Mid-Week Musings. Alliteration--WHAT!

In this unprecedented (for my lifetime) super ridiculous, excessive, frozen weather I've been cooped up at home a lot. Here's what's been happening.

On Monday I needed to get off of my ass so I walked to and from the grocery store--bundled up like Randy Parker. I've never been one to complain about winter in Ohio, even as a runner, but this shit is for real. Yesterday evening before trivia we went to Anytime Fitness to do four miles, side-by-side on the treadmills. I was feeling really good and could have gone on for another mile or two. We might end up there again this evening because it's still cold as a mofo.

I'm just going to put this out there so that I do it: Next Tuesday I will begin doing speed work. Last winter around this time I told myself I'd do it weekly, but that only lasted for two weeks. My only excuse is that I didn't commit. This year I need to do it and stick with it. I want to give myself a better chance of improving on my marathon PR and, save for a miracle or voodoo, that's the only way I know how to control it. Although the forecast is calling for snow on that day, I will do speed work next Tuesday. It might mean that I'll need to give in and actually buy a real membership to the gym. Note to self: Next house must have a basement with a phat treadmill. Yeah, I said "phat."

I'm looking forward to our 15-mile long run this Sunday. Looking forward to a long run?! Usually I'm a teeny bit excited to do long runs because I feel so awesome afterwards, but this one is mounting up to be memorable. We're switching it up from P-Burg and Maumee and heading down to flat and windy Bowling Green to run with Joe Boyle. Joe is a teacher living in BG who took up running a few years ago, then received a diagnosis of kidney cancer. In a couple of weeks he'll begin a new treatment routine, so if he's going to run a marathon, he needs to do it now. We don't know Joe at all, but his story has gone sorta viral over the past few days. His original plan was to run 26.2 miles with a few friends and his doctor. Now, though, it's looking like there will be a solid crowd of northwest Ohio runners joining Joe for portions of if not the entire marathon distance. There will even be fuel, aid stations, restrooms, and spectators! If you're interested in supporting Joe, hit up his blog post about the event at this address: http://boyledonia.blogspot.com/2014/01/marathon-details_25.html.

Now if you don't mind, I'm going to enjoy the bejesus out of my latte. It's so warm, which is very different from outside.

14 Cold, Snowy Miles

Training last week was rough.

Monday: 5 miles

Tuesday: Rest

Wednesday & Thursday: 0 miles (excuse: fever)

Friday: 0 miles (excuse: crazy wind chill)

Saturday: 4 treadmill miles

Sunday: 14 miles

Beginning Saturday night we were under a level two snow emergency. We woke up to more snow, still falling, and a sub-zero wind chill. Still, we were determined to get out for 14 miles. The original plan was to run four miles to our friends, six with them, then four back to home.

We struggled to get out of the house, not because of the weather but because of the stuff we had to do to *prepare* for the weather. You know, find and put on all of our layers, fiddle with busted YakTrax (both of us had one break during the 12-miler the week prior), eat a snack, fill the water bottle, and put on watches, gloves, and mittens. It's a process much like preparing to go deep sea diving. That resulted in taking a 2.5 mile route to our friends instead of the planned four.

The weather wasn't bad, save for the periodic low visibility in blizzard conditions. That also kept traffic at a minimum, so we had free range of the entire road much of the way. At least, until we were on our way home for the last 5.5 miles.

At eight and a half miles It got really, *really* cold. Poor Joe at one point couldn't hold the water anymore because his fingers were too cold, even in gloves. Not long after that my thumbs were cold and stinging and I was actually concerned about frostbite. We stopped so that I could try to warm them up and Joe, being the problem-solver he is, told me to just put my thumbs with my other fingers in the big part of the mittens.

Because it was still snowing, most people and businesses hadn't cleared their sidewalks yet. The church crowd had hit the roads eventually so we had less space and usually no discernible shoulders to run. Most drivers were really considerate, moving over to give us a lot of space and even waving and smiling. One driver of a minivan was deserving of a rock through the windshield, though. He didn't move over, didn't slow down, AND lay on the horn while making an angry face. Seriously?

