Berlin: What to Do & What to Eat

Every summer since we have been together, Mike and I make a point to get away for a week, usually traveling to Central America or the Caribbean. This year I really wanted to go to Europe. It had been a few years since I'd been transatlantic and was dying to get back, even if that meant leaving my relaxing beach week behind.

We ended up settling on Berlin for a few reasons. For one, I had always wanted to go there since I did my study abroad in Rome. My roommates went for a weekend and said they had a blast. Secondly, Berlin is billed as being pretty cheap for a major European capital. Now having returned, I can vouch for that. We spent less money than we did on our honeymoon in Costa Rica and I still have euros left over!

Running aside, there is plenty to do in Berlin and we easily filled 8 days with activities. I won't torture you with the 500+ photos that I took. Instead, here is a sampling:

Complimentary breakfast every morning at the hotel usually included green tea, fruit salad, yogurt with muesli (there's so much muesli in Europe!) and toast or a roll with jam

We walked 3-6 miles every day cruising the sites and just enjoying the city:

Cool sculpture on Kurfurstendamm Strasse

Potsdamer Platz

The Bode Museum. We saw 15+ museums and memorial sites

Schloss Sanssouci in Potsdam

At the Reichstag on a gloomy day

Berlin Wall Memorial

At the Berlin Zoo

On our last day, when we felt comfortable with the roads, we rented biked and cruised around for 6 hours

I've never seen so many cyclists in any city. All ages. Everywhere. 

Food-wise, I can't recommend Berlin enough. Surprisingly we ate cuisine from all over the world except for traditional German fare. The city is extremely diverse and international. You can find everything from Chinese to Italian to Vietnamese to Ethiopian.

Bruschetta for one? Yes please! From one of the many amazing food trucks at the Sunday flea market, Flohmarkt am Mauerpark

From another flea market cart - perfectly ripe watermelon spears in a cup

So many wonderfully delicious quick-stop cafes for pizza and panini

Many scrumptious salads were eaten:

But don't worry. I ate lots of dessert too!

And you better believe I raided the grocery store our last night to smuggle these treats home. I won't tell you how long it took me to go through them

Lastly, this is Germany, so of course there was beer:

They were all awesome and all as cheap as a bottle of sparkling water 

And wine. We can't forget about cheap, delicious, European wine

We now return you to your regularly scheduled running programming. 

The Latest

Oops, its been awhile. The last month and a half has been a whirlwind. Weddings, summer class, vacation planning, work, work, work, etc, etc.

When we last spoke I talked a little about my leg pains post River Towns Marathon. After taking one full week for recovery immediately after the race I had a good running week. Then, the next week I started having IT Band pain in my left leg (typical left leg!). The pain didn't start until between miles 4-6 and everytime it started I stopped running shortly thereafter. After 3 runs of this happening I finally cooled my jets and took five full days off. Since then I haven't had any pain. I also went back to PT and haven't been running "normal," but no pain is no pain. And hey, I can totally deal with 6 weeks of lesser running when I've spent 6-7 weeks with no running with my last two injuries. I caught this one in time and nipped it in the bud.

After spending about 3 weeks on the treadmill I went outside this Saturday for 8 miles. Man, were they tough! The first few miles felt like the worst, but by the end I think my body had re-acclimated to road running. The good thing is that since I never really stopped running, I haven't lost much endurance. That's nice, because I have a marathon in 12 weeks and no time to waste!

Since I've been such a bad blogger I may as well catch you guys up with some pics of the last 5 weeks.

I actually put on real people clothes for a few big events:



My sister's college graduation!

 

For a wedding

More wedding

Another wedding. PS. Don't wear black when its 90 degrees and an outdoor cocktail hour

I ate some yummy food:

Bean sprouts belong on everything



 

I went running in NYC:

 

I like to call this one "the first humid day of the summer when you realize how much things will suck until October"

 

All in all, things have been good here in Philadelphia. 

The Non-Marathon Birthday Weekend

If there was one thing I definitely wanted to do the weekend of my 27th birthday, it was run a marathon. Unfortunately, after last week's River Towns Marathon, I developed some right leg issues and had to forego this weekend's race.

