I have never looked down on walkers, but during my own races I must be honest with myself and admit that I have always considered walking my inferior speed. However, when you have an injury and you still need to move forward you have to change your mindset a bit.

In the past, I have tended to judge the success of my races on the fact that I did more running and very little walking. But the funny thing is that most of my finish times remain around the 2:20 range for my half marathons no matter how much walking I slip in. I have ignored this fact, but I have had time lately to reflect on the affect this has had on my racing, and how harnessing the power of the walk for my 100-mile race will enable me to be a 100-mile champion.

My biggest challenge before this ultra marathon was definitely my training and completion of my full Ironman. In my preparation for this event, I never once contemplated only running and skipping any swim and bike training. I followed the training plan to a tee, even if it meant being in the pool by 3 am to swim for two hours before heading over for an hour long spin class. I swam, I biked, I ran, and yet never once did I think about training for walking. But the funny thing was, three miles into the marathon leg of my Ironman, my knee began to hurt and I spent a good portion of that last 23 miles walking. As I reflect back on that experience, I wonder how much better that Ironman experience might have been if I had respected the walk and trained a little more for my "walking leg" of this race.

I won't lie, I have been worried about training for this 100-mile race when I haven't been able to run at all since the official training began, but Coach Ed has been trying to change my mindset. While I have been seeing my inability to run as an obstacle to my training, Coach has been trying to convince me that my injury should be viewed in a more positive light. This inability to run is allowing me to focus on my walking technique, increasing my walking speed, and acclimating my body to the different muscles necessary for a strong power walk. I can't believe how much more sore I have been with the walking. My running buddy Gaby and I were commiserating on how sore our shins, calves, and gluts were considering we were in pretty good running shape. After two weeks of focusing on walking, Gaby and I are both stronger, faster, and less sore than we were last week. I have a whole new respect for walking!

But I know that I still have a long way to go to be "walk ready" for this ultra marathon.  That running mentality is pretty ingrained in both my head and in what my body is used to.  For example, today I was finally able to run, really run.  And given that I haven't run at all in two weeks, and that I needed to get at least 12 miles under my belt, the smart thing would have been to ease in the running by incorporating a little into a mostly power walk session.  However, when I started to run this morning, I felt great...really great! At the end of almost 12 miles, I realized that I hardly walked at all.  My knee didn't hurt, my breathing was fine, my running endurance had not been lost with the time off, but 12 miles easy pace, was not what I did today.  My heart rate was higher than it needed to be, and even though my knee is fine, I could have set myself back again by not being smart. Luckily I still have more than five months to learn how to keep a reasonable pace and how to support my running with strong power walking. And luckily I have two amazing coaches in Ed and Andy and I have no doubt that by the time the EC100 comes in October I will be well-trained and ready to take on the ultra marathon challenge!

Bounty From the Box April 25, 2015

This week I decided to order fava beans.  My husband is a big movie buff and he will often recite some random movie quote and then ask us to guess which movie the quote is from.  One of his favorites is Hannibal Lector's quote from Silence of the Lambs, "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti."  Since watching this movie, I have always wondered what fava beans tasted like and have always wanted to try them. I have never had the opportunity until I saw this choice for our weekly Farm Fresh to You produce box.  The thing about fava beans is that they are super labor intensive.  You have to shell them, blanch the beans, peel the skin off each individual bean, and then use them in the recipe of your choice. I tweaked the recipe below a bit by sauteing some leeks and shallots before adding the fava beans.  It was a tasty side dish.  I wouldn't have fava beans on a regular basis because of the time they take to prepare, but I do plan on trying these tasty beans again.

Gabriel's Sauteed Fava Beans recipe

Silence of the Lambs Fava Bean Scene

Today's blog requires some background knowledge because I need to give you a brief idea of how I began my journey to finish a 100-mile event. In short, I needed a challenge, but when my friend Jeremiah asked me to do the Nanny Goat 100-miler, my original response to his request was that I would never be able to run 100 miles. I don't do well with second guessing myself, so I promptly signed up for the Nanny Goat and began training--LONG miles. But because I was training myself, once I got over 50 miles a week, I injured my knee enough that I was off running and walking for three full weeks. With the knee injury, my very first DNF (did not finish) at the San Diego Half in March, and four bouts of flu (or akin to flu) in three months, my quest to conquer a 100-mile distance seemed almost an impossibility. Then by chance I saw Ed Ettinghausen's post on Facebook looking for a person who had never completed a 100-mile race who would like to compete for the opportunity to have him train them that to complete the 100 Mile Endurance Challenge on October 17, 2015.  Selection was based on the number of "likes" each candidate received over a two-day period on a Facebook page Ed created for the competition.  He posted our profiles on this page outlining our answers to some questions he had posed, and it was up to us to get readers to read and "like" our responses.  I knew that it would be a long shot, but I decided that if I didn't at least try, I would regret it. While I didn't officially win the training with Ed, the top challenger, Debbie Jett (more on this amazing woman will be shared as to why she was so selfless about sharing her opportunity with us in an upcoming blog post), decided to allow more of us to benefit from Ed's ultra marathon knowledge, and Ed created a team of six women to follow and train over the next six months.  In the process, another coach, Andy Noise, has joined the team as well to guide our actual workouts.  To follow our journey, please join the Facebook group 0 to 100 Mile Hero in 200 Days!.  If you are not on Facebook, I will also be chronicling my journey here as well.

