Short and sweet weekly roundup

Thanksgiving week, marathon week, kids out of school, so much to do and no time to do it! So now that I used up all my blogging time worrying about the marathon, I'll have to make this roundup brief.

Monday, 11/16:

6-mile run

A tough one. SuperAthlete J proposed that we run the first 3 miles in our "zones" (the heart rates where we're most efficient) and do the second 3 at "tempo" (higher heart rates, where we're burning calories from carbs, not fat). Three miles was a long time to stay in a heart rate that high, but I did it -- and keeping myself there was made easier by the fact that one mile of the three was uphill. Whew, I was wiped out afterward and thankful to be done.

Tuesday, 11/17:

57 minutes on the stairclimber in zone 2 (approx. 148 bpm)

See how I can't round up to an hour? That feels too much like cheating to me. I know, ridiculous. This was supposed to be a running day but I'd run the day before and needed to do intervals the day after, and I didn't want to risk three days in a row.

Wednesday, 11/18:

Full-body weights

Intervals at the track: 3.75 miles total

A split day: weights early in the afternoon, intervals in the evening. I already posted about my wonderful rainy track experience with my husband so I won't repeat myself except to say I was so grateful to have him come along with me.

Thursday, 11/19:

1 hour on the treadmill in low zone 1 (approx. 110 bpm)

I thought this would be an easy, relaxing workout and it was -- until I got off the treadmill and discovered that my legs were incredibly sore. Why is that? Does a fat-burning workout increase lactic acid production? Unfortunately, my legs were already a little sore when I started ... this really made them feel worse. Ugh.

Friday, 11/20:

Upper-body weights

30 minutes on the elliptical in regular zone 1 (approx. 125 bpm)

It drove me crazy that I ran out of time and couldn't manage my usual 45 minutes on the elliptical trainer. So, in my OCD weekly exercise log, I also wrote that I biked with Little C to school, rode on my own to the bike shop, walked home after dropping the bike off for a complimentary tune, ran back to the bike shop to pick it up, biked to the gym to work out, then biked back to school to pick up Little C. Think that made up for the 15 minutes I lost on the elliptical? I hope so. What a weirdo I am.

Saturday, 11/21:

Rest

I had a hard time taking this as a rest day when I'd done so much less exercise than usual during the week, thanks to the shorter runs on the marathon training schedule. Fortunately, it ended up being a really busy day so I couldn't make time to exercise.

Sunday, 11/22:

8-mile run

Full-body weights

The last run of any significant distance before the marathon and it did not feel as easy as I would have liked. Instead, it was a push. SuperAthlete J and I reversed our usual loop, same as we'd done separately the week before. For me, it felt harder than it did when I ran it while in the throes of a cold -- WTF? The hills were brutal and I couldn't help but wonder, "If this is how I feel on an 8-mile run, how am I ever going to get through 26?" I started having visions of feeling that awful sense of exhaustion just a few miles into the marathon, and I had to work to push them out of my head. Instead, I focused on the reasons that I might have been extra tired: still getting over my cold; too much to drink at a dinner party with friends the night before, followed by really minimal sleep; poor eating the day before; no protein at breakfast because I overslept and didn't want to eat anything heavy less than an hour before running; eating too close to the start of the run. Hopefully at least one of those reasons has some credence, otherwise I may be in trouble.

Jitters

I've got about a billion things to do, including last week's roundup, but first I have to write about how nervous I'm feeling about the marathon -- which is now just 5 days away.

Close enough to check the forecast and hope that it might be accurate because it looks pretty perfect with a projected high of 48º and overcast skies.

Close enough to worry that my recent troubles with insomnia will impact my stamina on the big day.

Close enough to be thinking about what I'm going to eat between now and then because it could make a difference -- good or bad -- on marathon day.

Close enough to decide to ration my alcohol consumption. (That sounds weird but what I mean is that I'm going to be very careful during this holiday week of excess.)

Close enough to be making a list of the little things I need to do before Sunday morning: the clothes to wash, the new earbuds to buy (mine have exposed wires and it would be unspeakably sad if they gave out during the marathon), the Luna Moons to get, the logistics to organize ...

