Unique Race Alert: The Color Run

Today's Workout: 45 minute elliptical, stretching

 Even though I'm not running right now due to unforeseen circumstances, I'm trying to think positively and hope to be back ASAP. In the meantime, I'm always on the lookout for unique and super cool races to put on my bucket list for the future. I'm not talking just "themed" races like the NYRR Scotland Run (which was totally fun by the way!) but something incredibly original and out there. For example, the crazy Zombie 5K race and obstacle course. This one, of course, will never come close enough to NYC. Why? Because I want it to. Grr.

 Maybe if I ask nicely the race organizers will create an Zombie race near me. I may have to use the puppy dog eyes for this one.

So when I'm totally bored I usually peruse the web aimlessly and see where the wind blows me. Usually it blows me to pinterest, this blog, or to some random video of a baby laughing or something. What can I say, YouTube really gets me hooked!
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Recently in my internet pursuits, I pulled myself away from YouTube and came across a race called the Color Run. For those who haven't heard of it, its a 5K race where you wear a white shirt and basically get sprayed by color as you run the course. According to the website, it works like this: 

Each kilometer of the event is associated with a designated color. 1k is yellow, 2k is blue, 3k is green, 4k is pink, and the 5k finish is a “Color Extravaganza.” As the runners/walkers hit the Kilometer COLOR RUN Zones, they will be blitzed by our volunteers, sponsors, and staff with COLOR.  The color is a special “elf made” recipe of magical color dust.  All products are 100% natural and safe.  You can eat the stuff if you’d like (we have tried it and don’t suggest it, it is surprisingly high in calories and leaves a chalky aftertaste).

To illustrate...

 And I'm guessing this is the "Color Extravaganza". Just a guess.

So I don't know about all of you, but I would LOVE to do this. Definitely a change from the normal Central Park loop, I'd say. This is probably more of a race just to have fun at and not think about a PR, which is probably good for everyone to have every once in a while. A change of pace! Literally. I figured I would mention this race because... drum roll... it is coming to New York City! Yes, a cool race like this is coming to me! While there isn't any information about exactly where it is going to be held, they did say it will be on August 25. So keep your calendars open New Yorkers.

And if you are currently on the fence... tell me this video doesn't make you want to run it.

In other news, be sure to register for the NYC Marathon lottery. Registration is only open until April 23rd so if you are undecided, get a move on it. I'm not running it this year but will be next year (ah!) after I complete my 9+1 for guaranteed entry. Good luck to all the applicants! PS. I totally love their slogan for this year. Who else likes it?

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I know I promised to update you all about the quinoa and black bean burgers I made for dinner yesterday. Well, I'm doing that now and I have to say... they were SO GOOD! I was actually surprised how much I liked them. Karl even told me he would order them over a regular burger (since you don't know him, Karl hates health food and loves meat... so that's a huge compliment coming from him).

The only edit I would make to the recipe would be to add another egg white to the mix just to help it stay together a little better. The ends of the burger kept trying to fall apart. But overall, its a winner. I liked it so much I made the leftover mix into a patty for lunch today. When I like a food, I eat it so much that eventually I get seriously sick of it. That's a habit I need to break or else I'll have nothing left to eat in my life pretty soon! Plus, I want these burgers to stick around..

I had the burger with one of my flaxseed smoothies. So filling!

 Have you run or found out about any unique races?

Are you registering for the NYC Marathon lottery?

Anyone else doing the 9+1 program for the 2013 marathon? What races are you running?

My "Megan Day": Eating My Way Through Trader Joe's

Today's Workout: stretching, yoga video, 30 minute elliptical

Much to my dismay (and after a pathetically pointless internal struggle) I've finally admitted to myself that I will not be running the NYRR Run as One 4m race on April 29. I still can't run for about 2 weeks because of my dumb IT Band, so this race is seriously not happening. But I'm not giving up yet on my May races... I'll cross those theoretical bridges when I come to them.

