My love languages:
Joining my run workout (or cooking me food after)
Brewing strong coffee
Saying my dog is the cutest ( AKA stating the obvious)
Listening to me talk about running
Offering good podcast recommendations
Sending me delightful nuggets of internet
Insatiable curiosity
Knowing and sharing odd and fascinating facts
Ensuring there are no raw chunks of tomato before offering me a bite of your food
Kudos and flyby high-fives
Being a proud feminist
What are yours?
This is basically a Trader Joe’s meal hack. This meal is delicious with just these three ingredients. Tonight, I added cauliflower, hot sauce, and sour cream, but go ahead and use the three ingredients as a starting point to choose your own adventure. You could use ground turkey, but if you’re iron deficient like me, grab the organic beef!
Ingredients:
Trader Joe’s Tikka Vegetables
Trader Joe’s Organic Ground Beef
Trader Joe’s Rustico Tomato Sauce
Optional Ingredients:
Organic sour cream
Trader Joe’s Italian Bomba Hot Pepper Sauce
Trader Joe’s frozen Rainbow Cauliflower
Trader Joe’s Middle Eastern Flatbread
Directions:
Brown ground beef in a piping hot cast iron pan. If your fire alarm goes off, you’re doing it right.
Let the ground sizzle in the hot pan for 90 seconds before you begin to stir and break it up. Once the meat is almost fully cooked, turn the stove down to simmer, and add tomato sauce 1/4 to 1/2 the can depending on your preference, and package of Tikka Vegetables. Simmer for 5 mins, stirring occasionally.
If you’re adding broccoli or cauliflower, sauté in a separate pan with some olive oil and tomato sauce. Once cooked, add to cast iron pan.
If you’re serving with flatbread, warm flatbread in a pan.
Optional: Add a dollop of Hot Pepper Sauce and sour cream on top. Enjoy!
“How excited are you for the Boston Marathon?”
As the race draws near, this question comes with increasing frequency. It makes my heart rate jump 10 beats and my cheeks flush. My body reacts with excitement, but almost as quickly, my mind fills with memories of racing Boston in 2017. I remember sweating on the bus to the starting line, going out too fast for the warm weather and vomiting at mile 10, walking with my head down around mile 18, spending miles berating myself, and the deep sense of confusion and disappointment as I crossed the finish line barely under 4 hours when a day before I had no doubts that I was in shape to run thirty five minutes faster.
Last week, my close friend and SWAP teammate, Alex, asked me this question. I gave my typical tepid response, but I felt disconnected from the words. It was a rehearsed answer that no longer felt accurate. This training cycle has been far from perfect, but I am proud of the work I’ve put in and I’m genuinely excited to race. So why was I so hesitant to say that?
I had convinced myself that the best way to protect myself against the heartbreak of another bad race was to try to persuade myself and others that I didn’t care as much. I was erring on the side of being cynical and pleasantly surprised than being excited and disappointed.
Well, fuck that! Whatever happens on Marathon Monday, I am approaching this race with maximum enthusiasm. Because if racing the Boston Marathon doesn’t make me happy and excited, then I need to find a new sport.
The ruth is that I dreamed about qualifying for years, and I’ve dreamed about the opportunity to return for the last two years.
The disappointment I felt in 2017 had nothing to do with allowing myself to be excited about the race and everything to do with my inflexible race strategy and narrow definition of success. So my race strategy for this year is flexible and success will only be defined by my ability to smile through the suck, control the narrative in my head, and make happy memories.
Freeing myself to feel excited the last week felt like taking off ankle weights. I felt weightless on my last workout; literally doing airplane arms and smiling ear to ear as I clicked off miles at marathon effort. These past few days, every time someone asks me how excited I am I respond honestly: I can’t wait!
Last week was my last week at Watsi. For the past year and a half, I've lead Watsi's growth, brand, communication, email marketing, and social media. It was a good job.
So why leave?
