Smoothie for dinner

I have a rule for my dinner: it must include vegetables. Current favorites are pasta with spinach sauce, shrimp with snap peas, marinated salmon with asparagus, and ground pork with cilantro and tomatoes. When I run out of meat or fish and I don't want to have pasta again, I fall back on the green smoothie.

 The first time I tried one was when my sister posted her favorite green smoothie recipe. Unfortunately, I took the "5-6 cups of spinach" literally and applied it to frozen spinach. The result was a thick green sludge that tasted as though the delicious raspberries, blueberries and strawberries I had put in there had disappeared and turned into spinach. I think I might even have poured some of that wonderfully antioxidant paste down the drain, because it was not really even palatable.

But I backtracked the next time and put only a little spinach, and it was true: I couldn't taste the spinach at all; I could only taste the delicious fruits. So, when I am not I interested in spending a lot of time making dinner, I simply blend up a smoothie. The only thing that takes time is washing the blender afterwards, but I can handle that.

Here is what I put in it:
Frozen banana
5 frozen strawberries
Frozen raspberries
Frozen blueberries
1/2 cup frozen spinach
Oatmeal and wheat germ
Vanilla yogurt
Skim milk up to the level of the top of the fruits (otherwise it will be too thick and clog the blender; you can also use water.)

 This makes over two pints of smoothie. I am not sure how many calories it is (most of the calories come from the yogurt and milk), but I don't think it's more than a regular dinner even with all that volume because fruit and vegetables are low in calories, so I just drink all of it. It is also extra hydration.

The best place to PR (Downtown 5k)

(Results) Today was a good day. Lots of really fast people came from all over the country to Providence; many of my teammates came down from Boston; and I ran a road PR!

 My tiered goals were to run faster than I ran here last year (18:10), to run under 18:00, to run 5:40 pace, and to be able to finish strong. And I did! I was very fortunate that one of my much faster teammates was tempoing the race, and when she passed me at 1.5 miles I latched on and ran directly behind her for the rest of the race. The pace was tough, but I set little goals like "keep up with her until the next turn... Okay, now keep up until the next turn." In this way I kept up until the final turn uphill, at which point she sped on ahead of me and I contented myself with passing the two women who had been with us for two miles or so and also a the group ahead.


Here is an awesome sequence of pictures from Capstone Photo where I pass someone who, as it turns out, is currently a Williams student! Our clock times were only 0.6 seconds apart.

I achieved my goal of 5:40 pace, basically, with time-clock splits of 5:34, 11:20 and 17:02 before the finish tape at 17:36. (I started three seconds behind the starting line, so subtract that from the splits.) This is a four-second road PR for me, eclipsing the 17:40 from last year's JCC race. My actual time was 17:35.62, but in road running the timer is supposed to round up to the nearest second, so 17:36 it is.

I was 28th among women and 102nd overall, not as high up as last year when I was 16th woman, but the competition was much stronger this year. I feel great, and I've only done a few workouts so far, so hopefully I will only get faster and sharper as the fall goes on. But right now, I'm happy with a PR. As I have said several times today, the national championship is the best place to PR, because it's the race that matters.

The rainiest race yet (Bobcat Bolt)

(Results) June 25, 2010

This is a race that has caught my eye for a few years: a 5k and 10k, nearly in my hometown, with plenty of prize money. We knew that Lesley, Dan and Bob would be doing the 10k, so Alan and I did the 5k.

We thought the race started at 10:00, but it was at 9:30, so we arrived a scant 15 minutes before the start of the race and had only a few minutes to sign up, change into racing flats and do some warming up. Warming up was necessary because there was a light drizzle that threatened to strengthen into rain. Bob was nice enough to loan me a hat for the race.


The race start. Photo from Foster's Daily Democrat article

The 10k and 5k were together for the first 5k, and then the 5k runners stopped and the 10k runners kept going. So when the race started, I ran with Lesley (10k) and another woman (Nicole) who was doing the 5k. We ran exactly together around the high school and up the hill to the middle school, retracing the "Bagel Challenge" that I ran weekly in gym class in middle school. I felt that the pace was pretty honest, and yet Lesley and Nicole were chatting! Hmmm, this Nicole was apparently quite legit. I missed the mile mark because, although I saw both of them glance at their watches simultaneously, I didn't think that it had been close to a mile yet. Time flies!

We passed Stoke and took a right to go past the town pool, and I was getting a little worried because Nicole was still right there. I was hoping to win the 5k! At about 1.75 miles, she tucked in behind me to draft, and from there she slowly drifted back. We got to two miles in 12:01. Now it was really pouring. Lesley and I splashed through the puddles, passing men now and then.

We went into a little housing development with about a half mile to go, and I noticed that it was raining so hard that the road was covered in water. Maybe 1/2 inch of water was sitting on the road, with more pouring down -- it was raining so fast that the water couldn't drain fast enough. I was really glad I had the hat to keep the rain out of my eyes!

I was not worried about Nicole, and I didn't particularly care what my time was, but I didn't want Lesley to beat me through 5k since she was running twice as far. So I turned it up a little for the last half mile or so. In this picture, you can see that I got a little ways ahead of her by the finish:


Photo from Coolrunning by Richie Blake
See those "rocks" on the ground around my feet? Those are raindrops. The ground was covered in a sheet of water, with big raindrops pelting down.

I am doing a weird motion in the picture because they guy in front of me stopped running as soon as he crossed the line, whereas I decelerated gradually, so I nearly ran into him. Luckily, this moment was preserved for posterity and showcased on Coolrunning.