Right leg aside, my recovery actually went picture perfect and all of the residual soreness went away by Tuesday. I doubled up on PT exercises and foam rolling, slept every night in my compression shorts and sleeves, iced all of my aching parts, and even got a sports massage on Wednesday.

I did run 3 miles on the treadmill on Thursday and while they weren't explicitly painful, they just didn't feel right. When I woke up Friday morning my right quad definitely felt inflamed and at that point I decided to drop out of Sunday's race. It was a really hard decision to make, but when I started bargaining with myself about how I would let myself start the race, but promise to drop out if it started hurting, I realized I shouldn't be running in the first place. My races this month were all about having fun, but how can I have fun if I spend a whole race worrying about whether something will start hurting too much? If you think there is a good chance you will DNF, save yourself the prolonged injury and just back off.

I have a doctor's appointment this Thursday and hopefully we will get things sorted out. I've never really had a right leg problem before. It's always in my left. And this time the pain isn't in one specific place. It comes in waves of tingling and moderate spurts of pain over the top and interior side of my quad and sometimes in my IT band right above the knee. I'm still continuing all of my hip strengthening exercises that solved my IT band pain in the winter and I've also been rolling out my lower back, which has helped immensely. I'm thinking it might be nerve related, but we shall see.

Despite my running plans being ruined, I still had an awesome birthday weekend. I had some fun shopping and then Mike took me to my favorite Philly restaurant, Audrey Claire.

Dessert was from Crumbs Cupcakes:

Overall, a great weekend. And, marathon or no marathon, I still got to run one last weekend, so I can't really complain!

A Once in a Lifetime Blog Post About Weight Loss

To be clear, this is a running blog, not a weight loss blog. I don't believe running and weight loss automatically go hand in hand. Sure, weight loss can be a nice side effect of running, but it is by no means guaranteed. If your #1 reason to run a marathon is to "lose weight," then in my opinion you are probably doing it for the wrong reasons. When it comes to adding miles, its actually fairly easy to gain weight by overeating. I gained a few pounds during my first marathon training cycle. I didn't mind however, because weight loss wasn't important. Crossing the finish line was.

I love food and I strive for moderation, but truthfully overeating has always been a problem for me. Fortunately I've still picked up a lot of good habits over the past years that have helped transform my diet. I've learned that adding healthy habits one at a time is the best way to go. If you do it all at once, it can be too overwhelming. Over time I replaced soda and juice with water, white grains for brown, french fries for salad and veggies. My tastes have changed and now I legitimately enjoy eating healthy foods. I will always look for a side of brussels sprouts on a menu before anything else and dinner at the Every Day Is Run Day house is usually pretty healthy:


Quinoa patties

Salmon and wild rice

Turkey burger and green bean "fries"

All that said, I really enjoy dessert too and I don't think I could live without sugar. Don't steal any of my chocolate chip cookies unless you're looking to get smacked.


Pinkberry

Crumbs

The most importrant part of the day - dessert table

In my short running career I have been injured twice and each time I stopped running completely for about 6-7 weeks. I don't know about some people (aka my husband), but I was not born with a runner's physique. So after about 3 weeks of not running, despite whatever cross training I am doing, my body starts to take on weight again. Each injury I've gained about 6-8 pounds and even after I've started running again, the weight does not easily come off (like I said, running and weight loss don't necessarily go hand-in-hand). After the first injury I forced the weight off because I had to fit into my wedding dress (very stressful, I don't recommend!). This time, I didn't have a pretty outfit that I had to wear in front of a hundred people motivating me to lose the pounds. So, in a last stitch effort to get back down to my racing weight (and fit properly into my pants again), I joined a DietBet game.

I found out about DietBet through some other blogs and after looking into it more I decided to give it a whirl. Essentially, you bet money to join a game and have 28 days to lose 4% of your body weight. You submit photos (only seen by the mods) at the beginning and end of the game with your starting and final weight. At the end of the 28 days everyone who has lost 4% splits the pot. The game is set up sort of like a Facebook newsfeed, with participants posting their work out details, accomplishments, motivational words for others, etc. Even though its online, there is definitely a community aspect that I could see being helpful to a lot of people.

