Martha's So-Called Life

kt tape

I've made an amazing discovery.  KT Tape!!

Several people have told me about it, and I have seen people sporting it on various body parts at many of the races I have run, but I never really considered trying it myself.  Why?  I don't really know.  It just doesn't seem like it would actually do anything.  Putting tape on your shin to make you shin pain go away doesn't really make sense in my head.  More arch support and better running form, ice, and ibuprofen make sense to me.  

I was at REI a couple of days ago and saw that they had KT Tape, and I figured I'd give it a try.  So, I watched the video on how to apply it for shin pain...and it worked!  My pain is mostly gone.  At first, I thought that maybe my shin was not actually that painful to begin with (I did not note whether or not I was having pain before I applied the tape).  Yesterday morning when I got up I noticed that my shin was especially painful, so I applied the tape.  I immediately had less pain.  

The KT Tape website has tons of videos on how to properly apply based on what you have going on.  I had to adjust my application based on where I am having pain (as it states you should do in the video). 

The pain is definitely not gone completely, but it is much less severe after applying the tape.  

Obviously I can only speak from my experience and what works for me, might not work for you.  I have had my shin pain evaluated by a PT and it is not suspected that it is a stress fracture, so I feel comfortable exploring treatments and pain relieving options on my own.  

the lion ate the lamb

Isn't March supposed to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb?  This year, the lamb came first...and then the lion came and ate the lamb.  

The official total snowfall for this storm was 12.6 inches.  And this morning it is a balmy 1°F at my house.  Damn lions.  

I know that it often dumps snow here in the spring, but that doesn't mean that I'm excited about it.  I was looking forward to clearer sidewalks and a less wet and messy post-walk dog.  I guess I'm going to have to keep waiting.  

Kiva was not impressed that we were not going running in the snowy mess.  

She decided that she was going to sit on me until I gave in.

That didn't work out very well for her.  

I think she still has spring fever because she has continued to be very naughty.  This morning, for the first time in over two years, we had to put the leash on her in the house.  That was a method we used when she was a puppy to help her learn to be calm and settle down while we were watching TV or when I was in the kitchen.  I suppose sometimes young 'uns (four legged or two) need to be reminded of the rules and how to follow them.  

I meant to go for a ski yesterday, but after coffee (which then turned into lunch) with my dad, a trip to REI for ski wax, and whatever I did when I got home, it was time to cook dinner by the time I would have made it out the door.  

Today I am debating whether to run 7 miles on the 1.25 mile loop that is plowed in our neighborhood, or just go skiing.  Considering the dog antics that went on this morning, I'm leaning towards a run.  

what we're eating - week of march 25

We ended up eating out way too much last week.  The only good thing about that is I get to recycle recipes this week!

Monday:
Mini Pepper Chicken Nachos

Tuesday:
Shrimp Tacos

Wednesday:
Salmon Cakes (Practical Paleo pg 310)

Thursday:
Lemon Artichoke Chicken (Practical Paleo pg 260)

Friday:
Rice with Mushroom and Kale Gravy

Saturday:
Leftovers/Eat Out?

Sunday:
Spaghetti with Spaghetti Squash 

spring fever

Kiva has spring fever.

On my days off, she usually gets a walk and a run.  She goes for a walk with John in the morning, comes home, and runs around like an idiot, growling and mashing toys into our legs like she's been cooped up for weeks. 

We go running in the afternoons and she repeats the above behavior.  

Right now, she is in the back yard barking her head off.  It doesn't even appear as though she is barking at anything in particular.  She's just running around the back yard barking.  

Then, after a while she will decide she is done being an idiot and get all cuddly and try and crawl into my lap like she's the nicest dog ever.  

Hopefully we will all make it until summer.  

cauliflower pizza crust

Last night for dinner we had pizza with crust made from cauliflower.  It was pretty tasty!

I used this recipe for the crust which was good, but I didn't add enough salt.  After cooking the crust I spread tomato sauce and a few pieces of fresh mozzarella cheese on it, and added chicken sausage, roasted red peppers, sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms, broccoli, and asparagus, then topped with with a little bit of shredded cheddar/jack cheese.  