And close enough to be really slowing down on my exercise, as difficult as that is for me. In September, when I made the decision to try for the marathon, I scheduled every single workout between then and the actual day. Some might call it anal but I like to be assured that I've got all my bases covered, which ended up being a bit tricky. I had to make sure I wasn't running too many days in a row -- because I know from past experience that it hurts my body. I also had to include my weight workouts and ensure they didn't take place on consecutive days. And then, of course, I had to make it all work with the rest of my life, which was an especially tall order on long run days.

I write my workouts down in a handy (although some might call it ridiculous) weekly pocket calendar; believe you me, there were a lot of crossouts as I figured and refigured how to fit everything in over the next several months. But once it was done, it was kind of nice not to have to think about it -- just to look at the day and know what I was doing. Life being what it is, I had to make some adjustments along the way -- and SuperAthlete J taught me a lot about being flexible -- but thanks to the slightly obsessive checklist I wrote at the top of every weekly spread in my calendar, I always knew exactly what I needed to achieve.

I think I may have been overambitious with my goals for this week. When I turned the page from last week and saw what I'd written for this one, I was a little dismayed. Not only had I planned to keep up with my weight workouts, I had scheduled myself to exercise every day up through Thanksgiving (although I did generously give myself two rest days in advance of the marathon).

Now that the week before the marathon is actually here, my plans don't seem so reasonable. I think they could potentially lessen my stamina on marathon day. I'm especially anxious about doing any lower body weight training too close to Sunday. I just don't want to do anything that could get in the way of my finishing the marathon, which is feeling less and less like a sure thing now that it's just days away.

So I'm doing what the books say and taking it easy. Instead of lifting weights and cross-training at the gym yesterday, I walked around Greenlake with my beautiful 9-months pregnant sister (needless to say, not the speediest circuit I've ever had). Today I will run 4 miles, tomorrow 2, Thursday 3. That's all per the marathon training calendar I've been using. Then I will stop and not run again until Sunday. And I'm not going to do any weight training at all this week.

I'm also eating pretty heartily. Not excessively or ridiculously, but I am giving myself a solid three meals a day. Again, this is what I've heard I should be doing -- storing up energy to use on the long haul.

But because of my nature, all of this makes me worry: that I'm cutting myself too much slack in the exercise department and will lose ground with my weight training; that I'm eating too much and destined to put on 5 pounds in a single week because I'm not exercising it away. (FYI, all that anxiety a couple months ago about the possibility of gaining weight while training for a marathon? I didn't gain a pound. In fact, I lost at least 5 and several friends have told me that I'm looking smaller.)

I try to tell myself that 5 hours of running on marathon day will make up for three missed workouts (assuming I'm working out an hour and a half at a stretch) but so far, it's not convincing. I don't track my weekly exercise based on total hours spent, I track it based on how many days I worked out.

So in the midst of all the "can I actually run a marathon" anxiety is a bunch of worry related to "am I going to gain weight by not exercising and not curtailing my calories." -- which makes me question my motivation for exercising. Is it just to stay slim (a word I never thought would be associated with my own body but am now just beginning to feel comfortable with)? Is it for the wonderful sense of confidence in my body, its strength, stamina and abilities?

I'm sure it's both, although I suspect it's a bit more of the former than the latter and I wish it was the other way around. Again, something to work on. In the meantime, I'll keep looking ahead to the marathon with apprehension that every once in a wonderful while transforms to excitement. Mostly though, I'm just nervous. I'm in that weird spot where I simultaneously can't wait for Sunday, and hope it never arrives.

Can I actually get through a marathon? And if I can, can I do it without feeling hugely nauseous and/or barfing in the "victory" area?

Oh my.

I love my running non-runner husband

Today even SuperAthlete J bowed down before the weather. It's Wednesday, interval day. Our routine is to meet at the track at our kids' school at 7:00 pm. SAJ called me at 10:00 this morning and said the forecast was predicting a 90% chance of rain and high winds for the evening. I looked out the window: the sky was blue and lovely and the breezes were gentle. SAJ said she was heading to the track right then to get the intervals over with before the ugly weather descended. She wanted to know if I'd join her.