Lesley had asked me during the race if I wanted to keep going and do the whole 10k with her -- joking, but I offered to meet her with a mile to go and help push her to the end. So as soon as I finished, Alan and I changed our shoes (he also won the 5k -- see photo, above) and ran backwards along the course. We met her with a little more than a mile to go. I was surprised at how difficult it was to turn on the fast pace again! Alan had no trouble keeping up, but I was straining to stay just behind her. We ran with her for about 3/4 mile and then figured she would have plenty of motivation from there to the end.

After the race, the five of us all cooled down together, and then the photographer took a picture of us for the paper:


Photo from Foster's Daily Democrat article

The post-race meal was very generous, and we had a good chat (despite everyone being soaked through). They gave each of us a plaque in addition to a check. I was hoping to see some of my former classmates, but I only saw one or two people that I barely knew.

As an aside, first place in the 5k and second place in the 10k carried the same prize -- $100. I finished only 20 seconds ahead of Nicole, and she certainly kept the pressure on for the whole race -- whereas in the 10k, the second place woman's time was 43:10, which is much closer to my training pace than to my 10k race pace. But I'm glad I did the 5k anyway.

Miles over the Moon 4-mile

(Results) July 15, 2011

We did this race because a bunch of friends were doing it, and we were planning to hang out with them before and after. It ended up being a fun evening, and a good outing for me.

The race was at 8 pm, and was themed as a night race; they handed out glowing necklaces to pre-registered runners. (I didn't pre-register, but I also finished before it was dark enough to need a glowing necklace!) The race was hosted by the Wicked Running Club, whose mascot is a black cat (Salem, MA -- get it?); the mascot handed out medals after the race.

Alan, Brett and I warmed up on the course with some other guys. It was warm, but not too hot. The race was through downtown Salem, and the roads were not closed during the race, so there were lots of policemen. We ran past the 1- and 2-mile marks, which ended up being helpful since they were positioned on the right side of the course, so I might not have noticed them if I hadn't known what they looked like.

No other women lined up on the starting line. There was one high-school-age girl (Nicole) on the edge. When the race started, she sprinted to the front, running alongside Alan. I knew it wouldn't last, but I felt I needed to cover it just in case. So I ran behind her, and next to Brett. Nicole checked her watch twice in the first minute of the race. She hung tough for about two minutes, which was impressive, but then I passed her and stayed with Brett's group of four guys.

Here is a video of the start. I am visible if you know what to look for, in white, behind the girl who is in the front:

Alan is very visible. He is wearing sunglasses and a white and grey singlet.

I was running just behind them when we passed the mile mark in 5:29. I asked aloud, "do you think that's right?" and one of them said it was 0.97 on his watch. I had been planning to run a little under 6-minute pace, so I decided to slow down even though I didn't think it was actually 5:29. I had thought about trying to beat Brett, but I certainly didn't want to kill myself to do it, so I consciously slowed down. One guy passed me before the second mile (Doug), with whom we had warmed up. I let him go.

I got to the second mile mark in 11:17 (5:48). I hadn't looked back at all to see if there were any women nearby, but with that pace I decided it was unlikely that anyone was (especially since there was no prize money). I kept my effort at about 90% -- not all-out, not jogging, just a good effort. I passed Doug. A guy ahead of me jogged over to the sidewalk and started walking; as I approached, he started jogging again. Doug called out to him, "Don't push it; live to race another day." I passed a high school kid in orange basketball shorts (Scott). At this point, Brett was the next guy ahead of me! But there was a big gap between us.

The third mile was at a water station; I passed it in 17:08 (5:51). I was hoping I could break 24 minutes (my previous 4-mile road race PR was 24:27), and at this point I was pretty confident that it would happen. I wondered if I could catch Brett. To determine how far Brett was ahead of me, I counted my breaths: I breathe once every three steps (two steps in, one step out) and my stride rate is just about 180 steps per minute, so I breathe just about once per second. Brett rounded a corner and it took me 12 breaths to get there. I decided I couldn't make up 12 seconds in one mile, especially because I knew Brett would be trying his hardest to stay ahead of me. In reality, he was far enough ahead that I was having trouble seeing him as dusk was falling.

The last 0.4 miles or so of the race was around a triangular park in Salem. I had done my pre-race striders around the triangle, and I noticed that each side was deceptively long, more than a comfortable strider distance. So I picked it up, but not too much. On the final straight, I could see the bright lights of the spotlight and the time clock approaching, and I kicked really hard. Spectators told me, "run hard; you can break 23 minutes!" Since I couldn't read the time clock, I had no idea if it was saying 22:57, 22:58... or if I had more time. Luckily, I was kicking as hard as I could anyway. I crossed in 22:54.

I was pretty sure that the course was short. I consulted with Alan (who had a much harder race than I did, taking the lead only in the park) and he agreed. A friend with a GPS watch got 3.92, for a converted time of 23:22 (5:51 pace). Still a PR! We cooled down in the park, and stayed for the awards ceremony. The people cheered really loudly for all of the age group winners who were Wicked Running Club members. Alan and I each got a sparkly red trophy. There were also orange slices, which is my idea of a perfect post-race banquet. Afterwards, we hung out with friends at their house, and had delicious food.

From this, I learned that taking a few weeks between races is really key to my success. It's been three weeks since I ran the Bobcat Bolt, and I was able to run fast in Salem without killing myself. I am going to do my best to space out my races, and at least allow a few weeks before my most important races.