I've tried several versions of pizza crust with almond flour and I haven't really been a fan of any of them.  I think this one is my favorite and I will definitely use it again!

slo half to mayor's full (aka yes I am going to a run marathon)

I've been toying with the idea of running a full marathon for a while now.  Really, I've been avoiding it.  It's one of those things I want to do just to say I did it.  But I'm also terrified of the idea.  

26.2 miles is a long way to run, and my race options in Anchorage and surrounding areas are slightly limited (there are two full marathons in Anchorage each summer), so the timing has to be right.  Originally, I was considering the Humpy's Marathon in late August (or Big Wild Life or whatever the heck it's called now), but I'm not a huge fan of the course (it's two out and backs…which I HATE).  If I'm going to run a full, I would much prefer the Mayor's Marathon…but it's so soon (14 weeks away).  While I was pondering my options, I realized that I'm running a half the first weekend in April and the Mayor's Marathon is 11 weeks after that.  After looking at several training plans, I came to the conclusion that 11 weeks from a half to a full is pretty reasonable.  I know most marathon training plans are 18 weeks total, but 14 weeks seems acceptable when you are already in half marathon shape.  

I have a rough training plan, but it still needs some work.  I think in it's final form it will be titled "Run As Many Miles As You Can In Four Days A Week Without Getting Injured."  We will see how that goes since you all know how good I am at sticking to my plans.  

Speaking of not sticking to plans, I had big plans for running this week, but I was not as successful as I had hoped.  All winter long I battled snow and cold, now the problem is ice and slop.  I actually did not go running one day because I did not want to deal with cleaning off the sloppy half frozen mess that is the underside of my dog when we get back from a springtime run.  Seriously, am I never happy? 

Friday I ran 5 miles.  It was supposed to be a tempo/pace run, but I had to stop for dog shenanigans so many times it was not a success...also it was my first serious run since my half so I was not really ready for tempoing (no I'm not actually dumb enough to plan a tempo run for my first run after a race, it was supposed to be my third run of the week but since the first and second didn't happen, the third became the first).  

Saturday I ran up Arctic Valley Road.  Not the whole way.  The SLO Half is a pretty hilly course, so I figured I should get out and run up some hills.  Rather than torturing myself by running up the whole road, I picked a spot slightly less than two miles up the road and ran there and down, twice.  Kind of like an extended hill repeat.  Except the second time I didn't quite make it as far as I planned.  But whatever, I ran 6 miles, 3 of which were uphill.

It definitely helped that it was an amazing day.  I didn't even have to wear a hat!

Goal for next week...more running.  

what we're eating - week of march 18

Apparently I have gotten out of the habit of blogging.  I guess vacation will do that to you.  

It's a good thing I have not gotten out of the habit of planning dinners...otherwise we'd starve, or eat a lot of junk.

Monday:
Dinner with my mom

Tuesday:
Avocado Pasta

Wednesday:
Peanutty Vegetable Stir Fry

Thursday:
Chicken (or Shrimp...can't decide) Tikka Masala

Friday:
Mini Pepper Chicken Nachos

Saturday:
Hashbrowns with Veggies

Sunday:
Italian Baked Eggs 

vacation recap part 2: the cruise

After surviving our three hour drive from Orlando to Ft. Lauderdale, we were very relieved to arrive at the port.  Amanda was already on board the ship and waiting for us to check in and get onboard.  

We dropped our suitcases, Heather parked the car, and then we checked in.  It was a relatively painless process, minus the fact that Annie did not print her documents...even though she knows better.  Once on board we went to our room to find Amanda.  Then it was lunch time!  Once we returned from lunch we found that our suitcases had arrived and began the process of fitting the luggage of four girls into a 50 sq foot stateroom.  Not an easy task, but we handled it like champs.  

I will not bore you with the details of the next seven days.  We relaxed, we laughed, we ate (another post about that coming soon), we got sunburns, we exercised a bit, and overall just had a lot of fun.  

Here are some photos of the ship and of our stop in Haiti (not real Haiti, Royal Caribbean's private resort version of Haiti).  That's the only place I got off the ship.  During the rest of our port days, I enjoyed the lack of people on the ship.  It was wonderful.

