Yesterday Competitor Group announced a course change to the Rock N Roll USA marathon and half marathon in DC.

It stirred up lots of chatter among some of my favorite DC running people as we debated the pros and cons of the new course, and since Ashley asked me right away what I thought of the changes, I thought I'd share.


New course for 2013

For the record, I haven't run this race since Competitor took it over, but I did run it when it was still the National Half and I spectated the heck out of it last year.

Let's start at the start.

New in 2013 will be brand new start location along Constitution Ave. and the National Mall. This is a big change from the start at the National Army.


New start line

This change has several pros and cons.

On the positive side, there are a lot more metro stops that are within walking distance to the new start line, which might help alleviate some of the major crowding on the trains. It's also a little more of a scenic start point than the Armory.

On the negative side, if you used to drive to this race, you won't really be able to anymore. Or at least there will not be ample parking, and road closures might make it tricky to get there. (This doesn't bother me, I prefer races that I can metro to, but I know it's a consideration for some people.)

Since this is now a point-to-point race, I wonder if the race organizers will offer a shuttle from the finish line to the start before the race, so people who want to drive can park there and not have to worry about it.

Also on the negative side, the DC Armory was a great place to be able to stay warm until the race started, and there were even some regular bathrooms that people could use. At the new starting location, we'll just have to deal with whatever the weather throws at us and the porta-potties.

Moving on from the start, this race used to bill itself as the only marathon held completely within the DC-city limits. Unfortunately after this year's course change, it can no longer say that.



Early on in the race, the new course kicks you across the Potomac River and into Arlington, a loop that is also used in the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler.

I'm not a huge fan of this loop. Things get a little dicey with lots and lots of people trying to run around the traffic circle at once. Plus, if I remember correctly, there's some cobblestone, which can make for some tricky footing.

From there the course takes you through a few miles in Rock Creek Park, instead of the old course that took you through DuPont Circle. I absolutely love running through the park. It's beautifully scenic and while there is a gentle uphill climb, it is much, much more gentle than the climb through DuPont.



I run the park regularly on my training runs and it's definitely one of my favorite places to run in the city, so I'm thrilled to see it as part of the course. The only possible downside is that it's not the easiest for spectators to get to, so I would expect there to be slightly less crowd support.

Once you come out of the park, the second half of the half marathon course is largely the same as it has been in years past.



You'll run past Howard University where there's usually some good spectator support. Then you'll cruise down N Capitol Street and get some nice views of the Capitol Building, before taking a short run through the H Street Corridor and Capitol Hill neighbor and ending the race in front of RFK stadium.

From quick glance it looks like the second half of the marathon course is also staying pretty much the same as last year's course.

The race is a point-to-point race now, which could make things logistically more complicated for spectators (and also means some of the cheer points on my awesome spectator guide aren't useful anymore), but there are still plenty of places to watch the runners. When it's closer to the race, I'll put together an updated spectator guide.

Overall, I'm going to go out on a limb and say I like most of the changes, especially getting to run several miles through Rock Creek Park and avoiding the nasty DuPont hills.

If you've run this race in the past what do you think of the course changes? Are you planning to run RNR USA in 2013? If you are, the race organizers are offering a registration discount until September 9th with the code USACOURSE.

Yesterday I rang in another birthday, and unlike last year, this year it was not rained out by a hurricane.

I was spoiled rotten by friends and family yesterday, and my supervisor made me this delicious chocolate peanut butter cake.



Nom nom nom.

Yesterday was just a minor celebration. The real birthday fun kicks off this weekend at the first tailgate of the season! Can't wait for Saturday to get here.

One of the things I've been paying extra attention to this marathon training cycle is my recovery after hard workouts.

Normally when I train for a race, I do my quality workouts, squeeze in some stretching and call it a day. In terms of recovery, that's not the greatest plan, and I would tend to wake up the next day with lots of muscle soreness, which of course meant my next run was crappy.

This time around I'm actually focusing on recovering well after long runs, so that I can push it harder in my quality workouts.

For me, recovery starts pretty much when I walk in the door. After downing a big glass of water, I either mix up a protein shake or have a glass of chocolate milk.