For me, I didn't join for the message boards or the support network. I joined because I like money and hate losing it. I figured if I actually laid money down on the line, it would actually motivate me enough to moderate my eating habits and get back to base. Turns out I was right:

Sweet!

Over the 28 days I didn't change what I ate, as much as how much I was eating. I still enjoyed dessert on occasion, but didn't fill up my bowl quite as much at dinner (usually a major source of my overeating). I also watched my food choices a little more on the weekend. I don't consider what I did a "diet." I just used a little more self-control without causing any feelings of deprivation.

At the end of the game, I lost 7 pounds and won $43. Good deal!

Running and weight loss - what are your thoughts? Have you ever done a DietBet?

What the Doctor Ordered

First of all, thank you all so much for your comments and emails on my last post. I promise that even if I don't reply, I do read everything you guys send me (often more than once!) and truly appreciate it. One of the best things about being part of the running blogger community, is how supportive we all are of each other. So, thank you!

On that note, I promise this will be a much less depressing post than my last one. To be honest, I rewrote that post so many times, I didn't realize how depressing it sounded until Mike told me and everyone started texting me and asking if I was alright. Last weekend was rough. Very rough, actually. But thankfully a very good week followed it and I don't think I will be hitting bottom again. 95% of the time I'm a pretty optimistic person. As Elle Woods would say, "exercise gives you endorphins and endorphins make you happy." Truth, but you can still get yourself down sometimes.

Anyway, here are a few reasons my week turned out better:

1. The weather

Enough said

2. A good set of weekday runs

All of my Tuesday-Thursday runs were fantastic this week. I ended up doing two our four of them on the treadmill (it was actually too hot out at lunchtime at 85 degrees), but finally caved and bought a Spotify Premium membership, so I jammed to that the whole time.

3. Embracing Flexibility

This weekend was another busy weekend with lots of things on my to-do list. I wanted to attempt a 20 miler, continue researching my paper, write 10 pages of said paper, and get some other homework done as well. Leading up to this weekend I felt okay, but on Thursday I was up all night dealing with work stress and it melted into Friday when I started to freak out about getting everything done this weekend.  I was actually sick to my stomach over it on Friday morning and barely got down my breakfast (nothing usually keeps me from my oatmeal). Eventually I made an executive decision to hold off on one of my assignments and leave it for next week. Sure, it would have been great to have done it this weekend, but with a Monday deadline for my paper, that was the priority. After the decision I felt much less stressed and went into Friday night feeling super.

4. My Long Run

Which brings us to Saturday morning. This weekend I decided to do my long run on Saturday. Really, that's how it should always be. I always wake up stressed out on Sunday because I feel like I have a million things to do. Running for three hours on top of it, is just a recipe for disaster (see last weekend). I knew if I wanted to run and do everything else, that I had to run early. I can't be stressed about running instead of doing homework if I would have been sleeping anyway, right? I set my alarm for 5 am Saturday, snoozed it until 5:30, and was out the door by 6.

Right from the start, it was a great run. The sun was coming up. The roads were empty. The cherry blossoms had bloomed and their was a gentle dew all over the river grass. A thick fog enveloped the river, but here and there I could make out the crew teams rowing through it.

This was my first 20 miler in five months (JFK was almost exactly 5 months ago). After such a long hiatus, 20 miles definitely felt a little scary. My past experience has shown me that the first 20 miler of any training cycle is always rough, so I hadn't really been looking forward to this run. Even though I mapped it out, I didn't really pay attention to the mile markers.

Good morning Philadelphia!

Even though I love being close to the trails where we live now, I really miss living downtown. A nice run through the empty 7 am streets was just what I needed.

Since I didn't know the mile markers I just assumed I was going at about a 10 minute pace, which was totally fine. I like to run long and slow for these kinds of distances in training. Even though the run started great, I was feeling fatigued after an hour and a half already. When I got back to the river to head home I checked my watch to try and figure out how fast I had been going. I knew at that point that I was about 6 miles from home and was kind of shocked to see a 2:12, instead of a 2:20 on my watch. Since there is no sense in wasting a speedier-than-I-thought run, I decided to try and kick it into gear the rest of the way home. I put on some tunes, passed a bunch of people, and made it back to my front door 3 hours and 2 minutes after I left. Not the 3:20 I was expecting. I actually remapped my whole run to see if I had run less than I thought, but I didn't. Turns out I ran the first 14 miles in a 9:15 average and the last 6 in an 8:31 average. Negative splits for the win!