Today I was off from grad school classes so I sort of made it into a "Megan day". Really its just a day where I try to relax as much as possible and do pretty much whatever I feel like doing. A much needed one, I might add. After a nice sisterly morning chat with my long-lost sister Jen on skype (she's away for medical school), I reluctantly changed out of my super comfortable PJs and decided I should do something with my life. So I put on normal people clothes, and in my world that means athletic clothing, and foam rolled the heck of of my leg. Felt good in the painful sort of way.

  My foam roller. I love to hate it. This photo is during one of our happier times.

I also did some stretching and one of the yoga videos I posted recently (the one from YogaDownload.com). I was slightly better at the video this time around, which isn't really saying much at all. My balance is pretty bad in a lot of the poses, which helps explain why I'm always walking into things. But I do feel like this will help my legs and body get stronger if I keep up with it consistently. My sister Jen is really into yoga, so I'm banking on her to keep me motivated.

Since I was home today I decided to make myself some nice meals. Usually for lunch I have an almond butter sandwich or turkey sandwich at school. Gets seriously boring day after day but I'm so lazy with making lunches. So today I had an egg with whole wheat toast and greek yogurt with flaxseed and honey for breakfast. Both delicious and surprisingly filling. Kept me full all morning and until my late lunch!

 No Lean Cuisine for me today, NatalieDee! Although this is such an easier option than making my own food.

My lunch was basically an advertisement for Trader Joe's. Seriously... everything I ate (besides the walnuts) in my delicious salad was from TJs. Guess you know what my favorite food store is. Check it out..

BEFORE: TJs Arugula, tomato, fat free feta cheese, grilled chicken strips, and dressing. I should join their marketing department.

 AFTER: Those ingredients became this.. which eventually went into my belly. Yum.

Tonight I'm planning on making quinoa and black bean burgers with the quinoa I bought from Trader Joe's the other day. I'll let you know how those turn out. I'm not the cooking type of girl per se, so its always risky when I choose to do the cooking in the house. Hopefully I don't burn down the apartment or my eyebrows or anything like that. Seriously, that happens. Gwyneth Paltrow once burned off her eyebrows making a duck rotisserie. See... it IS possible. And I guess that's why a lot of celebrities have personal chefs.

The rest of the day I'll probably keep reading the Hunger Games, watch crappy but addicting daytime TV shows like Extreme Couponing (or anything on TLC for that matter), and continue to spend the day with hanging out with my buddy the foam roller. That is, until Karl comes home and I can hang out with a real life person and not a bright orange piece of foam and plastic.

Have you ever had any kitchen accidents?

What did you have for lunch today?
What's your favorite thing to buy from Trader Joe's?

Getting Some Vitamin D

Today I didn't have a major workout, just some stretching and light strengthening exercises. Since it was around 70 degrees in NYC, I decided to make it a rest day and get my pale self outside. I need some Vitamin D... stat! Karl and I took a nice long walk around the neighborhood and went to the park to read. Even though I planned to swim today, one thing led to another and that never happened. So I'm counting the long walk and the stretching as my exercise for the day.

Our first stop was Starbucks in DUMBO. While I usually never drink coffee, I don't consider a Mocha Light Frappuccino actual "coffee". Its more like a milkshake, which suits me just fine. Plus, I had a gift card so my frappuccino and Karl's iced tea thing were free. I love when things are free. Sweet!

 Nice cold drinks on a warm-ish day. Aren't we cute?!

We scarfed those babies down on our way to the Empire Fulton Ferry Park at the Brooklyn Bridge Park, which was recently updated and is beautiful. The park is right in between the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges. So you can imagine that the views of the bridges and the city skyline are amazing. People are always taking wedding pictures down there or shooting TV shows. Pretty cool stuff. They even restored a 1922 carousel and brought it back to the park for people to ride. We saw a bride and groom taking a ride on it. So adorable!

 

Jane's Carousel

 

How gorgeous! And I clearly don't mean me. Blah my hair is a mess.

