Tuesday, February 24, 2015


It's amazing how much you can get done on a weekend when you're not running a combined 30+ miles. This past weekend was a "short" one, and included two "baby" runs of 10 miles each. The week was rough for me, so the shorter milage was welcomed with open arms.

Not to be giving TMI, but I need to say that I get CHRONIC kidney and bladder infections. I think it may be hereditary (which honestly I have no idea since I was adopted), but either way it is a giant pain. Quite literally. Like, the worst imaginable pain...ever, aside from maybe childbirth which I hear has a real "ouch" factor. And maybe being engulfed in flames. That would hurt too.

So in result, I have been on a week long course of antibiotics. This is the first time since my diet make over that I have been on any meds, so I was really disappointed that I had to resort to them. I knew it was going to effect my runs, and it did. My heart rate was higher, and I felt like my muscle recovery wasn't happening. 

The midweek runs were all slower than I had wanted. I forced myself to do some hill work on Friday, and managed to crank out over 600 feet of elevation with MANY 50 foot hills. We have this little hill near our house known as "Hay Hill". It's pretty small but also kind of visually stunning since it's in the middle of nowhere. In the summer as the ground gets dry and dead the hill turns a really beautiful hay color, and in the winter and spring when we get more rain it's a very lush green. 

It's a great place to get a workout done because there are so many options to go up it! Some of the ways are VERY steep and I have to basically go at a crawling pace to keep my heart rate low. There are a couple of spots where it is a very long and gradual incline. I can usually run up most of that at a very slow pace. There are some that are in between the two, and then there's a side with stairs. At the top of the hill are plenty of benches and pretty wind sculptures. I know the thing like the back of my hand, and hope to make an illustrated chart some day. Is that geeky? I don't know. 
Hay Hill
I did one of my long runs at a trail that I used to run on almost religiously. It's known as the Sawyer Camp Trail at the Crystal Springs Reservoir. I love this trail for numerous of reasons. It is a great 12 mile out and back with rolling hills, and includes a mile long hill at the 5-6 mile mark. The path is paved and well maintained, and on the sides are some dirt paths that are easier on the legs. I always see deer roaming around the area, and it's decently shaded once you get past the 2 mile marker. It also has several bathrooms, as well as a water fountain at mile 6. If you wanted to run longer, there's an additional path at the top for an extra 2 or so miles. The only real negative is that sometimes on the weekend it can get crowded, which include a lot of walkers walking four abreast, or a lot of @$$hole cyclists blowing through everyone at 25mph. Not cool. Oh and the bathrooms get REALLY stinky.

Crystal Springs Trail

I really struggled through that run. My body was not feeling it, and it was the first run that I've done on this training that I REALLY wanted to quit on. I had to ignore my heart rate and just go above it because it was just making me angry trying to go so slow. I don't regret going over my MAF heart rate. I know not to stray too far from it, but I try not to freak out if I need to do a run and go over. I need to prepare myself mentally to go well over it for when the race comes up.


Aside from my crappy running week, I was surprisingly productive on the ol' homestead. I got a LOT of gardening done. I prepared both of my gardening beds, and my boyfriend helped me build this indoor grow light shelving area for my seedlings. Yeah, it looks pretty fishy from my neighbor's perspective, but they're tomatoes, I swear!!! I also single handedly cleaned the whole house, and made a trip to the farmer's market! Not too shabby if I must say so.

All of that gardening made me REALLY sore. Granted, I am super weak from my lack of strenght work, but I swear you don't need a gym if you have outdoor chores to do. Weed pulling, soil turning, lifting heavy bags of dirt. My goal in life is to move to the country, have a farm with chickens, goats, little cows, and bees. I think I'd be fitter, happier, and healthier. I would also grow these luscious heirloom tomatoes. Meat, milk, eggs and tomatoes. That's all anyone really needs, right? I think that growing your own food is important, if not only to realize how much work and energy really goes into making your food. I wish more people understood and appreciated that. 

I'll get off my soapbox now, but I highly encourage you to start that garden that you've always wanted to dabble with! Even if you have a patio you can have a small container garden. 

That's about all the news over here. This weekend is a BIG weekend for us, as it will be my very first 50k in Folsom. I can't believe I'm running a 50k as a TRAINING run. dontfreakout.dontfreakout.dontfreakout.

You'll be hearing all about it. Oh, and if you haven't done so yet, follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and maybe some day I will update my Twitter! 