How often do you think some version of this thought: what if I quit my job and focused on _____? We all do it. But that question started becoming the first thing I thought about in the morning, the thing I day dreamed about, and the last thing I thought about at night. I knew it is time for me to move closer to filling in that blank.
The blank is either running, writing, starting my own company, or some combination of all three. When I thought about everything I wanted to achieve in the coming year, I realized that there was a misalignment between my priorities and how I would need to spend my time in order to be the best Marketing Director for Watsi. I wasn't writing very often. I resented how the 2-hour commute affected my running and recovery. It was hard being the only person with a marketing background. All of these things left me with the dissonance of loving Watsi’s mission but no longer able to invest all of myself into what it needed from me on a daily basis.
It’s not you. It’s me. I gotta go see about a girl. Me.
She got the FKN and negative split the segment!
Um, What?
I love wearing this "Positive Vibes Negative Splits" sweatshirt because other runners read it and smile, but most non-runners seem to assume it's a yoga-thing. Here's my cheat sheet for runner slang:
10% Rule: Don’t increase your mileage by more than 10% each week
Active Recovery: Low-intensity, non-running exercise
AG: Age Group
Bandit: Someone who runs a race without registering.
Barkley: Barkley Marathon
Beer mile: A 1-mile race that typically takes place on a track. Racers chug a beer, run a lap, and repeat for 4 laps and 4 beers.
Bib: Your number and often tracking device for races. Bibs are typically pinned to the front of your shirt for road races.
Bonk: a sudden and overwhelming feeling of running out of energy, also known as hitting the wall. Bonking often happens during a long run, hard workout, or race.
Boston: The Boston Marathon
BQ: Boston Qualifier
Brick: Doing two
Buns: Also known as racing briefs. These are like full bottom underwear that women wear for racing.
Carbo-loading: consuming a large quantity of carbohydrates, in order to increase stores of glycogen in the muscles before a race.
CD: Cool down
Chip time: Official races make runners run with timing chips on their bibs or around the laces of their shoes. The course has various timing mats that read the chip as you pass. At the end of the race, the time recorded on your chip is your official time.
Corral: Starting lines for races are organized into corrals, which are typically based on runner's pace. The faster you are, the closer your corral will be to the start line. At big races, each corral will have an individual start time.
CR: Course record
Crew: typically only needed for ultra
Chasing the unicorn: Trying to qualify for Boston.
DFL: Dead fucking last
DNF: Did not finish. Referring to starting but not finishing a race.
DNS: Did not start. Referring to someone who is registered for a race, but never makes it to the start line
DOMS: Delayed onset muscle soreness
Double: Running twice in one day
Drafting: Running closely behind someone to benefit from the air draft that they’re creating.
Dreadmill: nickname for treadmill
Fartlek: Any workout where you oscillates between fast and slow paces.
FKT: Fastest known time
FML: Fastest mile last
Fuel: any food or high calorie drink consumed during a run in order to maintain energy during longer runs or races.
GMP: Goal marathon pace
Hardware: A fun way to refer to your race medals.
Harrier: nickname for cross country runners
Hitting the wall: a sudden and overwhelming feeling of running out of energy, also known as bonking. Hitting the wall often happens during a long run, hard workout, or race. In the marathon, mile 20 is often referred to as “the wall”.
HM: Half marathon
HR: heart rate
HRV: heart rate variability
Hypoxic: a condition in which the body or a region of the body is deprived of adequate oxygen supply at the tissue level. This typically happens at high altitude.
ITBS: IT Band Syndrome
Jack Daniels: Legendary running coach who developed well-known training plans. The principals outlined in his book, Daniels' Running Formula, are still widely used today.
Junk miles: miles run without any training purpose or benefit.
Kick: Sprinting to the finish line
Kills: The total number of people you passed. Each person passed is 1 kill
KOM: King of the Mountain - a title awarded on Strava to the man with the fastest time up a hilly segment (running and cycling).