 Afterwards we walked over to Pier 1 (Brooklyn Bridge Park) and sat on the lawn there to read. I was secretly jealous of all the happy runners I saw running loops around the park. Actually, I wasn't so secret about it and kept complaining to Karl how much I wish I could run today. He kept trying to cheer me up but eventually he kind of gave up. I think I just needed to sulk about it. But I got it out of my system and I've moved on. Sort of.

So since I am injured I lazily laid there and read the Hunger Games, even though I just saw the movie recently (Nothing beats reading the actual books in my opinion!). This laying and reading thing would have been incredibly peaceful if it weren't for all the gross flies hovering above me. Karl says flies like the color yellow, which was ironically the color of my shirt. I don't think I believe that, but I buttoned up my sweater to hide my yellow shirt to test the theory. Didn't work.

 

What you can't see are all the flies above me... yuck.

 Eventually the flies creeped us out so much that we decided to do some exploring and find food. I am always ready for food. I've been wanting to try out a restaurant in Brooklyn Heights called Siggy's Good Food. The chef was on Chopped on the Food Network once and I've heard good things about this place from other Brooklyn-ites. Its organic, healthier food so of course I had to sort of talk Karl into it. I'm glad I did because the food was great (and he agreed)! I had the 3 bean butternut squash soup with carrot-apple juice to start. The free bread was also pretty awesome.

Fresh, homemade soup.

 After I cleaned the bowl, of course, we had our main dishes. Karl had a beef burger and I had the organic chicken cutlet hero. Both were fantastic. Plus, I'm not sure what is in the 'vegan mayo' that was on my sandwich but it tasted really good. Just like regular mayo but better. Definitely recommended!

 

 Now, its time for movies with Karl for our date night after a really nice afternoon. The only thing that would have made it better would have been a long run... 2 weeks and counting!

What are your weekend plans?

Did you eat at any new restaurants lately? Any cool new dishes?

 If you live in NYC, did you take advantage of the nice weather today?

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?

Useful Tips for New Runners

Today's Workout: 30 minute swim session

You will all be happy to know that I kept my promise and haven't run all weekend to give my poor knee a rest. I made an appointment with my family orthopedist (yes, my family is injured so often we have one of those) and will be seeing him next week. Unfortunately, I admittedly took resting my knee to heart and I didn't do much of anything at all for the past few days except devour Easter candy (Cadbury mini eggs and Cadbury caramel cream eggs are the loves of my life. YUM!). But the break is over and today its back to work. To ease up on my joints and ligaments, I did some swimming this afternoon followed by serious stretching. My body agrees with me best when I swim (hm.. is it trying to tell me something?).

best. candy. ever.... period.

It has been tough though not to be running, which could be why I ate so much candy to compensate. I was wallowing in self-pity and chose chocolate as my own form of self-medication. I guess there are worse things in the world..

Having so much time to just sit there and eat, though, gave me some time to think about how far I've come in my running career over the past few months. I started seriously running last September/October after the 2011 Tunnel to Towers run. Since then, I've run a bunch of races including a half marathon. Talk about an addiction. Six months ago I hated running and my longest distance was 3 miles. Now, not only do I love, love, love this sport but I finished my first half marathon (13.1 miles in 2 hours and 6 minutes!). Sort of crazy when you stop and think about how far you can really push yourself. I bet its more than you thought was possible!

 

                                   Me before: probably watching Bravo                   Me after: still a couch potato at heart, but a healthier one

Because of this realization I decided that I owe it to beginner runners to give some tips to help get them going on their own running journey. It really is a great sport that anyone can do. All it takes is heart, determination, knowledge and and some body glide. I know when I first started out I found a lot of helpful information from blogs, Runners World, forums, and the mysterious and magical Google (its amazing, you type things in and find an answer to your totally random questions!). Some of it you will learn as you go along, but I figured I'd pay it forward a bit and list some of the most important information that helped me. DISCLAIMER: This is just my own advice and recommendations. I am NOT a professional running coach or doctor or licensed anything.

*Make sure your body can handle running. 