Labadee, Haiti (where it was so hot I sweat off all my sunscreen)

And around the ship...

Schooner Bar where we did daily 5:15pm trivia

The Promenade

The Boardwalk

Central Park (my favorite part of the ship)

The back of the ship

My favorite pool (there were four pools total...)

The Solarium (no kids allowed!)

While I was relatively unimpressed by the ship (yes it was huge, but it didn't have anything that was terribly different or exciting from any other cruise ship), I was impressed by the fact that there were 5,000 people on board and it didn't often feel like it.  There were times and places that we knew to avoid in order to avoid crowds, but for the most part we were never inconvenienced by large amounts of people.  

Overall, an excellent week at sea!

vacation recap part 1: 2013 disney princess half marathon

First, I'd just like to say that it's really quite difficult to write a recap when you've pretty much forgotten that you ever ran a race in the first place.  

I arrived in Ft. Lauderdale around 6:30am on Saturday.  Annie and Heather came and picked me up, we grabbed coffee and breakfast and hit the road for Orlando.  3ish hours later we arrived and headed for the Expo so I could get my bib.  It was more difficult than last year because you had to park and take a bus to get to the Expo instead of just parking there.  Fortunately we did not have wait for very long going in either direction.  

After picking up my bib and eating lunch, we went to the hotel and got settled.  Then it was time to head to dinner.  We had an errand to run on the way, and by the time we got to dinner we were able to be seated right away.  

After dinner it was bedtime for the runners and party time for the spectators.  

Race day was kind of a blur.

3am wake up call, on the road to the start by 3:30am.  Bag drop a little before 5am, in our corral by 5:10am, race started at 5:35am.  

It was hot, 72°F and 100% humidity, but there was a bit of a breeze and a chance of rain, so I tried not to let the weather get me down.  However, 100% humidity is too much for this Alaskan girl.  Ick. 

Things started out ok, but by about mile 5 I was done.  I even considered just quitting because I felt so awful.  Then I decided I wasn't a quitter and I kept going.  Annie and Heather were at mile 7, which was a nice boost, but not enough to keep me going at a reasonable pace.  When I failed to show up at mile 13 in a timely manner, Annie thought she better turn on the ringer on her phone since she was my emergency contact!  Eventually, I made it there and I finished.

Here are a few shots from the race.

It's still dark in this picture so this had to have been somewhere between the start and mile 3ish.  Note the excessive amount of sweat so early on...

Almost to the finish...

At the finish...

I then spent the next 8 hours feeling like I was going to vomit.  

Surprisingly, this was not my slowest half marathon.  However, I came nowhere near any of my goals, but I am not disappointed.  The weather was hot even for people who don't live in the frozen North.  The medical volunteers were pulling people out of the finish chute and making them go to the medical tent if they looked even a little off.  There were also volunteers at the water/Powerade tables on the way out of the finish area who made sure that everyone had an open bottle of water or Powerade.  If they saw anyone who didn't have one, they were handing them out and helping people open them.  

After meeting up with everyone else, we headed back to the hotel for showers and breakfast.  After rinsing off and drinking 10 gallons of water, we packed up and headed out the door.  There was no time for socializing or relaxing...we had a ship to catch!  I managed to choke down a couple pieces of bacon (thanks to Sue's husband for cooking us breakfast!), but couldn't manage the eggs.  We hopped in the car and started our 3 hour drive back to Ft. Lauderdale.  

We stopped to grab snacks.  I ended up with a bag of salt and vinegar chips and a bag of dill pickle chips because those were the only two things that sounded good...and I was still fighting the urge to puke.  

Three hours in the car after running a half marathon is not a pleasant experience.  I was worried about my ability to get out of the car once we arrived at our destination.  Fortunately, I managed...there were several profanities and a lot of "hey, wait for me"s involved...

Stay tuned for part 2...the cruise!

what we're eating - week of march 11

Monday:
Vegetable enchiladas

Tuesday:
Curry fried fish
Mediterranean cauliflower 

Wednesday:
Shrimp and tomato pasta

Thursday:
Roast veggies with chickpeas

Friday:
John's Birthday

Saturday:
Leftovers

Sunday:
Homemade pizza