happening. I'm pretty upset about it, but at the same time I've come to terms with it. My first physical therapy appointment is this coming Monday and I'm actually kind of excited to see what it all entails. While I love my doctor I don't think she was able to give me enough information on what I should and shouldn't be doing. I'm back on the ibuprofen, at least until my first PT appointment.
In the meantime I figure I can keep up doing what I do as long as it doesn't make the pain worse. This week I started the
New Rules of Lifting for Women program. I'm not normally one for following diet/exercise programs from books, but for some reason I was drawn to this one. I like the idea of building muscle and becoming stronger. I did my first workout at the gym Tuesday and while it seemed easy at the time, my muscles are still sore from it. The workout consisted of 5 exercises with two sets of each, I think it took me about 20-25 mins to complete it with the warm up and the rest between reps. Today I am doing the second workout, which I'm looking forward to a lot. I do feel kind of intimidated about going in the free weight room at the gym, but I know that the more I go the less intimidating it will be. Not to mention most of the people in there are far more concerned with themselves than anything else. The only thing about this program is that it suggests getting about 30% of your daily calories from protein. Which is difficult, let me tell you. Based on my caloric needs the book suggests about 150 grams of protein per day, and in all honesty even with protein powder and bars and stuff I struggle to make it over 100. I'm not too concerned about the protein at this point though. I figure as long as I make a conscious effort to eat healthy (which I pretty much do anyway, just have to cut down on some of the candy) and eat more protein I should be fine.
I am trying to find a way to work in some Bikram to my routine this weekend. I absolutely love Bikram. Just being in the warm room and sweating, it's so cleansing and detoxifying and when I'm done I feel completely refreshed. However, it requires a lot of time. The class itself if 90 mins and obviously it helps to arrive a bit early, to change and pick out a decent spot, etc. Then after class, you can relax there for as long as you want, then you have to change and get everything together. By the time you make it back home, you've probably invested a good two hours and then you have to have a shower. I think once my 30 classes are done with, I'll probably just drop in on occasion when I feel like it, or pick another type of yoga that isn't so time consuming. I do love it though and think as long as I don't stretch too much I should be okay doing it even with my injury. We'll see, hopefully I can make it there tomorrow or sometime this weekend.
Road to Recovery
I'm starting to think that this whole "vitamin I" and rest thing is actually working on my muscle strain. Today I don't even feel it at all. Lately it hasn't been painful, but I've often noticed it when walking or turning my leg a certain way. This morning I woke up, after being without ibuprofen for about 9 hours and I didn't even feel it. Of course I still popped my 4 pills just because I don't want to stop taking them prematurely and have the discomfort/pain come back. I'm starting to see a light at the end of this injury though and I'm hoping to put in a few miles by the middle of next week. It's been hard to gear down and step away from the cardio and just let it rest. But now that I can tell it's actually making a difference I'm going to stick with it. I've found a training routine that should get me ready in 6 weeks, which is about all I have left until the half.
In other event news, the registration for the Seattle
Danskin Triathlon opens Tuesday February 26th. Finally! Then I can stop obsessing and checking the site about a million times a day as I have since the beginning of the month when registration was supposed to open. There is a very limited number of spaces (about 3000 I believe) and it fills up quickly, so I have to be sure to get on it at soon as it opens. Then I'll sign up for the Team Danskin Training, to the tune of $259, however it's apparently a really good program and a friend of mine is actually going to be the workout leader. Also, I'm planning on signing up for swim lessons at the Y starting at the end of March, which seems completely lame, but I haven't actually swam in years so it's pretty necessary.
Things are looking good all over. Not to mention, it's Friday, the sun is shining and other than a fabulous private party with
Amanda Palmer,
Estradasphere and
Jason Webley, we don't have anything going on this weekend other than sleeping in and probably some cleaning.
Sidelined
I am officially sidelined from running for at least the next week. In fact, other than a little 2 mile test run I haven't run since the 9th. Somehow during that week I managed to pull/strain a muscle in my inner upper leg/groin area. I don't know if it was from running, weight lifting or coughing, or perhaps a combination of all three. I seem to recall while doing some lower body weights that I felt something that didn't feel quite right. I think that combined with an 8 mile hilly run exasperated the situation. I was fine during my 8 mile run, but right after it hurt. It hurt to walk, it hurt to sit. It
hurt. Currently it doesn't hurt so much as I'm aware of it. If I overdo it (by walking to much or running 2 miles) it gets kind of bothered.
I took a week off from running and tested the waters with a slow 2 mile run on Monday. I could still feel it after the run so I went to the doctor yesterday. She told me to take 3-4 ibuprofen 3 times a day for a week (or possibly two, depending) and not to run during that time. I think I was pretty annoying because I was trying to figure out what I could do exactly so I don't just sit around like a lump on the couch doing nothing. I was all "so, what about heat and stretching?" and she was like "yes, heat would be good, stretching, no", "so that means bikram is out then?" I think she wanted to shake some sense into me at that point! I know I have to give myself some time to heal, but at the same time going from being super active to practically inactive is hard to get my head around. Basically, I can't do yoga, or run, or anything that would make the strain worse (elliptical, dance, step, etc). We determined that I could probably get away with some cycling and that's about it. I know that I have to give it time to heal and the ibuprofen should help with any inflammation. So instead of push it and run to the gym and hop on a bike for an hour, I've decided to take a break and maybe fit in some upper body, abs and pilates (though nothing that works the legs) in the meantime. Also, while I'm not spending hours running or at the gym I suppose I could be cleaning and sorting and baking cookies. Because I mean, if I can't work out I may as well eat a ton of freshly baked cookies, right?