Originally, when I ran this blog through my head, it had a different title. It was going to be called "One Lucky Girl." However, having only been in this process for a week now, I can see that my journey is going to have a ripple effect on all those around me. I need you to understand that I never aspired to running an ultra marathon. Not to say that now I am not completely excited about the journey, but I can't say that I was one of those people that my whole life I thought, "Wouldn't it be awesome to run 100 mile race?" The same thing happened with my Ironman journey. I never ever thought I would want to or be able to do a full Ironman, but once I became involved in the process, I realized how much I truly love biking, and dare I say, how much I also love swimming. I would never have dreamed that I would appreciate the triathlon event so much. I feel that this whole process with this hundred-mile race will give me the same respect and dedication to long-distance running that I now have for the triathlon.

I have to relate a funny story to you because I always tell you that I am completely honest in this blog. Last summer, I remember my friend Gaby and I on my front porch waiting for the other early morning runners to arrive, and she mentioned to me about her dream of wanting to run an ultra. I remember looking at her and saying something along the lines of "I would never want to do something like that." I hope this doesn't make you have less respect for me or make you think that I will not take this hundred-mile journey seriously, but sometimes I just have to be convinced of what might be a good next goal for me.

What I understand about Ed's vision for this entire project is that we are just the tip of the iceberg. The cool thing about the six women in this journey is that we all have different experiences, and I think that people will be able to more closely follow the runner who they relate to the most. There are runners like me who are not very fast and have never done mileage over a marathon length, but one of us is even competing in the Boston Marathon this weekend. I think Ed's hope is that others will see what we are doing and realize their true potential and push themselves to do things that they never dreamed possible. There is a is a ripple effect that I feel is much larger than any of us dreamed of when we signed up for this journey.

Besides training requirements, the only other big expectation Coaches Ed Ettinghausen and Andy Noise have of us is that over the next six months is that we raise $1,000 dollars for their charity of choice Race Across USA.  This charity raises money to not only get the message out about the negative affects of childhood inactivity, but the money raised also help pay for the activities of children whose families cannot afford to pay for those activities themselves. I hate to beg people for money, but can you please support my effort to meet this goal?  THANKS!

Link to my Race Across America donation page

Inside the orthopedist office this week:
Doctor: I see from your file that you are having issues with your right knee.  How are you doing?  
Me: It feels better, but it just doesn't feel right.  I can walk now without pain, and I can do a little running as long as I wear this bulky knee brace.
Doctor: You can run now?  How far did you run last week?
Me: I was only able to run 15 miles.
Doctor: 15 miles? Do you realize that there are tons of people your age that couldn't run 15 miles without a knee injury?
Me: (looking down--a little embarrassed) Ya, but it just doesn't feel right.
Doctor: I understand.  So, when did you injure your knee?
Me: March 9th.
Doctor: (typing info in the computer and talking under his breath) March 9, 2014...
Me: No, not 2014...2015.
Doctor: (taking a calming breath) Soooo, you injured your knee less than a month ago...
Me: (In my head I am calculating because this can't be right--it has been FOREVER since I injured myself, right? Today is April 6, I injured myself March 9...damn, it has been less than a month)
Doctor: ...less than a month ago and in this time the pain has improved and you ran 15 miles last week?
Me: (looking down and mumbling) But only 15 miles...
Doctor: Hmm! (long pause while he tries to be patient with me and not insult me) Hmm!

I share this actual embarrassing experience because I think we all have times where we are not only impatient with allowing our bodies to heal after we break them down, but we also focus on the negatives more than we should.  It amazes me how hard some of us are on ourselves. Why is it that we forget how far we have come, but we are laser-focused on what we perceive as failures? 

I know I am not the only one, because even today, one of my running inspirations is beating himself up on social media because his times on his 50-mile races are getting slower rather than faster.  He is frustrated with his body and how fatigued he feels lately. He is amazing, but he is doing exactly what I am doing with my knee injury. His laser-focus on his time is making it difficult for him to remember the number of 50-mile and 100-mile races he has been able to complete.  

I know exactly how he feels.  He has set a goal for himself, and he knows those goals are in jeopardy.  I had my eye on completing the 100-miler at Nanny Goat, and this knee injury has made this larger goal an impossibility at this point.  It feels bad.  It feels like a failure.  It makes it difficult to remember all the progress I have made and skews my perspective on my accomplishments.  Failure feels bad, but I need to remember that I have not failed, yet.

