More Magazine Half Expo and Flaxseed Smoothies

Today's Workout: yoga, stretching, 25 minute elliptical/bike

Today I volunteered to work at the expo for the More/Fitness Magazine Half Marathon, a women's half marathon being held this coming Sunday in Central Park.

 Welcome to the Expo!

I gave out race bibs as my volunteer credit for the NYRR 9+1 program. The program works like this: if you run 9 NYRR qualifying races and volunteer once in a calendar year, you qualify automatically for the following year's NYC Marathon. So I am doing my 9+1 to qualify for the 2013 NYC Marathon. I think its a pretty good deal... 4+1 down, 5 races to go!

So the More Half Expo was pretty big and vendors were located on two floors, which was more than for the NYC Half. After I was done working, two of the other volunteers and I walked around to take a look at what was being offered. We got some protein bar samples, Fitness and More magazine copies, and a few other goodies. We also got to keep the race shirt we wore during volunteering. In case you wanted to know what it looks like, I provided a wonderful self-portrait below. Actually, I look like a dork as usual but there's the shirt. And the free Fitness Magazine with the flawless Elle Macpherson on the cover.

Dork.

The Expo also had "fashion shows" throughout the day and guest speakers. One of them was Nicole Sullivan. For those of you who don't know, she is an actress who had roles on King of Queens, Sh*t My Dad Says, and she was in Scrubs for a bit too. You'd recognize her if you saw her. She was there talking about her recent weight loss. Overall it was a nice expo and I liked that it was geared towards women (as it should have been). I also briefly met Jess@ Fit Chick in the City while giving out bibs. Have a great race, Jess! And good luck to all the runners this Sunday!

Nicole Sullivan speaking on stage.

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Yesterday I did a little grocery shopping at Trader Joe's. Even though they have some awesome food and cheap prices, it gets seriously crowded in that store! And at the one in Brooklyn people get pretty aggressive about getting all their organic, vegan, super-antioxidant groceries. I think people will seriously run you over with their carts and leave you laying out on the floor just to get the last bag of organic nuts or something. Craziness.

 This is the TJs in Brooklyn. It's in an old bank so its actually really pretty.

The aisles are super super narrow though, which makes everyone crazy and ignites the evil in certain people.

I went there mainly because I had to get myself out of the house somehow and buying food seemed like a good option. I'm one of those weird people who actually loves food shopping. Not sure why that is but I'm guessing its a combination of loving to eat and try new foods and also loving to spend money. What great interests I have. My boyfriend is one lucky guy!

I also really need to eat the right things since my body is in the healing phase, so I decided to get some high-protein foods like tofu and thinkThin bars (20grams of protein! Holy cow). I also need to rid my body of the 20 pounds of Easter candy I probably ate in the last few days and replace it with something healthy. I've been meaning to try to use flaxseed in my foods and eat more Quinoa too. My friend Kristine who I went hiking with recently eats these all the time and suggested I try them out.

thinkThin bars. So tasty, especially for high-protein bars.

Can't wait to eat these!

She even gave me this cool recipe for a flaxseed, banana, and peanut butter smoothie that I tried out this morning before the expo. I used almond butter instead of peanut butter but that's just because I have it in my house. It is yummy!! Once in a while I had to get some of the flaxseed grains out of my mouth in between sips but overall I really like this. Plus, its super healthy for you. Also its filling enough to have for breakfast or during that afternoon time when I'm usually starving while waiting for my boyfriend Karl to come home for dinner. So no matter when you plan on drinking this during the day, you might want to try this one out!

Anyone running the More Magazine Half this weekend? Or any other races?
What new foods have you been eating lately?
Do you have any good recipes for Quinoa or flaxseed?

Namaste: Yoga for Runners

Today's Workout: yoga video, stretching, lower body strengthening

I will be the first to admit that I am as flexible as a pencil. My body is just tight all-around, which probably helped lead to my recent injury. Ugh, that sucks to admit. So since I can't run for a while (2 weeks, 6 days and counting..) I've made it my personal mission to become more flexible so something like this injury doesn't happen again.

Step one of my mission: try to do yoga at least 4 times a week.