Gardening > Gym

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Wednesday, February 18, 2015



Please bear with me while I update my site! I'm no expert coder (clearly), and am trying to untangle this like a wad of rubber bands, but hopefully I'll get it straightened out soon. I have slaved over this logo, even though it may not look like it...

Here's some of the iterations I went through. Don't you dare say you prefer an old one!
My first rough drafts...trying to find a clear and fun shape

Fine tuning and simplifying


Also, please check out and like my new FB page that I created if you want to see any random updates and photos. :) I'm trying here! I'm not exactly sure why, but I figure if I just keep doing what I enjoy doing most then something will come out of all of this...


New Logo! And please pardon the dust!

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Sunday, February 15, 2015



I don't have a lot to say since I last posted, but I wanted to show you my latest times for my 10 miler! Even though I felt a bit slow and achy today from the MARATHON yesterday, I was surprised to see that I still managed to improve. It was pretty rough to start and my warm up was showing an already high heart rate. I really didn't think I'd be able to go very fast, but it wasn't too bad. 

You know one of the problems about the Maffetone Method? There's a lot of awkward slow passing. I can't rev up the engine and politely scoot by a person going almost the same pace. Instead, I just verrrryyyy slowly pass them over a long period of time. This happened today, and I'm betting that me and this old man were both pretty fed up with each other. 

As you can tell from my activity title, I learned that you should probably just pop any blisters that form, so that they don't get larger when you run again. Normally I just let them do their thang, but I've never had any that really caused me any pain. This one on my little toe was CRAZY painful, and I ended up limping home and ripping off my sock. I spent a majority of my day limping until the pain subsided.

Amazingly, even though this is my highest mileage week of my entire life by FAR, I have a lot of energy today! I finished my run by 9:30am, and then we went to the farmer's market where I gimped around for a bit. Then I came home and mowed both the front and back lawns. This shouldn't have been a very big task, but it was since A) our lawn mower is on the fritz, and B) our lawns were wayyy overgrown from abandoning them for the past couple of months. I was sweating buckets just trying to start the stupid thing, and then having to stop every 10 feet to unload the grass clippings was a pain. I didn't stop there, instead I decided to pull deeply embedded grass that had overgrown in our garden bed. My hamstrings will be mad at me tomorrow...

OMG 7 weeks left!!! 

Laundry's done, dishes are done, and I even cooked me some paleo "cornbread"! MMM it's SO good. I threw in some flaxseeds just for fun. I'm slowly starting to incorporate more sugar and carbs (sweet potatoes, honey, squashes) now that I have a pretty solid base. Hopefully this will rev things up and allow me to perform even better! 


Still improving! Lots of energy today, and some Paleo "corn" bread!

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Saturday, February 14, 2015


Seven hours and twenty minutes. Amazingly, that's how long my Thump Blu headphones lasted today. I am really impressed! I had to finish my run and let them drain out, which seemed to take forever. They should be solid for my 50k and I'm going to alternate between these and my waterproof ThumpBlu's for the 50 miler. The waterproof ones apparently last for 8 hours. I really like the price of 80.00 for the originals though, and if you aren't a super sweaty runner (I hear that they are very not-waterproof), I think it's quite ideal! You will not regret going wireless. And no, I'm not sponsored by them or anything, just a very pleasantly surprised customer. Here's a pic of me listening to podcasts trying to drain the battery in my new shirt that Jon got me.
Trying to wear out the battery on the headphones.

It's been a happy love weekend for us in our household. Our anniversary happens to be the day before Valentine's day, so we pretty much just celebrate that. We decided to attempt some recipes out of the French Laundry cookbook to celebrate. It's amazing how much work and heart is put into those recipes, and I now understand the hefty cost of the meals. Check out the parmesan crisps with truffle goat cheese mousse that we made. They were deeeelicious!


Jon was in charge of the main course, which was Salmon "chops" with Celery, sans the Black Truffles. Yeah, I kind of burnt the toast. And yeah it's missing that cool little "chops" piece of skin, but it was also delicious. I can never get enough salmon these days. We both really felt all that butter, oil, and cream though. No...more...cream.


Oh, and look what came in the mail for me yesterday! I backed this Indiegogo for the movie a year or two ago, and I'm really excited to see the finished product! Nikki Kimball is such a badass, I'm sure this documentary won't disappoint.


Now back to the whole Running thing. I ran a marathon today. An entire marathon. For a training run. And I will be running ten more tomorrow. What is wrong with ultra runners? This is not normal!!!