I think we lose a sense of perspective when we are frustrated with our inability to control our bodies despite our most focused efforts.  What I need to keep reminding myself is that I need to take this "failure" as an opportunity to improve.  How can I train smarter?  How can I find the balance between making sure I run enough miles to be ready, and not running so many miles that I break my body down? How do I eat the right foods to make sure I get the nutrition I need to run and heal my muscles during this process? And finally, how can I be kind to myself when reaching for the stars lands me on my face every once in a while?

This week I was given the opportunity to possibly train with another one of my ultra-marathon inspirations.  He ran me to my very first full marathon finish, and being able to train with him would be an amazing opportunity. The odds are small that I will be chosen as the one to get his individualized guidance, but I feel that if I don't attempt to seize this opportunity, I will regret not giving it my all.  If you have the time, would you please go the the link below and check out all the candidates to be the Zero to 100 Mile Hero?  I am candidate #2 near the bottom of the page, but this will give you the opportunity to check out the 13 other very worthy people that are competing to have Ed Ettinghausen train them to finish a 100-mile ultra marathon.  Voting closes today, Wednesday, April 8th at 11:59pm. Thanks in advance for your support!

Zero to 100 Mile Hero

This week I just want to share a couple of celestial-themed things that inspired me this week. As I have written in past blogs, Sean and I like to spend Sunday mornings watching the CBS Sunday Morning Show with Charles Kuralt. Every week we not only learn new things, keep up on some of the latest news, but there is almost always something inspirational that touches me.  Last week they shared a story about a couple whose only child Jeff appeared to be growing normally like the other children around them.  He began to bump into things and the his mother shared one experience that made them realize something wasn't right. The father, who was into astronomy, bought a telescope to share his passion with his child.  When his son look through the telescope, he asked his father if he should be able to see stars without the telescope.  They soon discovered that genetic disorder called neurofibromatosis. This disease caused a brain tumor that stunted their child's growth, and was robbing him of his sight. During their Jeff's treatments, his mother had him do water colors to keep him entertained.  She began using his art as thank you notes, and over time people began asking to purchase his artwork.  Jeff's vision is so compromised now that because he can hardly see anything he is working on, they are unique technique to allow him to continue to paint.  "First, he slathers a kind of plastic goop on canvas, front and sides. After it hardens, and gets a coat of flat black, Jeff uses those ridges to feel his way around his painting as he works." His artwork is amazingly beautiful and most paintings now sell for over $4,000.  What is even more amazing is that for every painting he sells, he donates one to charity.

I think what I found most inspirational about this story is how this family has turned what could have been a huge tragedy in their lives into a positive.  Their child is now twenty, and still painting and raising incredible amounts of money for others.  The line that most struck me in this piece came from Jeff's father and how he came to terms with his only child's illness.  He stated that, "You can't see the stars with tears in your eyes," and I saw this as something we can all keep in mind when we are faced with difficult situations in our lives no matter how big or small they appear. We won't be able to see the beauty around us if the tears in our eyes keep us from seeing the world.  A Blind Artist's Altruistic Vision

This week I was also graced with the opportunity to actually run into a lunar eclipse during one of my crazy early morning jaunts out with my running buddies.  It was 5 am yesterday during our Spring Break when we should probably have been sleeping in, but we decided to run early to beat the heat. I forgot about the lunar eclipse until I stepped outside and witnessed its beauty as I waited for my friends to arrive.  Throughout our 6.5 mile run, we were able to witness the progression to eclipse and back to the beautiful full moon.  I know many of you think we are crazy to run so early, but we are often able to run into the sunrise on these crazy early runs.  I am hoping you can see that when you get up early and exercise, you not only start your day off on the right foot, but you also see beautiful sights that you would not witness if you stayed in bed instead of exercising early.

Oh, and I guess it goes without having to really say too much...I am able to run again!. This week I was able to able to get almost twenty miles in with very little pain, and I am very happy that my injury is not appearing to be a permanent one. Thanks everyone for all your good wishes!  I think your positive thoughts are really helping me to heal!

Bounty From the Box April 5, 2015
Kohlrabi--last week I had the opportunity to order a vegetable called kohlrabi.  I had heard of this veggie, but I had never eaten anything with kohlrabi nor even seen what it looked like.  This was an adventure!  It is not the prettiest vegetable, but I found a website that devoted a full blog to describing the kohlrabi, explaining how to prepare it, and suggesting some recipes to try.  I decided to try the Kohlrabi and Carrot Fritters, since I also had a few carrots as well. The fritters were delicious topped with the avocado cream sauce and an over easy egg. It made a delicious and fairly healthy breakfast for me and my husband Sean.  One suggestion I do have is to peel the kohlrabi skin off entirely.  It has a fibrous outer layer that is a little tougher to eat if you don't get it all off before grating it.  I can't wait to try this vegetable again and tackle some of the other recipes suggested in this blog. I hope I have inspired you to try something new as well!

How to Cut Up Kholrabi

5 Tasty Ways to Prepare Kohlrabi

Kohlrabi Is Weird! And Here's What You Can Do With It