I couldn't because I'd just eaten a big fat breakfast and knew I'd double over if I tried to sprint around the track. Plus I had an actual paid project that needed to be complete by the end of the day. No worries, I said to SAJ, I can always do my intervals on the treadmill at the gym if the weather is too crappy tonight.

As the day progressed, the skies got more and more gloomy. Gusty winds made my creaky old house groan in protest throughout the afternoon. As darkness fell, the rain started. I started mentally preparing myself for solo intervals on the treadmill.

And then my charming husband came home, fresh from an intense jiu jitsu class. We'd talked earlier in the day about doing intervals -- and I'd told him that I could do them at the gym if the weather was awful or he was too tired.

Before he even got fully inside, I half jokingly said, "How about it?" and struck the universal pose for running. Husband M looked confused. I tried again, more specifically, "Are you ready for intervals?"

Husband M sighed and looked toward the floor. "OK," he said, totally blowing my mind.

"It's not too ugly out there?" I asked.

"It's not that bad," he answered. So off we went to change clothes -- and a mere 15 minutes later, we were on the track. The rain was falling steadily and the wind was blowing but all in all, it didn't feel too bad, although my chattering teeth might have begged to differ.

As always, we started off with four warmup laps. I was immediately reminded that I'm still getting over a cold when my top teeth throbbed with every footstrike thanks to inflamed sinuses. It was fairly painful but I didn't want to stop because I'd dragged Husband M out with me and everything ... I decided to reassess after a lap. Thankfully, the throbbing eased off.

And then the wind kicked in. On the home stretch of our second lap, it blew so hard that I literally felt like I was running in place. The rain felt like needles on my face. But Husband M was plugging along beside me, so I kept going. Plus, two of our usual interval partners had showed up and were making their way around the track -- if they were doing it, I thought, so could I.

After our warmup laps, we did our intervals: 8 sets of a sprint lap followed by a recovery lap. I will tell you right now that these were not my best sprint laps. I was cold, I was tired, the wind was literally howling and the rain was coming down sideways. But every time I looked up, I could see my own sweet Husband M -- who would not choose to run of his own accord in even the very best of circumstances -- making his way around the wet and windy track because I asked if he would come with me, and he loves me, so he did.

There's nothing like the feeling of getting something like that under my belt and being able to go back home to a warm, cozy house and something yummy for dinner, right alongside the man I love most. I am so lucky.

A small and small-minded victory

Sometimes I am quite petty, it's true. And I had a great reminder of said pettiness while I was running last week's 8 miler. Here's the whole sordid story.

As I started up the long, winding hill that snakes from the beach to the top of the bluff at Golden Gardens, I saw a woman runner heading downhill toward me. Just before she passed me, she turned around and started running back up the hill. Oh great, I thought sarcastically, another opportunity for me to make peace with my slow pace.

Then I realized who the woman was: she goes to the same gym as me and I often see her in the free weight room. I don't know her name or anything about her because she never acknowledges my presence. That's fine, it's not like I chat with everyone in the weight room, but she seems to be quite friendly with many other folks. She works out with her boyfriend or husband, and he's been nice to me -- he says hi at the gym and when I see him out in the neighborhood. But her? Nothing doing. Even if she's standing right next to her boyfriend/husband when he says hello to me, she studiedly looks the other way. It definitely seems that she's taken a dislike to me.

I thought for a while that I was being paranoid so I tried looking at her, smiling and giving her a little "hey" wave when I saw her in the weight room, but her avoidance only intensified. She really couldn't have looked any harder in the other direction when I was attempting to be friendly. So I gave up and started actively disliking her in return (if you can't beat 'em, join 'em -- right?). Aside from being so weird and standoffish, she gave me a couple good reasons to thumb my figurative nose at her: she's always caressing and kissing her boyfriend/husband in the gym and that drives me crazy. Plus, her hair bugs me. Remember how I said I was petty at the beginning of this post?