Lately I've been going the protein shake route because dairy hasn't been sitting well with my stomach. EAS sent me this vanilla protein powder ages ago, and it's only recently that I've come to appreciate it.



While I'd prefer the chocolate flavor, the vanilla isn't actually so bad, and I have to say, the protein powder has been doing an amazing job of curbing my insatiable post-long run hunger.

After I've gotten some easily digestible protein into my system, I spend a good 15-20 minutes stretching. My poor little legs are usually so shot that even the gentlest stretches feel good. My favorite lately has been pigeon to help open my hips.

(Source)

Then it's time for my ice bath. Ice baths are not fun, but I'm fairly certain they are the reason I have had practically no post-long run muscle soreness in the following days. Normally, I end up hobbling around the house the day after long runs because my legs are so mad at me, but ice baths have really helped with that.



I fill the tub with the coldest water possible, get in and then dump in a big bag of ice. And then I sit there for a solid 15 minutes. My chattering teeth don't love it, but my legs do.

Once the ice bath is done and I'm all showered and smelling good again, I slide on my compression sleeves and dig into some solid food, usually a turkey sandwich or an egg and cheese sandwich.



I won't lie, this recovery process takes a long time. I would say from the minute I walk in the door after my run, until the time I'm cleaned up and ready to move on with my day, it's about an hour or two later.

I don't love that recovery takes so much time, but I have to say after a few weeks of zero post-long run soreness, I've decided it's time well spent and definitely worth keeping as part of my routine.

How do you recover after long runs?

Aside from a little stomach trouble at the beginning of the week, I finally felt like I started to hit my groove in training in week three. I managed to hit all of my workouts and wrapped up the week with a pretty stellar long run.

Here's what it looked like.

Monday - 7 miles of hills



This run started out on a great note. I was hydrated. My legs felt fresh and I was ready to rock it. Until a half mile in when my stomach revolted and sent me sprinting back for my house. I took some time to get my stomach to calm down, drank some water in attempt to rehydrate and then headed back out to finish the run. From here on out this run was brutal. I was super dehydrated, my legs felt like lead and each and every mile was a struggle. I don't think I've ever been so grateful to finish a run in my life.

Tuesday - 4 miles easy

I was exhausted Tuesday morning and I'm fairly certain the only reason I got out of bed to do this run is because I found out a friend of mine wakes up even earlier than I do to work out every day. I'm pretty sure I used the "if he can do it, so can I" mentality to force myself out the door. My competitive nature helps a lot sometimes.

Wednesday - Planned six miles with 3 @ MP, actual 5 miles tempo



I slept in on Wednesday and opted to do this run during an hour window I had between meetings at work. I had high hopes of cramming in all six miles, but by the time I got out the door, I knew I wouldn't have time. I made do with what I could and did five miles at a faster tempo to make up for missing one of the miles.

Thursday - Lift

Upper body and core with some of my physical therapy exercises thrown in at the end for good measure.

Friday - 3 miles easy

I think this was my favorite run of the week. 1. It was nice and short. 2. It wasn't fast. #winning.

Saturday - 13 mile long run

This run started out a little slow. I could definitely feel the fatigue in my legs, but the temperatures were in the low 70's at the start so that really helped me settle into a nice groove. I kept it nice and easy, around a 10-minute mile pace, and felt pretty good through out most of the run. Then I came home and treated myself to a nice ice bath.



Ok really ice baths suck, but they are hands down one of the best ways to prevent post-long run soreness. I have been relying on them heavily to get me through my training with minimal soreness so I can tackle all my workouts well.

Sunday - Rest

Total mileage for the week: 32

All in all it was a really solid week of training. Here's hoping for many more of these in the future!

In all my years of running and training for races, I have always struggled with tempo-style runs. For some reason, I can never quite master the start slow, build to fast in the middle and then end slow.

I either start too fast and burn out or start too slow and can't pick up the pace to where I need it to be for my tempo miles.

And trying to maintain an even pace during the tempo miles has always been practically impossible, especially over longer distances.

But last night, I finally nailed it.



The training planned called for six miles with three at marathon pace. I picked a route that I knew would be gentle on the hills during the faster miles and hit the road.