After peeling through all my running data, I figured out that not only was this my fastest 20 mile training run, but my fastest by a whole 9 minutes. I've run a fair share of 20 milers (I think 7 alone in JFK training), but they always ended up in the 9:30s or slower. This run was a HUGE confidence booster, especially since a) it was my first in 5 months and b) I didn't really feel like I was trying that hard. I really don't have any plans to PR at the Delaware Marathon in May, but at least now I feel better about trying to run reasonably well.

5) A visit from my favorite person

After such a great morning I had no doubts that day would be fantastic, especially since my Mom was coming up from DC for an afternoon visit. I know I'm almost 27 years old and an adult, but I still feel like a little girl who needs her mommy sometimes. We hung out for a few hours, shopped, ate, and all my stress just melted away. A mommy-daughter day was exactly what I needed.

Plus amazing goat cheese salad from our dinner

So yes, it was a better week. My to-do list certainly won't be any shorter in the coming weeks, but I feel like I got some of my mojo back, and that makes a whole lot of difference. 

How Many Pills Does It Take To Get a Runner Going?

As I deal with this knee thing, every day I'm constantly questioning what I can do to get better and stronger. This of course includes resting and icing and working out other muscles that can support the injured area, but in my case (and probably some of your's as well) it also includes a daily regimen of supplements. A part of me feels like I'm being a responsible runner and making sure I get all of the nutrients I need to be healthy. The other part of me worries about what sorts of chemicals I'm really putting in my body and whether its worth it. Right now I take a multivitamin, fish oil, calcium, and glucosamine supplement every day. That's just enough to make me feel like I'm slightly overdoing it.

The bigger problem, however, is not the supplements, but the pain meds. I sort of touched on this in my JFK recap, when I felt forced to take pain meds during the race, which I religiously never do. Even though I try never to take it during or before exercise, however, I have been taking it a lot afterwards. In fact, last week I realized that I have probably taken at least one Ibuprofen after my workouts every day for 5+ months since JFK training started and definitely more than one a day since my knee issue. It just became a standard part of my day and I didn't think twice about it.

As I was mulling over my discomfort last week the NY Times coincidentally published an article about this very predicament. Likewise, Runner's World has a small paragraph in their January 2013 edition about what recovery methods should and should not be employed.

NSAIDS - "Skip it!"

Every time I get injured or have a hard workout I always hear "ice, compression, anti-inflammatory, rest." But is taking Ibuprofen really the answer to reducing inflammation? Or rather, is it worth reducing inflammation if might cause more serious problems down the line? For me, the answer is no, its not worth it. So late last week I made an executive decision for myself not to take it anymore.
.
My immediate next question was "what can I do to reduce inflammation around my knees (or other injured areas) without taking meds?" Not surprisingly the answer was just a Google search away. Just a sample of the many articles here, here, and here. A number of different foods appear on any one list, but there are a few that keep coming up. Mainly:

- Broccoli (and other cruciferous greens)
- Salmon
- Ginger
- Green tea
- Olive oil
- Blueberries (and berries in general)

Obviously these are all good things to eat anyway, but now that I know they double as good anti-inflammatories I will be upping my intake on all of the above. Luckily these are foods I already incorporate into my daily diet. Broccoli and brussels sprouts are like candy to me and I have green tea every morning and ginger tea every night. So maybe I am already doing a lot to keep inflammation down. And who knows, maybe the Ibuprofen wasn't even helping because I was already eating the right foods.

Load 'em up!

Do you take supplements every day? What are your thoughts on anti-inflammatories?

A Running Q&A

Just because I'm not running doesn't mean I can't talk running. A runner's survey has been floating around the blogosphere the past few days. I swiped it from this girl. Surveys are fun, so let's do this thing!