Back to the run. Knowing that it was my gym nemesis plugging up the hill in front of me erased any potential for zen thoughts about accepting my slow pace. I stepped it up as much as I could -- but the hill was very steep and I was already quite sluggish from my cold. I just couldn't get in front of her. So I resolved to at least not get any farther behind.

Then, at the first curve, the most satisfying thing happened: she slowed down and started walking. Seeing that somehow gave me a big boost of extra juice -- I hoofed it the rest of the way up the hill without looking back, with a big fat mean-spirited grin on my face.

I have no idea if she ran or walked up the hill or not. For all I know, she may have been done with her run and heading back to her car when I saw her start walking. Regardless, I got to have a tiny moment of obnoxious victory at that first curve in the hill, and I relished it even while feeling like a really bad person. Hey, when you're as slow as I am, you've got to take your victories where you can get them.

Punctual weekly roundup

At last! It's been a while since I've done one of these on time. It's a wet and breezy day and I just finished a 6-miler with SuperAthlete J ... the perfect time to reflect on last week.

Monday, 11/9:

12-mile run

A pretty good run, all in all, despite the nearly constant rain. I could definitely feel a cold coming on so wasn't sure how far I'd go -- as SAJ pointed out, the week held a 5, an 8 and a 12 and I could choose to do any one of those distances. I said I'd see how I felt as we went along but in my heart, I planned on doing the 12. I knew it would feel fantastic to get it over with. SAJ, on the other hand, said was feeling tired and planned for 8.

We did our usual loop, adding the spur at the duck pond to increase the distance a bit, and found ourselves back at SAJ's house at just over 8 miles. Her kind husband Blue-Eyed S met us at the door and immediately grabbed a pot of hot water and towels so we could warm our hands and faces a bit. SAJ did look tuckered out, it's true -- and she told her husband that she was done for the day, but that I was going to push on for the 12.

He gave her the sweetest look and most gentle encouragement -- no pushing, just, "Are you sure you don't want to go those last few miles?" SAJ grimaced a bit and reminded him that it wasn't a few miles, it was 4. He gently nudged again, "Are you sure?" It was about the most charming motivation I've ever seen -- and it totally worked. SAJ sighed, stood back up and said, "OK, let's go." We grabbed our iPods, plugged in and headed out for the last four wet miles ... and wouldn't you know, it was all I could do to keep SAJ in my sight. She may have been tired, but it wasn't showing in her speed. Maybe she just couldn't wait to get back home to the hot bath her husband said he'd have ready for her. That definitely would have hurried me along ...

Then, as if I wasn't impressed enough with SAJ's supportive husband, I got to enjoy a giant bowl of his delicious homemade chicken vegetable soup after the run -- hand-delivered to my front door by SAJ less than half an hour after I got back home! It was delicious, warm and perfect. What a treat!

Tuesday, 11/10:

Full body weights

45 minutes on the treadmill in zone 1 (125 or so bpm)

I was definitely in the full swing of my cold on Tuesday but still had enough energy for a moderate workout. I took it slow with the weights and didn't push myself too hard on the elliptical trainer, hoping that I'd give myself a nice immune boost by exercising without pushing too hard. I was more tired than usual when I finished, but didn't suffer any adverse reaction beyond that.

Wednesday, 11/11:

Rest

This was supposed to be interval day and I just couldn't face it. While I was comfortable doing a regular workout, I didn't have the energy for the full-out effort of intervals. I promised myself I'd do them on Saturday (my usual rest day) instead.

Thursday, 11/12:

Upper body weights

45 minutes on the treadmill in low zone 1 (110 or so bpm)

The low zone 1 workout felt like the perfect thing to do in the middle of my cold -- it really seemed to help me sweat it out a bit. The weights, on the other hand, were hard. As I've mentioned before, I rotate through an assortment of weight workouts -- and the one that showed up on this day was the most difficult in my roster. The movements are more involved and the weights are heavier ... I have a feeling this workout is one that I picked up when I was much more full-bore on the weight training. All the same, I got through it and was happy to have it behind me.

