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Race Review: Asheville Half Marathon at The Biltmore
It seems an appropriate time to rehash a race we ran a year ago, The Asheville Half Marathon held entirely within the grounds of The Biltmore Estate. The race is held in mid-March each year, so this year’s race was held last weekend, and I was bummed not to be joining in! For that reason, I’m going to re-live my memories of the fun we had during our brief visit in 2016. Asheville is just close enough to Ohio to make this a driveable weekend getaway. Dan and I reached The Doubletree, the race headquarters hotel, in the late evening hours on Thursday night and stepped out of the car…
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Farro Salad with Asparagus and Tomatoes
It’s finally spring! It’s always a little hard to tell in Ohio. Spring technically arrives on the calendar long before the weather changes for the better, but knowing that it’s happening, even if just in title is comforting. Even when the weather refuses to cooperate, we can start to celebrate the trappings of spring in the kitchen and mix up the ingredient list. Ok, so we’re not into the fresh/local asparagus season yet, but you can still get some long-range-transported-out-of-state asparagus at the store, pretty much wherever you live. (Although I feel a little guilty for endorsing this, the harsh truth is that, in Ohio, I do not always eat fresh…
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Questions about Running and Heart Health
As runners, we’re accustomed to hearing that we’ll “ruin our knees” and other nonsense, usually from someone who uses that colloquial wisdom as an excuse to be a couch potato. And although I find those people to be irritating, their assertions don’t trouble me. Given the alternative of being a couch potato, I think my knees are better off belonging to a healthy-weight runner, thank you very much. Yes, every time someone makes a comment about running ruining my knees, I want to say something snarky like, “I hope that can of soda doesn’t ruin your pancreas.” So yes, I still find the insinuation oddly annoying. However, it doesn’t give…
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Why I’m Embracing Running Now More Than Ever
I have no idea why, but I recently became re-enchanted with running. Running has always been there. It’s been in the background of every day and every week for many many years. I would look at my calendar and give top billing to the things that I thought were most important – school, and then eventually work. Because (unless you’re a professional athlete) they are supposed to be the most important things, right? And then I would try to fit running in around those things. I used running to burn calories and “stay healthy” as an obligation rather than as a separate practice with its own goals and redeeming qualities. I…
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Finding Happiness by Knowing Yourself Better
Or: All I Really Want is Healthy Food and a Good Run I’ve spent a good bit of my life searching for happiness and assuming that it would arrive in the form of the attainment of traditional goals like career success. I have been living with the subconscious belief system that happiness will be a destination, even though my brain knows better. Happiness is in the things we do every day. And if you can’t find it now, then it’s time to make changes! One of the biggest road blocks between me and happiness has been a failure to identify what makes me happy. If you don’t take the time to figure out…
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The Rewards of Record Keeping
Whether for good or for bad, we runners seem to be obsessive record-keepers, logging miles, minutes, pace, race stats, etc. Maybe it’s because I require validation that I’ve done enough, run fast enough or far enough, validation that I’m maintaining my fitness year in and year out. Maybe I’m even looking for validation that I haven’t peaked yet? I’ve been using the same trusty running log for 13 years. There are plenty of good reasons to keep nice thorough notes on your training. Your notes might help you piece together a strategy for improving. Maybe you’re noticing that you run best an hour after you eat a banana or that it takes…
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Running with Raynaud’s
Picture this. It’s 37 degrees out, full sun, no wind. I emerge from my house for a run wearing my full winter ensemble which includes long pants, two long-sleeved shirts, and a multi-layer windbreaker/jacket with the hood zipped tightly around my face over top of my hat. The finishing touch is a set of mittens that would make it seem to the innocent bystander as if I might be on my way to summit Everest. The other night, I arrived at running club in weather just like this, slightly warmer than average for the middle of winter in Ohio, especially after dark. As we stood around waiting to begin (standing…
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Unplanned Rest Days
I blame winter. I like to say that if I lived somewhere else – either somewhere warmer, or somewhere with more daylight hours, I wouldn’t suffer this temptation. I have no way of knowing whether that’s true since I’ve only ever lived in Ohio, but I’m aware that it’s a sorry excuse. I’m talking about the temptation to skip my workout and take an unplanned rest day. You know that little devil on your shoulder. The one who doesn’t show up until around 2:15 p.m. when he just pops his head in and leads with some seemingly benign comment like, “How you feeling? Has this been a long day, or…
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The Weekend Long Run: The Beginning
I was in the fifth grade, and as is the case with most fifth graders, I had very few responsibilities eating up my free time. So after school, I tagged along with my dad to track practice. I knew that my dad was a runner, and I knew that he coached the 7th and 8th graders, but that was about the extent of my awareness of track and field. I quickly learned that track season in Ohio begins at a time of year when the best adjective to describe the great outdoors is “dreary,” and that this would not be used as an excuse to stay inside. The evenings were, more often…
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The Weekend Long Run: Mindfulness on the Run
I asked in a previous post, (or maybe I just thought it to myself), whether running itself was the same as meditation. I suppose it depends a lot on how you do it. It may not necessarily be meditation, but if you think about it, running should always be done mindfully. In fact, distracted running could be seriously dangerous in a plethora of ways from the mild and hilarious to the breathtakingly sobering. For example, a misstep at dusk over a crack in the sidewalk could lay you out on your face. I’ll never forget the first time this happened to me. I was a freshman in college, and I had just…
