He Runs, He Blogs, He Conquers

Last week was the fifth week of my fifteen week training plan for the big half-marathon in the desert. After five weeks of running, the schedule always becomes an incomprehensible jumble of miles and minutes to me. Each run sort of melts into the next while anxiety about increasing distances on the weekend lingers in the back of my head.

The thing is, I’m officially not at the beginning, which means I am beginning to forget what life was like before I had to magically add hours into my day so I could log those “4.5 miles at 8:54 pace with six minutes total uphill time” at all costs. (Because if I don’t run then the terrorists win). However, I’m also pretty far from the race itself, so I can’t actually visualize an end to the madness, either. If I could plot my training plan onto a map of America, with the first week located in Boston and the fifteenth in San Francisco, I would now be firmly entrenched in Ohio.

Last week was more or less a recovery week, so there weren’t a lot of notable runs, except for maybe Sunday. We spent the weekend in Germany with Tessa’s family, which meant two things:

I ran 9 miles along the Rhine (again!) and

I experimented with more spreadable meats directly before embarking.

Running: Luckily for everyone who is tired of hearing how much I love running there, I didn’t run in Cologne itself. Tessa’s grandmother lives about ten miles south of town, and although I debated running directly to the city center, I didn’t want to negotiate the tram system back home in near zero weather with soaking-wet clothing. Instead, I ran through old asparagus fields until I hit the river, then aimed myself vaguely towards Amsterdam and ran until the little voice in my headphones told me to turn around. Around then a really big wind picked up that almost froze my face off, but I found shelter behind a row of trees that were both big and strong like German women. I made it home without any major problems, but the whole run was marked by that other reminder that training has already lasted over a month: fatigue. The wind didn’t help matters, but even if the day had been completely devoid of weather I would have had a hard time lifting my big, leaden legs. I generally seem to skip most of the aches and pains, and I’m really thankful for that. Instead it’s just the whole “moving the feet” thing that is somehow beyond me.

Food: I learned a valuable lesson from eating duck paté last week: One should not toy around with eating spreadable liver before running. That is why I switched to a chemically-treated raw pork spread on Sunday morning. I always have a hard time explaining to people who don’t eat a lot of German food what Zwiebelmettwurst is, and generally when they see it they shy away because it looks like raw ground beef.



But if you have ever had it, then you are nodding your head right now in tacit agreement with me that it rocks, and that it is completely incapable of ever doing any harm to anyone, anywhere. You simply spread it onto a roll, sprinkle some pepper on it, and then eat your way into oblivion while forgetting all your cares. I think America may have banned it because it brings such joy in a package that’s not easily taxed without angering the futures markets, which is why we don’t see it at Safeway. Anyway, I hereby state clearly that it did not interfere with my run in any fashion. I was on the road less than ten minutes after eating, and I was never hit with the bowling ball in the stomach. I can honestly say that when I write my dietary book on “those other running foods”, I’m putting Zwiebelwurst on the cover.

Last Weeks Runs:



I should have clocked around twenty miles or so, with the long one being nine. Next week I run about 25. I should be comfortably running thirty miles a week by the end of training, which is where I want to be when I begin training for the London Marathon...Only problem is, I'm not entirely positive I'm getting in. Which means I need to talk to Tessa about a possible Plan B (Paris, anyone?)

PS: I just noticed that my run tracker is in German...I have no idea why...sorry guys!