My plan was two warm up miles, three MP miles and one cool down mile.

The two warm up miles were dicey. My calves rebelled and I had to stop numerous times to stretch them out. They were so tight that even stretching hurt. I would hobble a few steps, stretch, jog, and repeat until finally I just gave up and decided to push through.

When Garmin beeped that I'd gone two miles, I picked up the pace -- of course way too fast at first. I glanced down at Garmin and saw I was pacing an 8:30 mile. I reigned it in a little bit and saw I was pacing 9:30. Picked it back up until I was finally able to find that 9:00 per mile happy medium.

I tried to keep the effort consistent throughout the three marathon pace miles. I did an OK job:

Mile 3: 9:09
Mile 4: 9:07
Mile 5: 8:57

And then boom, as soon as my faster miles were finished, my stomach spazzed out and I slowed to a shuffle and then a walk to calm it down.

I alternated shuffling and walking the rest of the way home, trying to get my stomach to mellow out. It never really did, but I still finished with an overall solid pace.

Those of you who have been reading for a while know that I studied journalism at the University of Maryland, and after graduating worked at a newspaper for a year before switching jobs to work in full-time in social media.

Even though I don't work in traditional journalism anymore, I'm still a true journalism geek at heart. The news excites me. I love holding a hard copy newspaper in my hands (which pretty much only happens when I'm home visiting my parents), and I think it's thrilling to watch breaking news unravel.



Last night, my friend Emily, who happens to be a reporter at the Washington Post, took a group of us on a tour of the paper's newsroom.


Emily showing off the old school printing press.

It's been several years since my last tour of the Post. My sports journalism teacher took our class back when I was a junior in college, and things had certainly changed a lot in that time.

Since then all the Post properties (newspaper, website, magazines, etc.) were consolidated into one building, so last night we got to see all sorts of different groups at work: the news desk, the politics people and of course sports and style.

I got to spend a few minutes catching up with my buddy Clinton Yates, who I interned with wayyyyy back in the day before he ran off to do important work on deadline.

Emily also gave us a brief history of the paper, when it was sold, how the Graham family took it over and turned it into what it is today.


Old front pages

There are very few times when I miss working in traditional journalism, but last night definitely reminded me of how much fun it can be working in a newsroom.

This week it's felt like summer has officially come to an end.

Football has started. (It's only the pre-season, but whatever.)

I went to my first soccer tailgate and game of the season last night at UMD.

And the weather was nice and comfortable on my run this morning.



If this weather wanted to stick around, you certainly wouldn't hear any complaining from me.

I knocked out an easy four miler this morning, and it didn't feel like I was running through a swamp. I still went nice and slow because it was a recovery run, but everything felt good. Even my cranky calves didn't bother me too much.

We'll chalk this up as a win on the training front.

Unfortunately typical summer temps are going to be back in a few weeks, but until then, I'll just enjoy these slightly cooler morning runs and keep wishing for fall to really get here.

With the major lack of chatter about marathon training going on over here, you might have forgotten that I was in the middle of training for one.

I've gotten a little lazy with my training recaps. Whoops.

So to catch everyone up on how things have been going, here's a quick rundown of my first two weeks of training.

Week One:

Monday: 6 miles of hill



It was humid, it was hilly and it was painful. But I got it done and kicked off training on a good note.

Tuesday: 4 miles easy

Well nothing about the run actually felt easy, even though I was moving out a snail's pace. My legs were unhappy after the hill work the day before.

Wednesday: Hauling luggage 25 blocks in NYC

I traveled up to NYC and ended up lugging my massive duffel bag 25 blocks to the hotel. I think that counts as cross-training.

Thursday: Bootcamp with Army drill sergeants



This was a fun class and definitely something different that I got to try on my NYC trip.

Friday: BowFlex and Physique 57 classes



You might remember my review of the Physique 57 class I took in NYC - aka the hardest workout I have ever done in my entire life. My legs were jello afterward and it was awesome.

Saturday: Softball tournament

Lots of softball all day long. Sprinting the bases totally counts as strides or something.

Sunday: 10 mile long run

This run started off so promising. Sure I was going pretty slowly because it was hot, but I felt good and I was excited to be running double digits again. Then stomach disaster struck in the last 1.5 miles and I had to walk the rest of the way home. Not the best way to end a run.