Friday, 11/13:

8-mile run

I was supposed to run with SAJ in the morning -- but after a night of crappy, congested sleep, I woke up to cold temperatures and drizzle outside. As much as I didn't want to leave SAJ to run alone, I didn't think it would be smart for me to be out in those conditions. So I stayed home and cozy during the morning, watching the sky and thinking that I could always run on the treadmill at the gym if the weather didn't improve.

Happily, the sun came out and my energy rebounded in the afternoon. I set out for a solo 8 and, despite feeling some fatigue from lack of sleep and my tiresome cold, followed the same route that SAJ had done that morning: a reverse of our usual hilly loop. It was interesting to do the same route backwards and I could definitely tell that I wasn't at the top of my game. But I got through it and finished just in time to run to Little C's school and cool down while walking alongside her as she rode her bike home.

It had been a long time since I'd run any kind of distance on my own -- and I was reminded all over again of how wonderful it is to have a running partner. Even with an iPod for distraction, time seems to move so much more slowly when I'm on my own. Thank goodness for SAJ and our compatible schedules!

Saturday, 11/14:

Intervals

Although I couldn't quite believe I was keeping the promise I'd made to myself, I got dressed and headed to the track for intervals on Saturday. Lucky for me, Husband M agreed to come along and run, too. It was interesting to do the intervals during the day -- and with a kids' soccer game taking place in the field at the center of the track to boot. I think I like running intervals better at night; the darkness lets me feel like I'm running faster. In the daylight, it was all too obvious that I wasn't very speedy. Perhaps I was also more sluggish because of my cold? Probably. Regardless, I got through the intervals, crossed them off my list, and felt satisfied. (Apparently that's my refrain for the week: "At least I got through it and that's enough for me.")

Sunday, 11/15:

Full body weights

45 minutes on the stairclimber in zone 2 (147 bpm or so)

Even though I was more congested than ever, I had better energy than I'd enjoyed all week. The weights felt good, not too hard, and doing the stairclimber was a novel treat. I was supposed to run 5 miles but had a really sore and spasming lower right leg after intervals on Saturday -- so I thought a lower-impact exercise would be better on Sunday (especially because I knew I'd be running 6 miles on Monday, which would have meant 4 days of running in a row -- a bit much for me).

It's been a long time since I've done the stairclimber and it felt hard at first. But I settled in pretty quickly and plugged along while enjoying a magazine. I usually have a pretty easy time getting into my desired heart rate on the stairclimber and this day was no exception: I aimed for zone 2 and was able to stay in it fairly comfortably, without feeling like I was knocking myself out. All in all, a very satisfying workout and a great launching pad for the new week to come.

Eating on the run

As long as I'm talking about food, I thought I should cover foods to eat while actually running.

It took me a long time to come around to the idea of eating during a run. While training for my second half marathon, I tried different pasty substances and chewy squares but it always felt awkward and wrong to be chewing and swallowing in the middle of a long run. Plus, eating didn't seem to make much of a difference in my overall energy or performance so after I while I gave it up. I didn't eat anything while training for my most recent half marathon -- or during the event itself -- and didn't suffer any adverse consequences.

But when I started training for a full marathon, I realized pretty quickly (with the help of friend Carmen) that I'd have to take in additional calories while on the move. For a slow runner like me, eating while running seems even more vital. After all, it's going to take me in the neighborhood of 5 hours to complete the marathon. That's if I can go the distance (sorry, I had to say that because I don't want to jinx myself).

And it's not like I can load up on food and then start running immediately. The longer the run, it seems, the longer I need to wait after eating to get started. For the marathon, I'm going to aim for about three hours between breakfast and the starting whistle. So, all told, that's 8 hours between the last meal I eat before the marathon and the first one I eat after -- more than 8, since it's not like I'll be sitting down to a giant plate of food at the finish line. And 5 of those hours will be spent working my ass off. So (back to my original point), I accept that I've gotta eat during the run itself.

Fortunately, the benefits of taking in calories during a run are now very tangible to me. If I'm slow and dragging, then pop in a mouthful of Luna Moons or Sport Beans, I feel a definite uptick in my energy about 10 minutes later. Placebo effect? Maybe. Especially because I read somewhere that it takes about 10 minutes for the energy from those carbs to get into your bloodstream and hit your muscles. But even if it's all in my head, I don't care one bit -- because I can feel the run becoming less of a push for a while, and even if it's in my imagination, it is absolutely delightful.