LSD: long slow distance
Maraternity Leave: a sick day after a marathon to avoid work, stairs, walking, and situations where napping and icing your leg/butt/thighs may not be appropriate
MLR: Medium long run. Typically used to describe your second longest weekly run.
MP: Marathon pace
MPW: Miles per week
Naked: Running without a GPS watch
Negative split: When the second half of your run or race is faster than the first half.
NR: National Record
ONB: out and back
OTQ: Olympic trials qualifier
First Pancake: First race of the season or after an injury. (I've actually only heard Devon Yanko use this term, but I love it and want to make it part of the runner lexicon.)
Pacer: Someone in a race who is there to run a specific time goal. Pacers are common in half marathon, marathons, and can be used in some ultramarathons during the last half of the race.
PB: Personal best
Peak Week: Highest week of training done before a big race. Peak weeks are typically 3 weeks before a race
Pickups: A few miles where you pick up the pace. These are longer than strides.
Plantar Fasciitis: Common injury
Point to Point: A type of race where the start and finish are at two different places. The course runs from one point to another
Power Hiking: A fast hiking method used on trail runs and in ultraraces.
PR: Personal record for a race result. Ex. “My PR in the marathon is 3:11”
Pronate: the inward movement of the foot as it rolls to optimally distribute the force of impact on the ground as you run. Overpronating is when your foot rolls inward to much after landing. Underpronating is when your foot rolls outward too much after landing.
QOM: Queen of the Mountain—a title awarded on Strava to the woman with the fastest time up a hilly segment (running and cycling).
Quad buster:
Rabbit: Nickname for a pacer.
Recovery: Easy paced run after a hard workout or race.
Rest Day Brag: Bragging about your recovery days, made popular by this instagram account
Runcation: A vacation focused on running
Rungry: Ravenous hunger and anger brought on after a run
SB: Season’s best, referring to a runners best time that year for each distance.
Segment: The way Strava breaks up popular running routes into segments.
Segment hunting: Basing your run and effort around Strava segments.
Singlet: Running tank
Skyrunning/Skyracing: Trail running that exceeds 2,000 meters where the incline exceeds 30 percent and the climbing difficulty does not exceed 11 degrees.
Streaking/Streaker: Running every day
Strides: A set of controlled sprints lasting between 15-60seconds, typically done at the end of a run.
Taper: A period of time following the peak of your training when your training decreases in order to allow your body to fully rest and recover before a race. The duration ranges from 3 weeks for marathons to only a few days for shorter distances.
Taper tantrum: Also known as the taper crazies. This is the emotional rollercoaster that often comes after peak training before a race.
Tempo: also known as an anaerobic threshold or lactate-threshold run—is a pace about 25 to 30 seconds per mile slower than your current 5K race pace,
The Wall:
Threshold: A comfortable-hard pace that could be held for 3-4 miles.
Tready: Cute nickname for the treadmill, also known as the dreadmill.
TT: Time trial
Ultra: Short for ultramarathon Any race longer than a marathon.
Unsanctioned race: A race run without permits on open roads, often these races are free. Sometimes they have no established route only checkpoints that the racers must pass but they can choose the route they want to take to get to those checkpoints.
VDOT: A training tool that uses a PR to calculate an equivalent performances at other distances. For example, if your mile PR is 9 minutes, your VDOT would tell you how fast you could run a 5k.
World Marathon Majors: These are big guys when it comes to marathon racing, and they comprise of six prominent races: Boston Marathon, Chicago Marathon, NYC Marathon, London Marathon, Berlin Marathon, and Tokyo Marathon.
WR: World Record
WU: Warm up
Yasso 800: a workout popular with marathoners that consists of running ten 800 meter repeats with each 800 being your goal marathon time. For example, if you want to run a 3:00 marathon, then you would aim to do ten three minute 800s.
Yellow Gate: The start and finish of the infamous Barkley Marathon
What am I missing? What's your favorite run slang?