Overall, my first week of training wasn't perfectly by the book because of my NYC trip, but I managed to squeeze in lots of good workouts and cross-training, though no real rest day. Perhaps that explains why the beginning of week two was so brutal.

Week Two:

Monday: Planned - 7 miles hills; Actual - 4 miles hills, 30 minute swim

Or at least that's the what the schedule called for. Instead I did four miles of hills before my legs were like no way, we need a break. They were tight, they were cranky and they were straight up over this workout. So I headed home, did some work and then decided to hit the pool to shake things out. Did 30 minutes of easy swimming and felt pretty rough the whole time.

Tuesday: Planned - 4 miles easy; Actual - 30 minutes spin

My legs needed a break from running. After my miserable workouts Monday, I was still trying to figure out a good way to shake things out and get everything loose, I thought a trainer ride would help with that, so I did 30 minutes followed by a lot of stretching.

Wednesday: 6 miles with 2 at marathon pace

It was so humid when I started this workout, but I somehow managed to nail my two miles at MP. I was completely gassed afterward though and did a lot of walking in mile five to recover. But I was just happy that I was finally able to nail a marathon pace workout because this summer my times have sucked so bad.

Thursday: Lifting

Even though we're marathon training, Emily and I are trying to stick with our plan of lifting once a week during our lunch break at work. We mainly focus on upper body and core to give our legs a break.

Friday: 3 miles easy

Yay for short easy runs. They're a nice mental break from everything else.

Saturday: 12 mile long run



It was a little bit cooler on this run and definitely cloudy, which helped mentally. My stomach also decided to play nice and I was able to polish off all 12 miles without too much of a problem. I just need to find a better way to end long runs. Having to run the last mile completely uphill is torture. I need to find a new way out o the park so I can avoid that.

Sunday: Rest.

Finally a glorious rest day, where I sat on my butt, caught up on TV and then watched my friends' softball games. It was the perfect end to a great week of training.

I have to say, so far I'm feeling good about this training cycle. I know it's still super early and I have plenty more weeks where I will probably feel some of the motivation slipping a bit, but right now I'm still riding that early stages of training high, so I'm just going to roll with it.

It's Restaurant Week in DC, which means all the pricey restaurants that I normally can't afford are offering fixed menus for a lower price.

Last night, my friend Emily and I tried Co Co Sala, a restaurant and chocolate boutique in Penn Quarter.



I was sold on this place minutes after glancing over the menu and seeing every dish somehow incorporated chocolate. (You can check out the Restaurant Week menu here. Warning, it's a PDF.)

#chocolatedinner for the win.

The first thing I noticed when we got inside was just how dark it was. The only light came from the flickering candles on the tables.

Emily and I were tucked into a back corner, next to a couple I'm fairly certain were on a date. They were very nice though, and by the end of dinner we were chatting with them as we all took pictures of our food and apologized for the flash going off.

(Yea I had to use the flash, tried to take a picture without it and this is how it turned out.)



Aside from the fact it was a little hard to read the menu and see Emily across the table from me, dinner was awesome.

It started off with frozen hot chocolate shots (or sips as the menu referred to them.) Starting dinner with dessert is never a problem for me.



Salads were up next. We both got the summer peach salad, which was garnished with chocolate croutons and big slices of peach.



Turns out chocolate croutons are kind of delicious.

The main course consisted of a few small plates. I picked the shrimp mac and cheese and the crab cakes which were glazed with a chocolate tomato sauce. Emily opted for the bacon mac and cheese (so, soooo good) and the flatbread.



I loved the crab cakes, but immediately wished I had ordered the bacon mac instead of the shrimp mac. The shrimp mac wasn't bad. The bacon mac was just better, and I was glad Emily was willing to share because holy yum it was good.

Dessert, as you can probably imagine, was awesome. I had a chocolate chip shortcake with slow roasted pineapple that was the perfect combo of fruity and decadent.



Emily went for the straight chocolate and had some of the richest chocolate mousse I've ever tasted in my life along with vanilla creme brulee.