This whole week I had been feeling a little off. I had a bad response to some onions early in the week which kept me up all night, and really messed with my sleep and recovery. My runs were not record setting, although somehow I managed to PR on my half marathon time today (by TWO seconds). My legs have been feeling heavy and my heart rate feeling a bit jumpy and high. Kind of a bummer, but to be honest, my constant rolling successes and PR's were even annoying myself.

The 26 miles today was alright. It was on my usual trail, although I'm really trying to incorporate some hills so my body isn't thrown into complete shock race day. I did 500 feet on my 8 mile run Thursday. Today I only did 300 feet, but I'll take it. The best part for me was being able to keep my average heart rate at 150. It definitely crept up towards 160 in the last few miles, but that seems to be expected. I took it nice and slow, and drank TWO liters of water, which is a lot for me. The sun was quite unforgiving, and I'm pretty sure my already awful tan lines just got a lot worse. My ears are hot. I'm pretty sure they are burnt.

Here are my stats in case you care...




Aside from being pooped on...not once, but TWICE by these little butt-holes of birds, I also got attacked by a crow. It never touched me, but it played a mean game of chicken with me and I have never been so scared at the damage a bird can do flying directly at my face. I also got this surprisingly balloon-like blister on my pinkie toe. I had a tiny cut between my toes from earlier so I decided to wrap it in a bandaid. BIG MISTAKE. I'll spare you the graphic photos, but it's gross and really was kind of painful at the last few miles. To pop or not to pop...that is the question. (Yeah I know I should leave it alone)

I bought these VFuel gels because who doesn't want to eat fudge brownie goo on a long run. I was stupidly excited about it actually, and then sorely disappointed. It tasted both a bit sour and salty, and I have to say it reminded me of vomit. I can't say it felt great in my stomach either, but that might have just been the aftertaste in my mouth. Maybe the other flavors are better, but I think I'm going to stick with PocketFuel and Tailwind for my long runs.

I have been on a chocolate kick lately, and I need to kind of chill out with it. In result, I bought this ridiculously expensive piece of chocolate at Whole Foods to try during the long runs. I think it was $2 a piece! 

My beef with the whole thing (other than the ridiculous price tag) is that it's a rather large hunk of chocolate. I wish that it was flatter that I could break into pieces and nibble from, but instead I had to take rather large bites. The chocolate was decent, but very dry, rough, and unpleasant in texture. The taste didn't wow me enough to spend another $2 on it. I'd rather just carry some Ghiradelli 86% squares with me. My overall take: Good, but not THAT good.


On a side note, I actually took a cold bath today after my run. I think it has made a significant difference because other than this nagging blister and some fatigue, I feel fine! Going to play it safe and stay off my feet. The agenda for the rest of the day is some R&R and I'm also going to be developing a new and better logo. :) So keep your eyes open for that!

My wireless headphones, and oh yeah, a training MARATHON.

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Wednesday, February 11, 2015



Here's a drawing of an American Coot. It goes along with my current series of quickie illustrations of birds that I see and admire on the Bay Trail. 


These ones are definitely one of my favorites. They are really bizarre looking if you really pay attention to them. At first glance they look like regular ducks, but when you look closer you'll notice their fat, round, egg-shaped bodies, and tiny wings. Much like a kiwi bird. Their feet are ginormous and strange. They don't have webbed feet, but instead have these wacky flaps that act like webbed feet in the water, but like normal feet on land. 

I see them a lot on the bay trail. Mainly by Coyote point or by the little pond by the Embassy Suites in Burlingame. 

In other news, the weekend was great but I ended up eating something that set my stomach on a fiery fury. So much pain and fire that I even had to take part of the day off Monday, and even when I was working I had a hard time concentrating on anything BUT my burning stomach. I think the culprit was the raw onions I devoured for dinner. Sometimes raw onions and garlic wreak havoc on my system, but it seems to be Russian roulette, and hey...I REALLY love onions and garlic.  I need to ease off that though.

Yesterday's run was pretty rough. I did 6 miles, at an average of 10:27, so even with a rough run that is still way better than I could have dreamed of a month ago!! I just felt really drained, I hadn't eaten enough the past few days, and I feel like all my healing energy went to my stomach instead of my legs. They felt sooo heavy. 

Today's run was a bit of a turn around. I finally felt better this morning, and even though I had to wake up at 5am, my legs felt more energetic. I wasn't feeling AMAZING, so I figured I wouldn't be breaking records. Since I didn't think I would be breaking records, I decided to add a small 80 foot hill into my 10 mile run. By the end I started feeling very slow, but turns out that slow feeling to me now is a 10:30 min mile. :| Two months ago, this feeling was probably a 11:30/12 min mile. 