Lately I've been experimenting with what to eat on a long run and unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a single answer. I tried doing all Sport Beans on a 15-miler and ended up with a really sour, unhappy stomach. I saw this described as "sugar belly" in a book recently and that term seemed perfect. Although I really enjoyed the taste of the beans and the quick boost they gave me, I knew I needed to look at other options.

Next I tried Luna Moons, thinking that their milder flavor would decrease the sugar belly effect. True to a certain extent -- but I still couldn't consume them for an entire run without suffering some consequences. Honestly, my stomach felt like it needed some real food.

The idea of eating something "real" on a run was a bit frightening to me. Anyone who knows me is well acquainted with my fear of nausea and vomiting. The last thing I wanted to do was put something in my mouth during a run that would make me feel like I was going to barf. Although I've read about runners who eat crazy stuff like pizza and burritos on a run -- and Trainer A from the gym told me he eats turkey sandwiches and bagels and cream cheese -- attempting something like that seemed like asking for trouble. What I wanted was something uncomplicated, not too fatty (read: no dairy), not too sugary, that I could easily carry and would taste good. Oh, and that wouldn't give me diarrhea, make me nauseous, give me cramps or make me barf.

Tall order. But, so far, my experimenting has been fruitful, without any of the side effects I dread. The one substance I really don't think I can consume without putting myself in danger of good old runner's diarrhea is Gu or anything like it. I confess, I'm hugely attracted to the ease and simplicity of Gu: no chewing, just straight down your gullet, and lots of the flavors are even caffeinated. But the ones I've tried give me cramps like nobody's business. So all those pastes are off my list.

What IS working for me these days -- and what I'll carry with me during the marathon -- is a mix of Luna Moons (watermelon is my preferred flavor), LaraBars (peanut butter cookie flavor) and Frosted Cheerios. Not all at once ... one type at a time. I take my first food break at mile 5, then try to put something in every 3 miles or so after that. I alternate: Moons first, then Bar, then Cheerios. Whatever it is that I'm eating, I don't take in a ton: three Moons; 2 chunks of Bar (the equivalent of half a bar or less); handful of Cheerios.

I also make sure to wash down my snack with lots of water. That's another mistake I made early on: not drinking enough after eating on the run. Apparently (and this makes a lot of sense), you've gotta add water to the mix if you want your stomach to be able to absorb the calories you've just ingested. If you don't dilute your food with some water, it sits there longer and -- this is the part that really got my attention -- has the potential to irritate your stomach. Which means that I'm now totally on top of drinking 6 or so ounces every time I eat.

Last thing: have you tried LaraBars? They're really good, and not just during runs. There aren't many bar options for me because I have trouble with soy, and LaraBars are made solely with fruit and nuts -- at least, my fave Peanut Butter Cookie flavor is that way. But unlike other bars that are made with whole chunks of said ingredients, these are ground up and mixed together so they've got that same easy-to-eat-and-digest bar consistency that's the hallmark of products like Clif Bars.

Here's a link to the LaraBar web site and a picture of what they look like. I wish I knew how to make that fancy umlaut.

http://www.larabar.com/

Post-run recovery foods

Have I sung the praises of chocolate milk after a long run yet?

It is the most wonderful, miraculous, non-intuitive beverage in the world. I've read about it being the perfect recovery food many times -- and scoffed at the idea in almost every instance. But after falling prey to lightheadedness and nausea after long runs (the result of not taking in some kind of food within 30 minutes or less of stopping), I thought I'd give it a try.

Let me say that there is absolutely nothing I want to put in my mouth after a really long run. And by really long, I mean 15 miles or more. A distance like that makes me feel like my stomach is eating itself. I feel so empty that I feel sick. It reminds me of early pregnancy -- the times when I felt so miserably queasy and knew the only way to feel better, ironically, was to make myself eat. It seems like exactly the wrong thing to do ... until it works.