It's hard not being able to run, especially since I'm in the midst of training for the
Whidbey Island Half Marathon that's taking place April 13th. I do think however, that I should be okay by then. If I take it slow and allow myself some time to heal, I should probably be able to step up the training and do okay with 6 weeks to prepare. Granted I won't be running a great half, I'm not even thinking at this point that I'm going to run the whole thing. I might run a mile, then walk some, and just walk/run the whole thing. It's my first half anyway, so of course it's not going to be spectacular. It'll give me a time to beat on my next half though!
The Great Apple Challenge of '08 - Conclusion
It is safe to say the apple challenge is officially over. Even though there was another apple that we tried that I didn't even bother to review (red rome, beautiful color,
VERY mealy) and a number of apples we could have tried, we were able to come to a pretty firm conclusion. And the winner is...
*drum roll*
Jazz!
We settled on the Jazz because it had the best flavor out of all the apples we tried. It wasn't quite as crisp as the Honeycrisp, but it still managed to have a decent crunch. It was by far the flavor that won us over. Sweet, juicy and just a little tart. This week we've been having nothing but Jazz and they've been consistently good.
In other news I've been sick with some horrible flu/cold thing this past week. I am just finally starting to feel better today, so I think I'll hit Alki after work for a slow 5 mile run. I've been pretty much out of commission since Saturday and I'm just itching to get a decent run in. I will make sure not to overdo it though. I don't want to be sick when we go to San Francisco next week.
The Great Apple Challenge of '08 - Day 4
Today's apple is, the
Braeburn. It is a rather small apple when compared to the Honeycrisp or even the Fuji. It's flesh is a very pale color, almost white and doesn't seem to turn too brown, unlike the Jazz. It has a decent flavor. Falling in that category between sweet and tart, however neither flavor stands out as being prominent, they're both subtle flavors. This isn't a crisp apple, it's actually rather soft feeling. There is no satisfying "crunch" when you bite into it, Also, it isn't overly juicy. All in all, it's okay, but that's about it. Nothing spectacular. I mean, if it were all I had, I would eat it, but I wouldn't go out of my way to do so.
In completely unrelated food news, today I received the Chicago style deep dish pizza I ordered from
Lou Malnati's Tastes of Chicago. I've been saying to Shawn how we should just go to Chicago for one night and have some pizza. Sure it would be totally expensive and excessive, but it would be a lot of fun. In lieu of dropping a few hundred dollars on some plane tickets, I decided to give this website a try. So tomorrow we'll be indulging in Chicago style deep dish pizza, straight from the Windy City. Yum!
The Great Apple Challenge of '08 - Day 3
The apple of the day is
Jazz. Feel free to sing the name as though you were on a stage showing off your mad
jazz hand skills. That's how I do it, or at the very least how I think it in my head!
On most occasions I cut up apples for our lunches the night before. It's just much easier to have everything ready in the mornings instead of running around trying to get dressed and ready, have some breakfast and on top of it get lunches together. The first thing I noticed about the Jazz apple this morning when I took it out of the fridge to put in my lunchbag was that it had turned quite brown. I'm actually not used to my apples turning this brown over night. Sure, they get a little darker, but not by much. In fact the Honeycrisp barely changes color at all (it's the PERFECT apple, I tell ya).
Dark color aside the Jazz apple is a very lovely one. It has a very interesting taste that actually reminds me more of a pear or plum than an apple. It tastes fruity. Granted apples are fruit, but the Jazz tastes more like fruit than an apple. Go figure. Initially it has a very sweet taste, but eventually leaves you with a kiss of tart.
Shawn says they're "not as crisp" as he normally likes "but not as mealy as a Red Delicious", which I agree with completely. If only it were a little more crisp and crunchy it would be right up there with the Honesycrisp.
From both Shawn and I this apple gets two thumbs up!
The Great Apple Challenge of '08 - Day 2
Today the apple that emerged in my hand when I reached into the fruit drawer was a
Cameo. Actually it's what we believe to be a Cameo as there was no little sticker on the piece of fruit. I do recall picking up a Cameo that looked similar, so that's what we're going with.*
As for the apple, it's decent. It's very crunchy and juicy, but lacks in flavor. It's a little more on the tart side, not very sweet at all. I like the sound and feel when I bite into it, but in all honesty that's about all I like about this apple. For me, I don't think the Cameo has enough to replace the Honeycrisp in my "apple a day.." scenario. It is slightly better though than my orange today that tasted like a chewable vitamin C tablet (that's what I get for buying some fancy schmancy orange with a weird name instead of a staple like satsuma or navel). Back to the Cameo, I could see it being a decent applesauce apple, or one used in cooking/baking. I don't think I'd enjoy it much in a pie, but maybe some kind of apple topping?
Shawn hasn't tried the apple yet, but I will be sure to update with his opinion.
ETA Shawn's Opinion:
The Cameo apple... has no flavor but does have awesome crunch!
Very juicy.*Obviously this little "challenge" is severely lacking in 'control' but this isn't some professional scientific study or anything.