Today's Run


I guess I regret doing that hill now because my first 5 miles would have been under a 10 min mile, and I THINK I could have broken a 10k pr. I can't believe that I'm hitting actual miles under a 10 minute pace. I can't express how excited I am. 

Tomorrow I have an 8 miler, and it's going to be hills hills hills! I've also been doing some slow weights, maffetone style, to try to get some strength and muscle back that I may have lost. And by weights, I mean doing 5 squats and 5 deadlifts with my 18 and 26lb kettlebells whenever I cross by them. This way, I am never sore from them, but I am still doing a bit of strength work. I have to EASE into this, because I want to play it really safe before the race. Feeling good about my plan though!
My babies!

Anyway, I need to run (not literally) to work now, but I will be doing another post later this week! Stay tuned!

The American Coot

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Sunday, February 8, 2015


Sorry for the vertical video.

This morning I woke up at the butt crack of dawn to get my run over with. I didn't want to. I wanted to sleep in, especially since I was so sleep deprived the night before and miraculously didn't take a nap. I was buzzing around all day yesterday, and even went grocery shopping. By the end of the night I was regretting it...my legs were SO achy and sore! Note: Don't run 25 miles, and then go grocery shopping. You should lay down.


Miraculously, my run was pretty pain free. It did rain though...quite a bit. I got out at 7am since I scoured all of the weather reports, and they were saying that by 9am the winds would be 20-30 mph. At 7am they were only 10-20 mph.

The downside was that it was pretty much pouring the entire time. The wind was there, but it was mostly at my side, and luckily I avoided a lot of headwind. My waterproof headphones that I was glowing about ended up shorting out of one ear. I knew I should have knocked on wood. I'm hoping that they will dry out and work like new.

This run is second in line for the rainiest run of my life. The first being 2012's CIM (California International Marathon). That sucker was cold, and raining sideways! This one was also cold, but not intolerable. Lots of puddles were splashed in.

You know what is amazing? I still finished this 10.2 miler at a 10:22 min mile average, and a 149 average hr. Just look at this beautiful graph! Knowing that I did the same run in a RAINSTORM following 24 miles, and managed to still knock 22 seconds off per mile in a run...is kind of awesome. I am truly a MAF believer! The best part is that I want to run every day, and I'm not tired of it at all. I kind of loathe my rest days.



Clearly my 10 miler after my long run is the best run ever for me...like, every week. Haha...anyway, that was just quick update. The rest of my day has involved my heating blanket, naps, and my bacon cookies that I've almost eaten all of. GO MAKE SOME.

Rainy Day

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Saturday, February 7, 2015



I might post again tomorrow, but I figured I'd write a little blurp on today's run. Oh, and here's a drawing I did of a bufflehead. I have a lot of time to look at the birds along the bay with all of this running back and forth, but I never get tired of seeing them. They vary so much from the standard seagull and raven, to crazy weird ones that I've never seen before. I'm going to start drawing all of my favorites until I get tired of it. I needed some inspiration to draw, so this will do nicely!
Today I did a 24 mile run. I took 2 days off between this and my last run because the weather yesterday was a bit all over the place. This morning I managed to only get rained on twice, but the temperatures were mild. It was a bit muggy for my taste, and I'm glad I got out the door at 7am because it started to get warm. 

I got these waterproof/wireless headphones for the purpose of running in the rain, and this was the first time I actually got to use them. Thump headphones always struck me as a little weird, because they seem unusually cheap, and I've also seen similar headphones under different names. I was always a little weary, but since they were so cheap I thought I'd try them out. I have both the original ThumpBlu headphones, and the Thumpblu XTREMES. The ThumpBlu ones have been a pleasant surprise! The charge has not died out on me yet, even on my 5+ hour runs. They are also quite comfortable and easy to use. The waterproof ones have a bit of a strange design, and it takes some getting used to, but they were also very comfortable on my long rainy run today. Two thumbs up! You have to go wireless...you just have to...

Back to the run. The first bit was pretty rough. I had a really hard time sleeping the night before, I think because of some new tea that I had tried that ended up being crazy caffeinated. All night I could actually feel my heart beating hard, so I had a feeling the run was going to be less than stellar. It started out rocky, and I was feeling a bit sick to my stomach.

