Gourmet Runner

Raise your hand if you have a bunch of old running shoes stored in some closet in your house. Me too. It's kind of ridiculous. (Also, you can put your hand down now. You look a little silly.) So when I was contacted by the people on behalf of Allstate Life Insurance and   Give Your Sole , I knew this was a great opportunity to do some good with my old shoes. Give Your Sole has partnered with Allstate® Life Insurance to collect moderately used (read: not falling apart) running shoes at a number of races around the country. I have a few too many of my own pairs of running shoes at home. And, sadly, after I took this picture I realized I have more. To put this in perspective: 18 months ago I had just ONE pair of running shoes. So for all of you runners who have been running for 5, 10 or 20 years -how many more must you all have? Most runners will replace their shoes every 350 to 400 miles. For a lot of runners, this means burning through a few pairs a year. When runners sto...

Last weekend I ran the Nashville Women's Half Marathon. It was a pretty standard race, but it was all women. Okay, not just women. There were a few men involved. Honestly, that was a little weird. There are only two acceptable ways for a man to run a women's race. They are: 1) Wearing a tutu and running alongside their girlfriend/wife as support 2) Clearly running in support of a women's charity There were a handful of men who were just....running. Alone. In typical running gear. Odd. Obviously I wouldn't go so far as to say that men aren't ALLOWED to run a women's race (pretty sure that's illegal) but wouldn't you feel uncomfortable running a men's race as a woman? Just strange to me. Oh, and random fact: there are a handful of men's races too. My favorite? Keep Your Eye On The Ball - a race to raise awareness about, well....you can probably guess. Anyway, I did notice a couple of things about a women's race - so here's a cheat...

The last time I blogged about trying to PR at the half marathon distance and come in under 2 hours,  I puked, got a personal worst (2:18), cried and then hid with a bag of jelly beans for 48 hours. So you can understand why this time around I was a little more shy about the whole ordeal. Thankfully, things went much, much better. I ran the Women's Half Marathon in Nashville, TN this weekend with three wonderful bloggers: Suz , Beth and Jenny . I also got to meet up briefly with Kelsey at the expo. The only downside was that I kind of didn't take many pictures. No, let me rephrase. I took one picture of someone's headband as an inside joke. In poor lighting. Without proper focus. It's a real winner, but I'll spare you all from it. Thankfully, at least one person in our group was thinking ahead and took a photo. I've completely stolen it from Beth , but here's one pre-race shot. By the way, head over to her blog for a much better recap with TWO (count ...

Part of my 50k training involves running for 26 miles one day. So, news flash, I've only done that one other time before any it involved a lot of crowd support and a nice medal at the end to encourage me along. To say I was scared to tackle that distance on my own was an understatement. On Sunday, the conditions were phenomenal. The low most days has been about 70 degrees over the past few months, but on Sunday it was a glorious 50.  I took Saturday off from exercie completely, my legs felt great and I was really inspired. Plus, I bought a new hydration pack and needed an excuse to test it out. So at 7:30 sharp, I was at the trailhead of Almadhy Trail at Carter's Lake and ready to go. I could not have asked for a better run. Perfect temperatures, incredible scenery and an empty trail meant that I had the time of my life. After five hours, I was around 25.8 miles and thought about calling it quits. But no. I was that girl running a tiny little out and back to ensure that I h...

Coconuts are one of my favorite things ever. When I lived in Hawaii as a kid, I would find them on the beach and spend hours peeling them, poking a hole in the top for the juice and then cracking them open to eat the meat. I'll eat dried coconut by the handful, and coconut water to me is magic unicorn juice. But those things are all sweet. I like sweet, and branching out beyond that is tough for me. A few weeks ago I decided to make a savory coconut curry, and it's my new favorite dish. It's a coconut-spinach-ginger curry, which sounds like it would be complicated. It's not. A recipe is almost too much, honestly. It's easy. What You'll Need: One can of coconut milk 6-8 diced raw chicken breasts One bag of frozen spinach, defrosted Two tablespoons of coconut or olive oil One tablespoon of fresh diced ginger 4-5 cloves of diced garlic Red pepper flakes, black pepper and honey to taste* *How much does it piss you off when recipes say "to tas...

Working from home has its perks. Sure, my social interaction skills are deteriorating rapidly and casual dress Fridays now include those old ratty boxers and that one race shirt with the hole, but I also get to enjoy things like eating lunch at 10:30 because I feel like it and deciding where I want to work. Like on the treadmill. DIY Treadmill Desk Between working at my desk all day, using my computer for fun and then sitting on the couch watching television most nights for an hour or two, it's safe to say I sit on my ass a lot. And yep, that's not so great for you. Even though I work out 6 days a week, I hate that I spend easily 75% of my waking hours sitting. On a whim, I asked Tim if he could build me a treadmill desk. I've seen these massive contraptions to make treadmill desks, but they basically transform it into a full-time desk, and I still want to use my treadmill for running (sans desk) as well. Magic carpenter man took a few measurements and brought m...

That title? That's totally my plan for the weekend. 131 miles, no biggie. Oh, no. Wait. That's crazy. Only people much, much stronger than I can take on that challenge. Like this guy: Gregg= the guy running in black The mileage count when I ran - 124 miles so far That's Gregg, a member of my local running club and a pretty incredible person. Over the last few years, he has taken on a number of endurance challenges to raise money for Carter Hope Center ,  an addiction/drug treatment facility in the local area. This past weekend, Gregg decided he would try to run 131 miles in 24 hours. On a treadmill. In a seriously hot gym. Now, I've been to that gym before. I used to workout there about a year ago, and the place it stinking hot. Even with a fan placed right in front of his treadmill, it must have been 70 degrees and some serious humidity. I was complaining for the HOUR I ran. Never mind 24 hours. And you guys, I actually like running on a treadmill....

Barefoot running has always intrigued me. Maybe intrigue isn't the right word. I've always been curious, but in a kind of, "did you guys know that they make real shoes?" kind of way. Sure, I would be interested in trying a pair of minimalist shoes just to see what the fuss was about, but I wasn't about to pay $100+ just to relearn how to run. And then I was contacted by OnlineShoes.com , who offered me the chance to try out a pair of minimalist shoes from Merrell . Oh, they're free? Then, yes. Yes, I'm interested. I tried out the Merrell Bare Access Arc in the very fancy color of Adriatic . Um, that's blue for you people who don't speak Crayola 64.  They have a 0mm heel to toe drop (AKA, no chunky heel) and they weigh less than five ounces. That's really, really noticeable. They are incredibly light to hold in your hand and to wear on your feet. My first reaction was that they looked a little...not fast. Yeah, I know, I'm far fro...