1. FUEL: Shot Bloks, GU, Energy Chews, Candy or Other?

Other. As in pretzels, Fig Newtons, Swedish Fish, raisins, animal crackers, M&Ms, you get the idea. Once upon a time I actually used gels and all of that crap, but then my stomach decided it wasn't cool with that anymore. It worked out nicely because ultras tend to have "real" food anyway and my stomach is ready to roll with that. My absolute fav? Darrell Lea Liquorice. Mango flavor is the best. Drooling right now thinking about it.



Pre-JFK shopping

2. Race Length: 5K, 10K, 1/2 Marathon, Marathon, Ultra or Other?

Marathon. Hands down. I love the extra challenge of ultras, but 26.2 miles is just like heaven to me. A 20 mile long run + a 10k race. Sweet and simple. I used to dabble in shorter distances, but eventually decided that I rather save my money for marathons and ultras.

3. Workout Bottoms: Skirts, Running Shorts, Capris, Pants, or Other?

Shorts. Specifically Lululemon Speed or Turbo Shorts. I do own one sparkle skirt, but rarely have an occasion to wear it.

4. Sports Drink: Gatorade, Powerade, Cytomax, you stick to water when you run or Other?

Water and salt pills during the run. Electrolytes afterwards. I fell in love with Gatorade this summer for post-run delights. 95 degrees and 100% humidity will make your body beg for it.
 
5. Running temperatures: HOT or COLD?

Cold. 44 degrees to be precise.

6. Running Shoe Brands: Saucony, Mizuno, Nike, Brooks, Asics, or Other?

I spread the wealth to most of the major brands, but my one true love is the Saucony Kinvara. So many colors, you have to try them all!

7. Pre-Race Meal: Oatmeal. Bagel, Banana, Eggs, Cereal or Other?

Banana and Nature Valley peanut butter granola bar.

8. Rest Days: 1x per week, 2x per week, never ever ever or Other?

In a perfect world? Mondays off. That's it.

9. Music: Have to have it or go without it?

Both. I dig it on weekend long runs. I will not run with music in the dark, which pretty much counts out any early morning or evening weekday runs (in the fall/winter anyway). For marathons I usually try to get until mile 17/18 when I need the mental boost.

10. #1 reason for running: stress-relief, endorphins, you love to race, so you can eat all the cupcakes you want, weight-loss, love running for social reasons or other?

Pure love baby. It makes me feel limitless (and the cupcakes don't hurt either).

Smiling at mile 49.9

 

Bailing and Baking

There is a Frankenstorm coming, have you heard? Of course you have. My FB newsfeed is almost as sick of it as it is of the election (seriously who cares who wins at this point, just shut up about it!)

I admit when I signed up for FOTM a few months back I did see that it was a four hour drive. But hey, that was months ago and its just four hours. Totally doable!

I really was all prepared to make the trip. Run 20 miles Saturday morning, leave around 3pm, drop the dogs off at the boarders, drive to western Maryland, get a hotel, wake up ass early, run 31 something miles, drive home. And then this crappy storm happened. And even though its not really supposed to affect the race location (I'm not afraid to run in bad weather if that's what you're thinking), it would affect the ride home. And honestly the last thing I want to do after running a 50 mile weekend is sit in the car for what would likely be more than 4 hours with traffic and slow speeds.

Bad weather and running? No prob

So, sadly we are bailing on the race. It might be a different story if both of us weren't planning on running, but since we would both be physically and mentally exhausted its probably not a safe idea to traverse windy, wet roads for so many hours when neither of us are on out A-game.

I'm sad to miss my first 50k since February. I'm said to enjoy/suffer through a new-to-me course. Most of all I'm sad to finally meet Abbi and Alyssa in real life. I guess I will just have to continue incessantly stalking them on their blogs until JFK weekend.

I'm also sad that I will still be running 30 miles tomorrow, except solo and locally. I am going to have to find somewhere new to run nearby because I cannot take another 20+ miles in my neighborhood. I. Will. Lose. It.

The good thing about bailing on our trip means that until I have to deal with tomorrow morning's run, I can spend my time sinking into my couch cushions and shoving as much food as possible down my throat. I even felt inspired to bake:

Ok, maybe not bake as much as emptying-cake-mix-and-3-other-ingredients-into-a-bowl-and-stirring. Whatever, at least they look nice