Books, Water weight, and Tinder gems

This weekend post is a day late, and I blame it completely on this:

I picked up this book at the library Saturday afternoon, and there went my weekend.  Glued to the pages.  I couldn't stop reading, even though I wanted to, because I knew if I didn't the story would end.  This is a book of fiction, set in WWII Europe, but it felt very real and honestly could have been the story of any number of millions of European children during the war.  The book alternates between the story of Werner, a young German orphan, whose eagerness to escape the mines ends up landing him a spot in Hitler's Third Reich army, and Marie-Laure, a young blind French girl who is displaced from her hometown of Paris due to the German occupation.  Their paths end up fatefully crossing, and that's all I'm gonna say.  [As I was reading, I was imagining some of the places Cely had visited on her recent trip to Europe.  Her photos and writings from that trip were all beautiful.]

So, other than spending two entire days reading that novel did I accomplish anything else useful?

On Friday, I went to the gym after work to do a quick run on the treadmill.  Seeing as I don't own a scale, I rarely weigh myself, but I decided to step on the digital scale in the locker room just for kicks.  Fun right?!  Then, I got on the treadmill and did a quick 3 miles.  I decided to weigh myself again post-run just to see if there was any difference, and I was a full POUND lighter, down to the tenth.  I sweated a fair amount and really didn't drink anything while running but it still surprised me.  I kind of wish I did have a scale because I'd be really interested to see how much water weight I lose on an outdoor run in the summer.  I'm guessing it's got to be at least 2-4 pounds?  Does anyone do this regularly to track their water intake?  I know I definitely don't drink enough water most days, but this inspired me to do so, seeing just how much I lost in 30 mins!

After the gym, I stopped by Wegmans and picked up 2 delicious packages of sushi.  No pic, because I ate it too fast.  Wegmans wins hands down for best supermarket sushi.  I'm leery of eating the sushi at most other grocery stores, but Wegmans never fails. I also picked up a new holiday tea while I was there:

It's yummy.  It's herbal and caffeine free so you can drink it late at night when you're up reading until 2am.  It's very sweet as is because of the caramel flavor and spices, so you really don't need any sugar or sweetener.  Trust me, I added honey like I usually do, and it was overly sweet.

After picking up several new library books on Saturday I had some errands to run.  My book high quickly wore off the second I stepped inside a store and saw holiday decorations everywhere and heard Christmas music playing through store's loudspeakers!?  So I guess we're here already.

Sunday I spent most of the morning lazily lying on my couch, watching a whole bunch of people run some little race in NYC.  The splits the elite men and women were running in the final miles of the marathon were literally blowing my mind.  5 min miles at mile 24?!  I can't even wrap my mind around that.

I had to work Sunday night until after 9pm, but I managed to finish the book by staying up until 1:30am after I got home.  Worth the raccoon eyes the next day. 

Oh, and I thought I'd end this post on a Tinder update.  Yes, I'm still on Tinder but rarely do anything with it anymore, except look at the ridiculous photo "moments" some of these cheesers post.  Like this one:

I mean WHO are these people posting screenshots of their bank accounts to attract women?!?! I just apparently don't understand the courting rituals of humans anymore.  This is why I've been on a total of TWO Tinder dates since I started that debacle back in the summer.  Overabundance of quality here, that's why.

Andddddddddd, that's about all I have.

Happy Monday a day late, which simply means it's Tuesday.



Favorite books this year?

Do you trust supermarket sushi?

Ever measured the water weight you lose on a run?

Do you want to take over my Tinder account?!

Treadmill or Dreadmill?

True dat.

 



I haven't stepped foot on a treadmill in probably 18 months or so ... well, until yesterday.  But I'll get to that in a minute.  Why?  Well I simply prefer to run outside, or so I thought.  Running for me has become a very meditative, communing-with-nature-and-the-universe type of activity, and I just felt I could not do that while performing aforementioned activity on a rubber belt in a loud, distracting environment.  However, I have a pretty abbreviated training schedule to get my mileage up for the Runner's World Half and my longest run thus far (5 miles) outside did not feel good.  We've had a few weeks of near 90 temps and 70-80% humidity as well, which hasn't been helping things.  So yesterday the idea just popped into my head, and I decided to take this week's 6 mile run indoors.  Well folks, it was probably the best decision I have made in WEEKS!  I believe the last time I did any treadmill training was in early 2012 when I was preparing for the St Luke's Half Marathon back home, and that race coincidentally is where I set my half marathon PR! 

 

One of the things that led to my decision to take things indoors yesterday, besides the weather, was the current state of my legs, namely the tendinitis and inflamed shins I seem to continually wage war with.  Because I live in an urban area, my running routes are almost exclusively contained to sidewalks.  Bad news, because concrete is known to be the hardest running surface out there!  In fact, it's even 10 times harder than asphalt. Fail.  Check out this article from Runner's World UK which ranks the Top 10 Running Surfaces. 

 

Since all of my running for the past year and a half has been outdoors, and almost entirely on concrete, I believe this has contributed to some of my stress injuries.  I wish I lived somewhere that offered me the opportunity to run on grass, trails and other more natural surfaces but for the time being I do not.  As I said, one of the things I most enjoy about running is the feeling of being one with nature, and even though I'm outside, its sometimes hard to do that with cars whizzing right by you!

 

Treadmills offer a markedly softer surface that is less jarring to bones, muscles and joints.  In addition, I believe my posture and stride are improved, my steps are smaller and my cadence is faster when I'm treadmill running.  All of these are elements of Chi Running, which I am currently investigating as a resource to pain-free running.

 



So after all that good information, how did my 6 miles on the treadmill feel yesterday?  In a word - AMAZING!  I had completely forgotten how it felt to run on this man-made contraption, but you know what, it felt incredible.  My run was a lot easier (granted, I had the control set to 0.0 incline), smoother, and less painful than my runs have been outside.  And to boot, I didn't even have to wear my compression socks during the run. 

I'll admit, I used to be of the mindset that treadmill running was somehow 'cheating' - that the miles run on the 'mill didn't count as much as the miles outside.  But I've come to really believe it has a place in training.  I mean professional athletes train on the treadmill, so why not little 'ol me?  It has far less impact on my body, allows me to run in any condition, in a controlled environment (hello 0% humidity and a nice 67 degrees!), and still get the same cardio benefits.  It's time I start adding it back in.  I am going to try to do at least one of my weekly runs on the treadmill from now on and see how my body responds.  When I trained for my very first half marathon in 2011, I did a lot of my lower mileage runs on the treadmill and reserved outdoor running for my long runs, and I felt fantastic in that race.  I'm thinking that this could be the rekindling of a wonderful relationship :)



So what say you? 

Treadmill or Dreadmill?

What running surfaces do you normally train on?