Musings – East Coast Appetite

2016 is almost over and I’m about to head out the door for its last run, but I just wanted to do a quick review post. Also, I baked a lot this year and ate a lot of ice cream.

Q1: I started off the year in physical therapy, still unable to run without significant bursitis pain. I was taking a fair amount of barre and spin classes to try and keep my strength and cardio fitness up. I started a new job February 1st with slightly earlier hours, which definitely affected my desire for morning runs (once I could actually run), but which is otherwise great. I baked a LOT of cookies with all of that indoor time after getting a stand mixer in January and one of the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbooks as a Christmas gift (then buying the other for myself as well as a cookie dough scoop). And my first sour cream coffee cake. In March, I added some elliptical miles to the treadmill that were pain-free and figured I could try the Cherry Blossom 5K in April (since I couldn’t do the 10 Miler).

Q2: Cherry Blossom 5K went well (and we had a great DC weekend), so I slowly started upping my mileage. I skipped the Run As One but made it through the Japan Run and Healthy Kidney 10K. I went hiking in Shenandoah National Park and explored my old Virginia stomping grounds a bit. In mid-June, I ran a 10K PR at the Mini 10K. I kept baking and added Ooey Gooey Butter Cake to my repertoire. Oh, and my trivia team won a trip to Vegas. Said goodbye to Carla who moved to Chicago.

Q3: In July, I started marathon training. My ratio of parties I attended over parties I was invited to started to rapidly decline as I chose rest on the weekends before and after long runs. I met a lot of nice people in my running club during the weekend long runs. I dropped my ClassPass allotment from 10/month to 5/month then finally put it on hold in September after I struggled to get even 5 classes in. I ran a 5K PR at the Al Goldstein Speed Series in August, but wasn’t 100% sure it was a PR until I knew my time for sure and checked my old one from Memorial Day 2015. I went rock climbing weekly for over a month. I took trips to Vegas and Cancun and did my long runs on the treadmill, plus a quick trip to Richmond. I went hiking at Breakneck Ridge and managed to lose my train ticket on the ride up, but did not fall while hiking. Said Goodbye to Gabby as she moved to London.

My first take on the Fruity Pebbles version of Cornflake cookies

Q4: I ran the NYC Marathon! I also ran a Half Marathon PR in early October, then a 5-mile PR in late November, but 90% of my thinking and running effort was centered around the marathon. I ran my longest runs ever in October in preparation for the marathon and kept being struck by “I can’t believe I’m going to do this!”. I traveled to Chicago, DC, and then Richmond VA for the holidays and ran (outside, along a body of water) in each city.

Bib Pickup with Brittany who was volunteering

Chicago at night after Chun ran the marathon there

Pausing During my DC 11-mile Taper Run from the Jefferson Memorial

2017 Running and Fitness Goals:

PR in the 5K, 10K, 10 Mile, and Half Marathon. I’m running two 10 Milers in the spring (plus maybe Bronx in the fall) and have only done it once before in fall 2015 while injured, so I feel pretty good about my chances for that. I’d like to run a sub-2 hour Half Marathon, ideally at the NYC Half in March. I was hoping for that 10K PR in mid-December but the race was cancelled. I’ll see how I feel about scheduling a local 5K, but my current PR includes Zoo Hill, so I will look for a flat one.
Move up a corral in the NYRR corral system. I’m in G, but should be able to get to F, hopefully by the middle of the year.
Continue speed training classes as long as I remain uninjured.
Use all of my ClassPass classes every cycle, no excuses. Put it on hold again if I have to because I refuse to waste the money.
My 2015 strength goal that fell by the wayside in 2016 was to be able to do a pull-up. I feel like I’m further away than ever from this, but I think I can start to work toward it again.

I originally wrote this in April and it’s more appropriate than ever with marathon training in full swing. I’m currently in Las Vegas for the Trivia Championships of North America and am squeezing in some treadmill runs because of the 100+ degree heat.

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As I slowly and cautuously add miles to my runs over the weeks (which is really fun to visually examine on Strava and MapMyRun), I’m finally getting to the kinds of distances where the psychological benefits of running take hold. I was perusing http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/04/how-neuroscientists-explain-the-mind-clearing-magic-of-running.html a few weeks ago and found myself nodding in agreement.

I purchased Haruki Murakami’s book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running in April 2012 when I wasn’t racing and my longest runs ever were a 5K. I was in an objectively not-great place in life, done with grad school and still looking for gainful employment while my student loans accumulated interest. I was unsure if I was going to stay in NYC but desperately wanted to stay and put down roots here. My personal life was a bit messy and confusing but I was hopeful. My runs reflected the rest of my circumstances somewhat; brief uneven jaunts along the East River. I moved from the UES to the LES that May and started a longer-term temp position that temporarily quelled my job anxiety. And I read this book. I had read Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles for a book club in 2009 and quickly followed suit with Norwegian Wood and my personal favorite to this day, Kafka on the Shore (loved 1Q84 as well but that came later). But this was different. It was about running. And Murakami as an author. I’ll be honest; I zipped through it but didn’t really take away much, possibly because my runs weren’t very long. Or because I wasn’t running to find anything. Or to escape anything.

I re-read What I Talk About… last year while training for a half marathon and suddenly, it made sense. Whether it’s age and experience, loss, or just double-digit long runs, I had a much firmer grasp on his feelings this time around and was able to identify some of my own. I had a run at night (on a Monday after barre class because that opens up my hips and activates my glutes) a few weeks ago where I was running in order to escape. It was also a little bit of running to celebrate that I could. After so many months off, it feels amazing to go again. The first mile brought with it the small victory of knowing that my total run would be 3 based on where I turned around. But then came the feelings I was trying to escape. The lump in my throat rose and I tried to swallow it down while choking back tears. I felt like I had run straight into what I was trying to avoid. My emotions subsided after the second mile when I was on a downhill final mile home. I had failed to (literally) run away from my problems, even temporarily. Runs that start and end in a perfectly neutral place are my norm (well, for long runs, not speed training). But maybe sometimes I won’t be able to escape.

From Murakami:

“I just run. I run in a void. Or maybe I should put it the other way: I run in order to acquire a void. But as you might expect, an occasional thought will slip into this void. People’s minds can’t be a complete blank. Human beings’ emotions are not strong or consistent enough to sustain a vacuum. What I mean is, the kinds of thoughts and ideas that invade my emotions as I run remain subordinate to that void. Lacking content, they are just random thoughts that gather around that central void.”

It feels weird (a little refreshing too if we’re being honest) to write about feelings and not just times and numbers on here, but I would love to hear everyone else’s takes on running, voids, and/or Murakami.

Category: Musings

2016 Running Wrap-Up and 2017 Goals

Running Into the Void