I've never really done yoga before even though pretty much everyone I know does it and tries to talk me into going to classes with them. My problem is that I just really like sweating and moving alot when I exercise. Yoga requires me to pull myself back and go super slow in the workout. For me, this is incredibly difficult which is probably why I was never thrilled with yoga. But I think its time I gave it a chance, for my body's sake. I want to be like a rubber band, not a pencil. Yes, another school-supplies reference.

I'm trying to be like the girl in the pink rather than the girl in the blue. Although I could go for a drink right about now...

I did some online searches for yoga videos for runners. I hope that by following a video geared towards runners, it will help open up my hips, stretch all the important leg muscles, and improve my balance which also is pretty pathetic. During googling, I found two pretty good videos that I tried today. While I wasn't amazing at them by any means (and I realized just how inflexible I really am), I seriously felt the stretches and think it will help me out for the future. Also I realized while doing all the warrior poses and lunges that my quads aren't as strong as I thought they were. Whats up with that? Anyone else notice that, too? I guess running doesn't necessarily make the quads stronger, it just makes them look like they are.

These are the two videos I tried out:

 Yoga for runners: 25 min

Yoga for Runners: Injury Prevention

I'll definitely try to keep up with these two videos and see if I can get any better at them. Honestly I think I can only get better at these anyway since I pretty much stink at the moment. Imagine the worst person you've ever seen doing yoga and I bet I'm at least twice as bad as them. Yup. But other than yoga, I've been foam rolling the heck of of my IT Band and doing any stretch that I can find for it. I'm also working on strengthening my glutes, quads, and abductor muscles. I've read that all of this helps with recovery for this injury for anyone else interested. Claire@ Let's Go on A Living Spree also suggested ice baths, which I may try out tonight. Thanks Claire!

Since I am still on spring break this week, I also spent a good chunk of today catching up on the TV shows that I missed the past few days. I know I should have done something more productive like read or make something, but I like TV. I'll admit it. The two main shows I watched today were the newest Glee episode (Fox) and Hart of Dixie (CW11).

Glee seems like its dragging a little bit to me but I'm hoping the season will improve. Also, they keep picking on certain characters. I mean how much more crappy things can happen to Quinn? Leave the girl alone already! Hart of Dixie is also a cool show that is slowly creeping to the top of my favorites list. If you haven't seen it, you should check it out. Seriously! NYC doctor goes to the South, yeah its one of those shows. Plus Rachel Bilson is the main actress and shes pretty cool.

Such a cute show.

Do you use any yoga videos for runners? If you do, post it below!

What TV shows are currently on your rotation?

The Official Diagnosis

Today's Workout: stretching, lower body strengthening

Today was the day I saw my family orthopedist. He diagnosed me with what I sort of knew all along: IT Band Syndrome. He also prescribed me some anti-inflammatories, taught me some stretches, and told me to take about 3 weeks off from running. 3 weeks?!! I know that 3 weeks in the great span of things isn't that long, but right now it seems like forever. And now I'm definitely not going to be able to run my 4 miler on April 29th and this is putting my Brooklyn Half Marathon hopes at risk, too :( This is truly a very sad day. At least I still have my Easter candy to get me through this. Or maybe the rest of this AMAZING egg cake...

My dad always know what will cheer me up.

These are the real eggs I colored with my mom. My fav is the speckled egg.

In happier news, I have been at my parents house on Staten Island for the past few days after I spent Easter here. I am on spring break from school (woohoo!) and decided yesterday that I seriously needed to do some spring cleaning. It was incredibly overdue. I had a ton of clothes here that needed to be sorted through, most of which I honestly hadn't worn in years. I am afflicted with "Well, I may need to wear it someday"-syndrome. But this weekend I was on a mission and instituted the 1 year rule: if I haven't worn it in a year, I will throw it out. I threw out some outfits that I couldn't believe I ever, ever wore out in public. There's some embarrassing things in these bags...

Four bags to donate. There was also one bag (not shown) that just went right in the trash.
Man, I am good.

That's what happens when you put your mind to something. Look at all those clothes. The sad part is that I still have a TON both at my apartment and here at my parents house. Where did I even get all these?!!