A few minutes later, after trudging through ankle-deep snow on the sidewalk, Joe's YakTrax were jacked up again. He took off his gloves to adjust them and his hands were red. I gave him the top layer of my mittens (Dumb & Dumber, anyone?) to wear over his gloves, which I guess warmed up his hands significantly.

We ran through some more deep snow on sidewalks. A few times I had to stop to peel clumps of ice off of the bottom of my tights. No, not frost or a little bit of snow--clumps. CLUMPS of ice were built up at my ankles. It sucked.

It was slow (10:08/mile). It was cold. It was snowy. Some drivers were asswipes. But we made it through 14 miles. Treadmills are for the weak. Also, they're for the smart people who want to avoid all of that bullshit.

Blender Babes Juice Detox

Christmas vacation this past year was marked glutony. Together Joe and I rang in the new year carrying about 20 excess pounds of steak, conch fritters, alcohol, and all of the bloating that comes with those things. We both felt like doo-doo and needed a serious jump-start to living healthy again. That's why we decided to do the Blender Babes' Juice Detox.

This juice detox isn't your standard drink-more-juice-than-you-can-stomach + starvation diet. It's not even a "diet" so much as it is a dietary reboot. It got me interested because 1.) it's free and 2.) it require us to use our Blendtec a lot. I guess there's a number three, which is that I've never "cleaned out" my system and I really felt, after that vacation, I had never needed it more.

Blender Babes suggest using a Blendtec or Vitamix, but they say all of the recipes are also standard blender-friendly. In addition to the Blendtec we needed to stock up on about $50 of produce and some liquid stevia. You could probably spend less on produce, but I prefer organic. Side note on the liquid stevia: we had been led to believe that agave nectar is the way to go to sweeten drinks, but Blender Babes don't like it, I think due to the processing through which agave nectar goes before it gets into a bottle and to the grocery store.

Blender Babes offer an options pre-detox five-day place to gradually eliminate common problem foods from our diet; they suggest this to avoid shocking the digestive system. By the fifth day we were eating no meat, gluten, wheat, artificial anything, processed anything, dairy, soy, and caffeine. After the fact, we feel that we could manage the juice detox again without needing five full days to clean out our diet. If we do it again, we'll probably take three days instead.

On Friday we started the juices. In the morning we had "morning water," which is just a warm cup of filtered water with lemon and fresh ginger. Throughout the day we had six juices, all but one with a coconut water base and featuring a huge variety of fruits and vegetables, notably beets, jalapeno, and kale among a lot of your standard juicing fruits. Admittedly I cheated between the mid-afternoon and dinner juices. I was craving to chew on something so I had some almonds, a prune, and a carrot.

I thought I was done after one day, which is the standard amount of time to do the detox, but decided to give it a second go on Saturday since Joe was feeling it. Also, I hadn't pooped yet so I thought that maybe I needed more to get everything out of me. I enjoyed the juices a LOT on day two but by the evening I was struggling. Never was I hungry, but again I just really wanted to chew some real food. I gave in and instead of the dinner and dessert juices (numbers five and six respectively), I had a chicken salad. I felt terribly guilty, but I had also gotten very irritable, which made me feel more terrible for how unfriendly I was being.

On Sunday morning Joe and I had a 12-mile run on our marathon training schedule. We woke up, and weighed ourselves, both happy to have been down to our pre-vacation weights! This didn't all happen over the two days of juicing, but started instead during the five days prior. Also, I finally pooped on Sunday morning and I lost ANOTHER pound just from that. Yeah, it was quite a poop. Apparently there was a lot of nastiness just chillin' in my digestive system for way too long.

After juicing we are to follow the same regiment as leading up to the cleanse, only backwards. That made it a challenge to run 12 miles because we couldn't have any of our regular long run fuel--no Clif bars or shot blocks, no gels, no gatorade. We bagged up some almonds and managed to pull out 12 miles, even if they were a little slower than usual.

As we gradually shift back into our "regular" diet, I'm glad that I did this juice detox. It was really easy and I think I could definitely do it again and better--that is, without getting all whiney again. Today I feel good, especially knowing that the juices pushed out so much gunk. Also, beets do funny things to your poop.