Several months into training I realized something was not right with my breathing. I went to the doctor and, sure enough, I discovered I have chronic asthma. Now that I have medication, I can breathe more normally but I probably would have just given up on running had I not seen a doctor. Which leads me to my next point...

*Don't be afraid to see a doctor.

When you are an athlete, you will get injured. It's as simple as that. We try to avoid it as much as possible, but it happens. Don't hesitate to get something looked at by a professional. It could save you from pain later on!

 *Invest in a foam roller or The Stick.

You can find cheap foam rollers online (I use this one) and videos on how to use them on YouTube. The Stick is a bit more expensive but its great too and you can get a travel size. Use these often before and/or after runs (as your body needs it). They will help with recovery and preventing injuries. 

*Don't wear cotton socks during running. Ever.

Wearing cotton socks from Costco was a major source of foot pain, discomfort, and many blisters early in my running career. Because of this, one of my favorite days as a runner was finding out about the wonders of synthetic materials. I use DryMax socks but use whatever works best for you. Just no cotton!

*Make sure your running shoes are 1/2 a size larger than your normal shoes.

I accidentally did not abide by this rule and my first pair of Asics was a half size too small. The result: major blisters and some uncomfortable runs. Also your feet swell as you run so you need room for them to expand. Which is why this is so important...

*If possible, get specially fitted for your running shoes by a specialist.
 Running stores such as Super Runners Shop and Jackrabbit Sports have running shoe specialists who can analyze you foot, gait, and everything in between. They help you pick out the best shoe for your specific foot, running goals, and running style (e.g. midfoot striker vs heel striker). Since it's incredibly important you find the right shoe for you, definitely try to go to a specialty store if there is one near you.
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*Buy Body Glide (or SportShield).

Once your runs increase in mileage, you'll know how important this is. Nothing ruins a run more than blisters or chafing (gross, I know. But it's a reality of running).

*Learn how to dress for the weather.

For an outdoor run, the rule is to dress as if it's 20 degrees warmer than it really is. This is because your body will warm up fast once you start getting into your run. Its crucial to layer up in cooler weather (so you can take off outer layers if needed) and don't wear too much in warmer weather. You should always be a little bit cool or chilly before you start running so that you are comfortable once you start. Again, though, listen to your body and its individual needs!

*Compression gear can really help.
 There's a ton of compression gear on the market now, from socks to shorts, to long sleeve shirts. You don't need to get all of it but it might be good to look into. A lot of these are great! I always wear compression socks to run and they decrease my recovery time and help the calves stay loose. Typically, you should wear compression clothing for a few hours after a long run for recovery.

*Be aware of the 30 minute post-run recovery window.

 The 30-60 minutes after you run are very important for re-fueling and recovery. The experts recommend food or drinks with a carb to protein ratio of 2:1 or 3:1. I usually drink a protein shake (Hammer Recoverite) with the right balance of carbs and protein, but a glass of chocolate milk with fat free milk works really well too. Also, ice and/or foam roll your sore muscles at this time to reduce any inflammation (especially all you shin splint sufferers out there). Don't leave ice on for more than 15 minutes at a time.

*Decide what you want to eat on long runs. 

 For runs an hour and a half+, you should be refueling every 45 minutes. Some people bring candy (e.g. gummie bears, Swedish fish) and others bring gels or chomps (e.g. GU Chomps/gels, Clif Shot blocks, etc). You will have to find what works for you based on taste, consistency, ease of eating, etc. Test out a few things then stick with what you like. I'm still working to find out what I like best, too, so I'll let you know when I decide!

*Don't change anything on race day.

Don't try out new shorts, don't try out a new type of food, and don't drink Gatorade if you never drank it during a run before. Bad things happen when you try something new for the first time on race day, so just continue the routine you used throughout training.

*If you find something that works for you, stick with it.

Even if someone tells you otherwise, if it works for you then don't change what you are doing. Every person is physically different so some advice isn't always universal. As long as you are injury and pain free, listen to your own body.

What other advice have you learned as a runner?