After the clothes were sorted, my mom and I moved random clothes from closet to closet to better organize where everyone's stuff is. None of my siblings live at home anymore and each of us has clothes randomly located throughout the house. I probably had some things in every closet in the whole house. Totally unnecessary. So my mom and I successfully remedied the situation.

We also went through my little sisters room and threw away her old furniture. Her furniture has been around probably since before I was born (for reference, I am 23). Some of the drawers didn't even open anymore so it was about time this stuff went. This was no simple task since we had to empty everything and lug the pieces outside for the garbage men to pick up. That stuff was heavy and I immediately counted it as my workout for the day. Who needs to life weights when you can lift furniture instead?

All the trash outside, and yes a photo of Johnny Depp on my sisters old drawers.

Although spring cleaning was alot of work, it felt really good to get rid of all these things. It also helped keep my mind off of not being able to run. I am easily distracted. And gullible. You can probably make me believe anything if you are semi-convincing.

Anyway, when I get back to Brooklyn later today I'll have to start swimming and using the elliptical again. Blah, so boring compared to running. But at least I can do something to get my endorphin-fix. Swimming and elliptical will have to do for now!

What types of running injuries have you had? What helped you get through them?
How's your spring cleaning going?

2012 Scotland Run 10K Review

On the Thursday before the 2012 Scotland Run 10K, I went up to NYRR on 89th street to get my super cool Scottish swag bag (click there for some pics and a description). I know its not a huge deal, but I was a little disappointed at being in the 8000s for my bib number with a record 9:03/mile pace. I think the bibs went up to the 10 or 11000s, but still! Oh well.

Scottish Swag Bag

I was debating whether or not to run this race because of my recent injury, but I decided that I'd been looking forward to it for so long that I couldn't miss it. I mean, there were bagpipers. How can you beat that?! I'm a sucker for anything Irish/Scottish since both are part of my heritage. Plus, their culture in general is just super awesome, they drink a lot of really good beer, both countries have pretty rolling hills, and they love to party. Sounds good to me.

The morning of, I just couldn't pull myself out of bed when my alarm went off so I decided to hop in a cab to get to the park. $17 cab for 20 minutes extra sleep: worth it. The atmosphere in Central Park was great and there was a Scottish festival going on before the race start (the same festival was going on at the end too). There was a kilt contest, Scottish face painting, they were giving out little Scottish flags, and the band that played after the race was setting up. It was a really nice way to start the morning!

 

Apparently it was Scotland week, too.

This race was different than the usual CP races because we ran in the clockwise direction rather than the normal counterclockwise flow. I have never run the full loop this way before so it was pretty cool! The hills hit you in different ways. Overall I would say it is less challenging than the counterclockwise direction, but still very hilly. 

 At the start of the race and at each of the mile markers there were bagpipe players, which made the race seem more authentic and exciting since I wasn't expecting it. There were also a significant amount of men in kilts which was certainly a sight to see, let me tell you. Luckily none of the men wore kilts that were too short. Whew! Aside from being distracted by the random sexy man leg I was seeing from the kilt-wearers, I pretty much spent the race concentrating on my form to try to minimize pain in my knee. I also used an IT Band strap which helped alot for this run. Its not a permanent solution AT ALL but my pain was minimal throughout the race. I did have to stop and adjust it a few times but that was a small price to pay, I suppose.

 

 Bagpipers at the start of the raee

As usual during NYRR races, there was a significant amount of fluid stations throughout the course. I think I may have stopped for a few seconds at 3 of the 5 stations to fix my strap and/or rest my knee for a second. Worked out pretty well and I got to quench my thirst on top of it. For the most part, the major hills were early in the race between miles 1-3, but there was a slight hill at mile 5 that had me thinking, "Damn, another hill...come on!". It wasn't as bad as it looked but I could have definitely done without that one. I was happy to run down the main Harlem hills though rather than up them, what a nice treat.