Overall dinner was amazing. I mean you pretty much can't go wrong if chocolate is part of every dish. For as small as the portions were, I left the restaurant surprisingly stuffed.

While my budget won't let me indulge at Co Co Sala very often, I'm really glad I got the chance to sample a bunch of the food during Restaurant Week. It's definitely a place worth keeping in mind for special occasions.

The other day at work my coworkers and I were having a discussion about the awesome games/toys we played with growing up as children of the late 80's/early 90's.

Mall Madness, Dream Phone, Girl Talk. Do those games ring a bell for any of you?



I can still hear the mechanical voice form Mall Madness saying "There is a sale at the sunglasses boutique."

At some point in the conversation, we started talking about Barbie dolls, and how much we all loved playing with them when we were growing up.

(Source)

My mom and I used to play with Barbies for hours while my brother napped. We'd take them to the "mall" and dress them up and make them try on outfits for hours.

(Ok usually this consisted of my mom dressing the Barbies because I had a hard time getting their clothes on, but you know it still counts.)

When my brother was older and had amassed a collection of Batman toys, we used play together, and Batman would take Barbie on dates in the Batmobile (My brother will now kill me for telling that story on the Internet...sorry little bro).

As my coworkers and I were laughing and exchanging Barbie stories, we hit upon the topic that almost everyone talks about these days when it comes to Barbie.

Does she give girls a bad body image?

(Source)

This train of thought drives me completely freaking bananas.

I cannot tell you how sick I am of hearing people say Barbie is the reason that some girls hate their bodies.

Barbie is nothing more than a toy. Sure she has massive boobs and a teeny tiny waist and if she were a real person she wouldn't be able to survive with those proportions. I get that.


 

But as a little girl, I can tell you I honestly didn't pick up on it or care. I just wanted Barbie to have some cute clothes (this makes me laugh now because I am the least fashion forward person in the world) and to go on fun adventures in the Barbie Jeep.

Most of my Barbies were hand-me-downs from my cousins (as was about half my wardrobe as a kid). I played with them because my cousins at one point thought they were super cool, so obviously they must have been.


My paternal cousins in 1989. I obviously wanted to be just like the older girls growing up.

Growing up, I didn't want to be or look like Barbie. I wanted to be just like my cousins. Real people that I thought were sooooo beyond cool because they were older than me and allowed to do stuff I wasn't. Like wear perfume and eat white bread and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Back in the day I thought that was a huge privlege. My mom wouldn't buy stuff like that.

Fun fact: Even though we're all grown up, I still think my cousins are some of the most awesome people around and if I grow up to be just like them, it wouldn't be a bad thing.



I don't think we give kids enough credit. I mean, I don't know too many people who say they want to grow up and be just like a toy. More often, I hear kids say they want to be teachers or astronauts or firefighters.

So I think it's crap when people blame Barbie.

Sure I had my fair share of insecurities growing up, most kids do, but I can promise it wasn't because I didn't look just like Barbie.

For the record, my parents packed up all my Barbies when I grew out of them and put them in storage. My mom said we'd save them so I could let my own daughter play with them some day.

If/when I grow up/get married/have kids, I would have no problem with my kids playing with Barbies. I don't think they send a bad message to little girls. I think they are a toy, one of many in the world, that kids can play with, and that's it.

So I vote we stop blaming a toy for kids' body image issues because are we really OK with giving a toy that much power?

You know how they say bull sharks have a stomach of steel because they will eat literally anything, including old car parts and other random debris found in the ocean?

(Source)

(If you don't know this fun fact, you obviously don't watch enough Shark Week.)

When it came to pre-run nutrition, I used to be the bull shark with the stomach of steel. I could eat or drink pretty much whatever I wanted before I left for a run and wouldn't have a single problem.


Me and sharks, the resemblance is uncanny

In the 6+ years I've been running, I can count on one hand the number of times I've had any sort of GI issues on a run.

Until this training cycle.

In two weeks, I have now had two major stomach issues on runs.

One was during my first long run of training. With 1.5 miles to go, my stomach revolted, and I had to walk the rest of the way home.

The second happened last night. I headed out for my seven miler and a half mile in, I had to turn around and head back home.