That's how chocolate milk after a long run was for me. Even though I couldn't think of anything that sounded GOOD to put in my body after a long run, I could think of plenty of things that sounded better than chocolate milk. I tried many of them, without a lot of success. (If success as defined as "not feeling like barfing is imminent for a couple hours after a run.") Some foods helped; some seemed to make a bad situation even worse.

And then I tried the chocolate milk. Not only did it taste and feel surprisingly good going down, it totally calmed my stomach and helped pave the way for real food -- which, as I learned, should be consumed no more than an hour after the chocolate milk, otherwise the fantastic anti-queasy effect is totally negated and I'm back at square one.

For these last few super-long runs, I've been adding to the chocolate milk: I've tried bananas, rice cakes, Cheerios, frosted Cheerios, corn chips ... do you see the trend here? It's pretty much straight carbs. I don't know if the added foods are helping, but they're definitely not hurting. And I don't know if I'd still feel fine if I just went with straight chocolate milk; it just seemed to me that, since I was running farther and longer, I should increase the amount of calories I jammed down my gullet immediately after the run. (And again, by "immediately," I mean "within half an hour at the absolute most.")

I also have to be careful about what I eat after the chocolate milk has primed my pump and I'm ready for an actual meal. It has to have a significant amount of protein, but not a ton of fat -- otherwise I am on the diarrhea train (sorry for the TMI). Same for spice; it's got to be pretty mild for me to stay off the train whose name I won't mention again. Carbs are still important ... but if I focus too much on them and leave protein in the back seat, I end up feeling weird and woozy for the rest of the day. So far, I'm loving stuff like beef and barley soup, beef stew, chicken stew ... hmm, lots of soups and stews.

The last thing I'll say is that I'm realizing more and more how important it is to have a food plan BEFORE I head out for a long run. After I've knocked myself out is not the time to brainstorm about what would be good to eat or -- worse yet -- get into a bunch of involved food prep. I know from past experience that, if I have to figure out what to eat and spend a bunch of time making it after a really long run, I will keep putting it off because I am so tired, and end up feeling like crap. What I aim for now is making sure I've got chocolate milk fixin's and some kind of snack at the ready for when I get home, plus a plate of something that I can microwave about an hour later. Not having to think about it is total heaven.

My friend and fellow runner Letterpress N passed along a couple yummy-sounding recipes to me, saying she'd gotten them from a nutritionist who recommended them as ideal post-run meals. Truth be told, I haven't tried either one of them yet -- but I hope to one day. In the meantime, I'll paste them here, directly from Letterpress N's email:

Sesame Noodle Salad

8 oz Cooked whole grain noodles (I use buckwheat soba noodles)

3 Tblso Tahini (Sesame paste)

1 tblsp Peanut Butter (almond, cashew)(I use regular peanut butter)

1 tsp Maple syrup

2 tblsp Brown rice vinegar

2 tblsp Soy Sauce (Tamari or Shoyu)

1 tsp Toasted Sesame Oil

1 tblsp Water

Cook noodles according to package directions. Make sauce: Combine remaining ingredients (sometimes it helps to heat the nut butter in the microwave for a few seconds) and stir well. Add to noodles and mix well. Enjoy.

Curried Quinoa Salad with Mango

• 1 cup quinoa (about 6 ounces)
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon mango chutney, chopped if chunky
• 1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
• 1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1 cup chopped peeled mango plus mango spears for garnish
• 1 cup chopped unpeeled English hothouse cucumber
• 5 tablespoons chopped green onions, divided
• 2 cups (packed) baby spinach
• (optional) I also put in chopped red bell pepper

Cook quinoa in medium pot of boiling salted water over medium heat until tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally, about 12 minutes. Drain well; cool. Transfer to medium bowl.

Meanwhile, whisk oil and next 4 ingredients in small bowl to blend. Season dressing to taste with salt and pepper.

Add chopped mango, cucumber, 4 tablespoons green onions, and 1/4 cup dressing to quinoa; toss to coat. Divide spinach between 2 plates. Spoon quinoa salad over spinach. Garnish with mango spears and 1 tablespoon green onions. Drizzle with remaining dressing; serve.