Once things got going, I got into my groove and was able to hold a slow and steady pace for a while. I kept my heart lower at the start, because I knew I had many miles ahead of me and was bracing myself for my body to really lash out. I managed to keep my hr under 150 for most of the run, and only after maybe the 20 mile mark did it start to creep up. 

My previous 22 miler from 2 weeks ago
So some important improvements to take note of, compared to the 22 miler (shown above) I had two weeks ago. Not only did I go about 30 seconds per mile faster, but I also included a hill (that I had to hike up most of). I also had a heart beat average 3 beats slower on this 24 mile run, and my max was 11 beats lower (from 171 to 169).

Additionally, when I finished my run I was pleasantly surprised to see that I set a new half marathon PR of 2:18:47. Not too shabby considering it was on a 24 mile run! There's definitely a lot of progress between the two weeks, and I really couldn't be happier.


My New and Improved 24 miler from today
Nutrition wise, I drank a cup of decaffeinated coffee with a tablespoon of coconut oil. That seemed to fuel me through almost the entire run, but I did stop at mile 20 to try out this Chocolate #9 gu made simply of Agave and cocoa. Excuse my language, but DAMN is that stuff good!!! I don't think I'll be using it for my future races since I'm not too crazy about Agave Syrup (all fructose), but it tasted like fudge syrup! I also have been horribly deprived of sugary tasty goodness, so it's highly possible that I'm delusional. If anyone knows of a super simple ingredient one with maybe honey and chocolate, let me know. Please.




Oh yeah, and my friends are making fun of my gross cookies that I made, but I think they're delicious! I think the problem is actually calling them cookies, since they aren't sweet but are instead savory. I had a feeling that they would be questionable, but they turned out really delicious and I've already eaten around....five. Bacon Onion Cookies! I'm going to eat more right now :|


The bufflehead! And my 24 miler recap

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Tuesday, February 3, 2015


So far I've done two of my runs this week, and can I just say that they were the most incredible runs ever? I had a feeling that I'd see some new PR's this week, since it's a drop down of mileage. I did only 10 miles last Friday, and 12 miles on Saturday (It was supposed to only be 8).


I didn't think that I would progress THIS MUCH. First of all, my run on Monday was a "blazing" 10:04 minute pace overall for 6.2 miles! I even had one mile that was actually under a 10 min pace, and I shattered my previous 5k and 10k...all in this ONE run. What's strange is that it didn't even feel that fast to me. Now going a 10:30 minute mile seems lagging, even though just last week that would have been a fast pace for me.


My run this morning was 9 miles (10 if you include my warm up). I ended up with an average of 10:07 for this one...still SUPER fast for me. In fact, I even PASSED a person. It was a very slow pass. She probably was wondering why I was passing her so slowly haha.  I find that I end up being so excited that I'm running fast that I have to try hard to chill out to keep my heart rate low. I guess it's not a bad problem to have. 

I have one more run tomorrow (8 miles) before my big long run on Friday (24 miles...eeek). Tomorrow I'm going to take a break from shattering records, and I'm going to focus on some light hill work. I need to start incorporating hills gradually into my running so that I'm not completely wiped out when I have to run tiny bits of elevation for the race. I set up a run for about 300ft of elevation gain tomorrow. Gotta eassse into it, and will probably just add 100ft each week. My hill work will definitely be walking at first, and running down the gradual side of the hill to work on my turn over. It seems like a safe amount of work to me.

Also, I caved and bought an Instant Pot. This thing apparently is a 7-in-1 machine that can make soups, steam things, pressure cook, cook rice and grains, act as a crock pot, and even make yogurt. Uh, I know that wasn't a list of 7 things. I am excited that it's a pressure cooker and I can now make bone broth in a tiny 30 minutes! I can also make a whole chicken in 30 minutes, with the meat falling off the bone. I plan on doing that tomorrow, so you will see pictures!
Instant Pot!

Another great thing that I discovered is steaming eggs in it! SO EASY AND FAST. I just set it for 4 minutes on a low pressure steam (accidentally set it for high on the first trial...nothing exploded, and it wasn't overcooked, but smelled eggy). You can just walk away, and then when it's done, I let out the steam and threw them in some ice. The eggs peel SO nicely, even if they are fresh.

I was a little scared about it once everyone started telling me how dangerous pressure cookers were. I made sure to read the directions thoroughly, and now I feel really comfortable using it. This is a start of a beautiful friendship.





Yee Haw, Records are falling this week!

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