Towards the end of the race the crowds started to grow. For the last .2 miles of the race (which are always the most challenging in a 10K because you always think you are done when you see mile marker 6), there were a lot of cheering fans. After I passed the 6 mile marker I decided to push myself a little bit to the finish because to my surprise my watch was telling me I was on my way to a PR. I crossed the finish line while listening to some awesome bagpipers and was immediately happy to walk it off. My official finishing time was 56:13 (9:04/mile pace)... a 10K PR!!! I did that completely by accident and honestly think that subconsciously I just wanted to finish sooner to rest my knee. Who knows? Either way, I'm happy.

Woohoo 10K PR! Wonder what I would have run if I wasn't injured...

After the race I got my knee wrapped with ice in the medical tent (thanks medical tent workers!), got my bagel, apple, and oat bar, and went to the festival. What a view of the city...

 

 The Scottish band with a beautiful city backdrop

 They were still giving out goodies at the festival so I grabbed a Scottish flag on my way out. I also took another swag bag for my sister (who I went to Scotland with) because they had so many extra at the end. I'm sure if anyone would appreciate a blue Scottish beanie, it would be her. I hung the little flag on my wall near my "Run Like a Girl" race medal display (very fitting display based on the name of my blog, eh!?).

 

 Go Scotland! 

PS. I tested out the Lululemon Pace Setter skirt during this race and its amazing so I ordered another in blue.

This was a really fun race that I definitely want to run every year. Highly recommended! I'll update this post if I get some pictures of myself running with my eyes open for once. I'm not hopeful that will happen since I usually look crazed or pissed off in my photos, but you never know!

UPDATE: photos came in and as usual I ruined them

 

 Photo 1: evil eye to the camera-man

Photo 2: Eyes closed as usual

I'm just so photogenic when I run, aren't I?! Wish I could look like this guy.
I think the skirt looks cute, at least and thank God I got some good pics at the NYC Half where I look like a human.
 
Did you run any races this weekend? Tell me about em!

Saturday's Plans: Running and Hiking

 Yesterday's Workout: lower body strengthening for my injury & lots of stretching

Today's Workout: Scotland Run 10K and ~2.5-3 hours hiking

Today I ran the Scotland Run 10K in Central Park and had a blast (and a 10K PR!). I'll write a race review soon and post it ASAP with some photos. It was a gorgeous day and there was great Scottish entertainment. I bought an IT Band strap and it helped a lot to get me through the race without much pain. Now its time to go cold turkey from running for probably around 2 weeks while I stretch and strengthen. Boo! I'm not sure if I'll be ready for the Brooklyn Half Marathon on May 19 but I'm crossing my fingers in the hopes that I'll be able to. Injuries seriously suck! But we will see, I definitely want to rehab this knee right.

I know I've mentioned IT Band Syndrome a lot lately and during my frantic hours of research about causes, treatments, recovery, etc., I found this awesome stretch. Apparently, IT Band treatment is A LOT of foam rolling, icing, and you guessed it... stretching. Unlike some of the others, I feel this one down my whole leg and even on the side of my knee. Check it out!!

 

World's Best IT Band Stretch by Dr. Geoffrey Alan Gray

After the Scotland Run I went to meet up with some undergraduate college friends in Highlands, NJ for a hike. The four of us spent the day walking and wandering around the trails and had a great time catching up. Pretty much I went from running in the morning to walking all afternoon. I am going to sleep well tonight!

During the hike we got lost a few times but to our defense, the trails were really poorly labeled. Seriously! The day was great. Its so nice to see friends you haven't seen in a while, and when you do hang out its as if no time has passed in between meetings! Plus it was a really nice day out weather-wise and these trails were right near the beach, which made it even more pretty.

 A pier near the bay

 This was when we actually found the right trail. This was how the trails were labeled, by having one of these posts every few miles or so.

J, K, and me. 

L was taking this picture and I'm still waiting for one of the four of us!

Between the race and the hiking, this was a very outdoorsy day for me! My body is a bit sore to say the least, but it was totally worth it. After the hike, we had dinner at Chili's then got some fro-yo and Starbucks, with lots of girly chit-chat throughout. Afterwards we went our separate ways and I tried not to fall asleep while driving. If you were wondering... I made it home alive. My knee is not feeling so great at the moment so its time for some serious icing. And since I'm at my parents house for Easter... Easter candy it is! Yum. I think I earned it today.

What did you do this weekend?