After my stomach calmed down, I went back out to finish my run. It ended up being the most miserable run ever. After all my stomach issues, I was super dehydrated. I managed to kill my entire water bottle by mile four and I was so so thirsty for the rest of the run.

I think I have a hunch what caused both stomach flare ups, and if I'm right, I'll be pretty shocked because it's never caused problems before.

I guess I can kiss my stomach of steel goodbye. I'm going to have to pay much more attention to pre-run nutrition to prevent future stomach emergencies because let me tell you, they are not fun at all.

Just a quick informal poll this morning in honor of the men's Olympic marathon.

If you could win one race, would you prefer to win the Olympic marathon or the Boston marathon and why?

Discuss in the comments. I'll share some later this week!

Go Team USA!

Happy Friday! I'm so excited the weekend is almost here.

For some reason, this week has gone exceptionally slow, and I've been itching for the weekend to get here since Monday. I have super exciting plans for a long run and some softball. Man I live such a thrilling life!



You know what else has been going slowly lately?

My runs.

It pains me to look at Garmin and see how slow my times are this summer.



I know it's just because of the heat and the humidity and that when fall rolls around and we finally get some relief from this weather, my normal running times will return. But it's still frustrating.

Take Wednesday's run for example. The training schedule called for six miles with two at marathon pace. The plan was to use the first two miles as a warm up, hit marathon pace for miles three and four, and then cool it down easy on miles four and five. Sounds easy enough, right?

The first two miles went OK. They were slow, so, so slow and it was so humid, but I got through them.

Then came the speedier miles. I felt like I was pushing with every ounce of energy and effort in my body, and I was struggling to maintain a 9:09 pace. I somehow managed to get those two miles to clock in on pace, but I had nothing left when I was done.

You would have thought I just flat out sprinted for two miles, I was so gassed.

I tried to keep shuffling my feet forward in mile five, but I eventually had to stop and walk. I was pretty much gasping for air and my legs were toast and couldn't handle the hills. Mile five clocked in at like 11:11.

The last mile wasn't so bad since there were some nice downhill sections, but overall this run was just brutal.

It amazes me that just a few months ago, I was able to break two hours in the half by running faster than a 9:09 pace for 13.1 miles, and this week, it nearly killed me to run that pace for two miles.


Happier running times

I know this is a fact of life with summer running, and I know I'm not the only one it's affecting. But man am I ever ready for fall.

Better running weather, tailgate season and football...lots and lots of football!


Only three more weeks til I'm reunited with my tailgate crew!

Thank you for all your suggestions on yesterday's post about my mysterious calf cramping issues. I definitely appreciated all the feedback.

A few of you suggested it could be my work shoes causing the problem because they have a heel. While I know that walking around in heels is definitely not good for my calves, I'm not sure that's the problem here. I've been wearing those shoes for a while and haven't ever had problems with them before, plus the heel is only like 1.5 inches tops.



But just in case that's the issue, I'm going to make sure to wear flatter shoes on a more regular basis.

More likely though, I think the culprit is what several of you pointed out -- electrolyte deficiency.

I drink a ton of water during the day, which is good for hydration, but apparently bad for diluting electrolytes. And as much as I've been sweating on my runs lately, I know I'm losing a lot of electrolytes that way.



It doesn't help that I'm also probably the only runner in the world that absolutely hates bananas. Like seriously, they are vile. So I'm definitely not getting my potassium from them. Which begs the question....where exactly am I getting my potassium?

Uhhh...

So my new plan of attack is to start sipping on some Nuun more often.



I usually carry Gatorade with me on my long runs, but Nuun will work better on my shorter runs when I don't need all the calories in Gatorade. I also think it would be good to start drinking some Nuun the night before my runs to top of the electrolyte supplies, at least while these awful summer running conditions stick around.

So that's my plan of attack for now. I'm hoping the combo of flats, more electrolytes and wearing my compression sleeves will help beat these stupid calf cramps.

I've been noticing a less-than-fun trend on my runs lately.

About a mile in to my workouts, my calves start to seize up like crazy, to the point that it's painful every time my foot hits the ground.



I end up having to pull off to the side of the road and spend a solid five to 10 minutes stretching everything out. Usually after that, I can continue on my run without too much of a problem.

