Hello from the plane on the way to sunny Los Angeles, where I’ll be running my second full marathon on Sunday morning! I’ll be sharing updates over on my Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages, so follow me over there if you’d like to see how I do before I post! The LA Marathon is also offering runner tracking – my bib number is C4970.
If you’ll be in LA spectating (anyone?), here’s what I’ll be wearing:
I figured I should go neon or go home. 😉 I also taped my name to my shirt like I did for the Richmond Marathon using the same glittery duct tape.
Packing yesterday made everything seem a lot more real – wow, I’m really doing another marathon, huh?! Definitely starting to get nervous now!
For fuel, I packed a bunch of my standard favorites since I’m not sure what I’ll be feeling come race day. I’ll start with the mocha Clif shot gel and then move on to a combination of the dates (stuffed with a little PB and sprinkled with salt) and the margarita shot bloks (love these in warm weather – I’ll take them out of the package so they are easier to grab while running, and yes that is also some ibuprofen in the bag just in case). Last up will probably be the Cascadian farm chewy granola bar.
As for pre-race breakfast, I brought 2 pieces of my favorite Ezekiel cinnamon raisin toast and a packet of Justin’s almond butter. I also plan to buy a banana once I get to LA to eat with it.
In terms of workouts this week, I kept things really low key in anticipation of the race.
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- Sunday: 5 mile run with Matt. I was supposed to do a slightly longer run but since we skied the day before I figured it was best to keep things less intense.
- Monday: snowed in, so decided to do an at home yoga DVD (this one, which I love). I even convinced Matt to do it with me! 🙂 He liked it, too. When we were done I worked on my forearm balance handstand – getting pretty good at it! I owe my success to Mark at Edge Yoga who took the time to teach me the proper form and spot me until I got it. 🙂
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- Tuesday: Speaking of Edge Yoga, hit up a noon class there with my friend Karen. We treated ourselves to lunch afterward at South Block Cafe in Clarendon – love this place. Such a nice little afternoon treat! Also, check out the ridiculous icicle on their sign. Eek!
I had the pesto chicken sandwich and it rocked. Plus some of their homemade bean chips on the side, and I picked up a couple juices for later.
Both were good, but their turmeric mylk? EPIC. What a creative combination! It tasted almost like egg nog but better.
- Wednesday: Easy morning 4 mile run on the treadmill because it was still too icy outside. Super duper boring even though I watched an episode of Gossip Girl on my phone while running. I loathe the treadmill. Friends – if you think you hate running but only run on the treadmill – try getting outside, and running with other people. In my opinion it’s 239420394829034832092830498 times better.
- Thursday: rest day
- Friday: rest day
Tomorrow morning the other ASICS LA Marathon team challenge bloggers and I are lucky enough to have the opportunity to do a team shake out run with the ASICS crew, our coach Andrew Kastor, and some of the elite runners (!!) that will be in attendance. So excited. And then Sunday, of course, is the race! I feel like this crept up on me so quickly! Check out my blogger partner in crimes – can’t wait to see some old friends and meet some new ones – pretty amazing group!: @RunningRachel, @PavementRunner, @RunEatRepeat, @RacePaceJess, @TriJayhawkRyan, @jamiewalker19, @ShutUpRun, @marathoner (so impressed he locked down that Twitter handle), @stuftmama and @nycrunningmama. You can read some of the team’s previous training-related blog posts here if you’re interested, and we’ll of course be all over social media this weekend, too.
I’ll leave you with a picture from yesterday morning – as you guys know, I’m teaching the Basic Nutrition course to undergrads at George Washington University on Tuesday/Thursday mornings this spring. Next week is spring break and on Tuesday I gave them a test, so I wanted to do something fun as a treat to my students yesterday. I coordinated with the Foggy Bottom Whole Foods to have our class take place in their store yesterday; their Healthy Eating Specialist gave us a little mini grocery store tour and then did a microwave only cooking class geared towards college students. It was so much fun – in addition to showing how to make a massaged kale salad, one of the things she made was peppers stuffed with quinoa and veggies, all in the microwave. Did you know that you can microwave quinoa? I’d never thought to try!
To microwave the quinoa, you just put 1 cup quinoa and 2 cups water (or a smaller/larger amount in the same ratio) in a microwave safe bowl, cover it, and cook on high for about 6 minutes, stirring once. For the veggies, she chopped them and then microwaved them for a few minutes to soften them before mixing them with the quinoa and stuffing the raw peppers with the mixture. You could go ahead and eat it then, or if you want the peppers soft you can microwave the stuffed peppers for 11 to 14 minutes to soften them. Easy! If I made this at home, I’d add some seasonings and feta cheese, obvi, but it was really good and so simple!
And now – to catch up on work before touching down in the world of palm trees later this afternoon. Yay for internet on long flights!
See you guys early next week with a recap of my second full marathon – ahhh! Thank you all so much for your support and encouragement – I’ll be thinking of your kind words and inspiring messages when I’m out there running and I know they will help to power me through. <3
