I love juice!

Yesterday was the release of Arrested Development Season 4. I made cornballs and frozen chocolate covered bananas. We watched about 5 episodes while Maple had a sleepover.

This week was an almost-perfect training week. Over 36 miles and no unexpected rest days. I haven't had one of these in quite a while. My posterior tib tendon bugged me on one run so I cut it short, and that was a great decision. Usually once it starts acting up, it gripes at me for half a week or more, but this time I nipped it in the bud and it was fine the next day. I dealt with 95% humidity during my speedwork, which caused my mile splits to be a bit slow, and I added an easy half mile in the middle of my 4-mile tempo run (also during the humidity wave). But these minor workout edits were a good thing, and I stayed in the flow of my training.

Maybe it's because I've been running consistently for a few years now, or maybe it's because I have a coach, but whatever the reason, my approach to training has changed this year. For the first few years, I was paranoid that any day off, planned or not, would knock me off track. On my days off, I felt like I wasn't a runner anymore, I was a slacker, an imposter. If I felt a niggle, I ignored it and kept running on it, desperate to stick to my schedule. I injured myself twice that way, even causing permanent damage in the form of a tendon nodule that I think is the reason my ankle flares up once a month or so.

Nowadays, I feel fine about taking an extra day or two off if I am sick or dealing with a little ache. It still annoys me and brings out my bitchy side, but I am much better at listening to what my body is telling me. When I step back and think about it, I'm asking a lot of my body, and my body is doing a lot for me. I'm almost 40, I have MS, and I'm still out there running hard almost every day. I'm proud of that.

Juice! For his birthday three weeks ago, Sean got a juicer. Every morning he makes green juice with some combination of kale, parsley, ginger, pear, celery, apple, orange, lemon, and honeydew. In addition, we've been eating really well - almost entirely whole foods and plant-based. And in the past three weeks, my long runs have been easier, faster, and stronger than ever. I didn't start eating better because I necessarily thought it would help my running, but I think it has!

I finally finished The China Study, and I highly recommend it. If you need any data to convince you that eating plants will improve and protect your health, check out this book. And if you have any questions along those lines, leave a comment and I'll answer it with info from the book. I'll be doing a giveaway related to it soon, so stay tuned!

In the next couple of months, I have a few races coming up. A 5k in June, a half marathon in July, and a mile race in August. The half is a hilly mofo in Vermont, and although I expect to run it much faster than last year (when I used it as a long run/test of my healing IT band and ran a 2:19 or something), I doubt I'll be improving on my 1:56 from April. I hope to PR at the shorter races. My 5k PR is around 25 minutes and my mile PR is 6:59. Even though I love halfs and marathons, I'm really looking forward to these shorter races. I'm too slow to ever be really competitive at short distances, but someday I might have to face up to the fact that I like them better than the four+ hour slogs. Either that or I have to start bringing the slogs down to 3+ hours!