I've never really had this happen before, and I'm not sure what's causing it now, but it's starting to get extremely annoying.

I'm not sure if it's a heat and humidity thing, a dehydration thing (although I highly doubt that one) or is a result of something else all together, so I'm not sure what the best plan of attack is to prevent it from happening.

I've started wearing my compression sleeves more often to keep the blood flowing through my legs, but even that's not really helping.


Purple compression sleeves totally match my black and white dress at work.

I'm usually pretty good about stretching after my runs, and I drink a ton of water during the day, so I don't think it's either of those things.

Anyone have any other suggestions or tips for how I can prevent this from happening. The last thing I want is to have this happen in the middle of a race when I'd lose valuable time trying to get everything to loosen up.

It's been ages since I've done a good old fashion survey-style blog post. So when I saw this one pop up on Clare's blog the other day, I decided to play along.

Here we go!

1. Run/workout in the heat and humidity or freezing temps and snow?

Freezing temps and snow! I hate, hate, hate winter as a general season, but it's awesome for running. Training through the DC heat and humidity this summer has been torture.

Freezing my butt off with Megan and Emily after the Love the Run Your With 5K

2. Have washboard abs or flat abs?

LOL at the thought of me ever having either. But I'd take flat.

3. Dr. Oz or The Doctors?

I don't watch either.

4. Cardio or strength?

I'm a runner so cardio is obviously my go-to, but I've been trying to be better about strength training. It's why Emily and I lift during our lunch breaks once a week!




5. Cravings: Protein or carbs?

Carbs, especially in the form of sweets. Chocolate, brownies, cupcakes, nom nom nom.

6. Jillian Michaels or Bob Harper?

If I were to have a trainer scream in my face, I'd want it to be Jillian Michaels. Girl would probably kick my butt in the best possible way.

7. Frozen Yogurt or Ice Cream?

I definitely eat frozen yogurt more often because there's a million fro-yo places in DC, but there's nothing better than a yummy sundae made with some Turkey Hill ice cream.

The makings of a great sundae. Just ignore that health magazine.

8. To train: Upper body or Lower body?

Naturally my legs are stronger from all the running I do, so when I hit the weights, I try to focus on upper body to keep things sort of balanced.

9. Protein powder or food with protein?

Food with protein! But since I don't eat a lot of meat, sometimes I supplement with protein powder in my smoothies. Or you know, just drink a whole bunch of chocolate milk after my runs, either works.

10. Lunges or squats?

Squats! No matter how careful I am with my form on lunges, I'm always worried I'm going to hurt my knees.

11. Sweet or salty?

Sweets, hands down, every day of the week.

12. Workout attire: cute or comfy?

Can't it be both? I won't buy something if it looks ugly, but if a something rubs the wrong way on a run, I'll never wear it again. So I guess a little bit of both.

Cute and comfy

13. Body Pump or Heavy lifting?

Back in my fitness instructor days at UMD, I used to teach a class similar to Body Pump. It was fun, and I really enjoyed it. I'm definitely not a power lifter, but these days I lean more toward higher weight, fewer reps.

14. Yoga or Pilates?

Yoga! Fun fact, I'm a certified yoga instructor.



15. Nike or Adidas?

When it comes to apparel, everyone knows I'm an Under Armour girl at heart. And my shoes are Mizunos. I do own a few pair of Nike tempo shorts though, so I guess between Nike and Adidas, Nike wins.

16. Running on the treadmill or outdoors?

Outdoors all the way.

17. Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s?

My grocery bill is expensive enough as it is shopping at a conventional grocery store. I refuse to have it double by shopping at Whole Foods. Plus, Whole Foods just has a vibe about it that I'm not a huge fan of. Trader Joe's wins here.

18. Summer or Winter Olympics?

Summer. Track, swimming, gymnastics, the marathon.

19. Exercises classes or Exercise videos?

Classes because you get to work out with other people, which automatically makes it more fun. Plus I used to teach group fitness classes back in the day.



20. Steamed veggies or roasted veggies?

Roasted veggies actually have flavor, so they win.

Your turn! Pick a few questions to answer in the comments!