Search Results for: nutrition

Run With the Heart of a Lion

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Today I will look a fear in the eye. I will not blink. Today I will take a doubt and refute it. I will not hesitate. I will look only forward, learning from what’s been behind. I will not criticize, belittle, disparage. I will see only dreams and possibilities on the horizons. A future bright, no limits, goals big enough to scare. But fear be d*mned. I will run with the heart of a lion. I will LIVE with the heart of a lion. ——— Speaking of lions, here is my latest Competitor article on THE lion himself: Meb Keflezighi Celebrate your mother lion! Mother’s day is fast approaching…show your mother how she MOTIVATES and INSPIRES you with an Ezzere Tee. BUY NOW so it’ll get there by Sunday!

Exciting CLIF Chat With the Pros and PRIZES

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Hey Runner Friends, guess what?! My friends over at Clif have put together a cool live Facebook Q & A chat with professional runners Scott Jurek and Ellie Greenwood. If you’re an ultra runner, yes, THE Scott and Ellie of trail fame. Both are wold champions and indomitable trail running forces. The event will be Wednesday, April 30th at 12pm ET or 9 am PT. It’s open to everyone, runners of all distances and levels, all you need is a question! In addition to having questions answered, Clif will be doling out prizes [info provided by Clif]: * One winner will receive a 30-minute 1:1 consultation with Scott Jurek to discuss how to prepare before, during and after race day. Scott will choose his favorite question at the end of the Q&A. * Several lucky participants who ask questions during the Q&A will receive a CLIF SHOT Toolkit featuring CLIF SHOT products, gear for training and race day and CLIF’s marathon training and nutrition guide. So put your thinking caps on and start brainstorming which questions YOU’D like answered. I’m giving you the chance to get a head-start even! Leave in the comment sections here what question YOU would like answered and plan to submit at the event. And if you do Clif will send you out a CLIF SHOT Toolkit packed with goodies: products, training and nutrition guide, and run gear. ——– Clif kindly sent me their invitation and gave me free reign to bring along as many other awesome runners as I wanted. Info and toolkits supplied by them but opinions are all mine, and I don’t share anything on my site unless I feel it cool and worth sharing! 🙂 ——–

Two Surprising Canned Foods Runners Aren’t Eating But Should

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Runners are hip to knowing it’s important to fuel their bodies right. Gotta fuel the beast if you expect it to perform. It’s become pretty common knowledge to seek out protein-rich foods for muscle repair and growth and even Sesame Street can tell us we’re supposed to eat our fruits and veggies. But canned foods, those can sometimes get a bad rap. Like the Foodie Snobs may not even walk through the canned aisle, right? 😉 JK. It’s true the SOME canned foods can be loaded with sodium and fresh foods may seem like the better choice. However, canned foods really have come a long way in terms of getting ‘healified’; runners can easily find lower sodium options on the shelves. And hey, bottom line it for you: canned veggies last forever and a day, they’re often cheaper, and a canned veggie if it’s eaten is FAR and away better than no veggie at all! Though let’s talk about two AWESOME foods for runners that are canned but probably aren’t even on your food radar at all. I’ll amend that…these guys aren’t exactly canned but rather tinned. TINNED…yea, I know, cut to the mental image of people hunkered down in a bomb shelter, ‘those’ kinds of situations are when tinned foods are called for. 😉 Just kidding. Actually, runners need to start stopping their carts front and center in the tinned seafood section. Oysters I’m a huge seafood fan and love anything and everything from the sea, but if your face scrunched up at reading oysters…unscrunch that runner face of yours. Oysters are loaded with iron, which is incredibly important for runners. Iron is one of those things where if your levels start to dip your energy takes a nosedive. Symptoms mimic that of overtraining, you could be beating your Continue Reading →

What’s Fueling YOUR Run?

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Whether it be sarcasm, pancakes or otherwise, whatever fuels your running must be celebrated. Power of the Running Snark Trust me, a runner’s brain is wont to wander on those long runs and easy days, making jokes is certainly one of the best ways to roll. The perks of being your own running comedian: * No hecklers: yea, let’s be honest, our brains may be a little deprived of of oxygen mid-run so the jokes may not exactly hold-up on a real comedy tour. * Free laughs: it’s always MORE than okay to laugh at your own jokes, and out loud. Heck, you could wail like a hyena in the middle of the woods. * Good times: spot really random moments of people when they have no idea anyone is like finding gold. Runners tend to go unnoticed by normal folk, we just blend into the background, so running is sometimes like the People Watching Olympics. Running For Pancakes Literal fuel for your running, certainly never to be overlooked. Now the bait reward of the foods to come often spend copious amounts of time on the brain during a run… * Long run salivation: staring that 22-mile long run? Shall I take a poll as to how many of those miles were spent drooling over just how much you’re going to savor devouring [insert favorite food here] upon return? No judgement if drooling starts the moment the watch starts. * Pre-food penance: on the flip side, pick the WRONG food before a run and you’ll most likely spend the entirety of that run paying the price. We need to start assigning a Points System for certain foods if ingested before a run: ice cream ands loads of dairy = 15 fart points, super spicy thai = 27 bush-dive points, burrito Continue Reading →

Believing, Running, and Lies

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A runner’s mind is filled with lies. We live in our own sort of warped reality. I’ve talked a lot about how lies are our little coping mechanism so we CAN stay dedicated and motivated to keep reaching our goals. That lies can be a good thing. The thing is though, not all of those lies are created equal and it’s important to know which lies you should be ‘believing’ and when you need to be truthful. Good Lies * Midway through a workout: “I’m only doing 1 more repeat, don’t worry brain!” * About to start a workout or at the starting line: “It won’t really hurt, I swear!” * In moments of motivation lulls to just START running: “Just run for 5 minutes, if you want to stop then you can. These are the lies that help us tune out the pain and call our brains out when they’re just being lazy. These are AWESOME lies and the ones you should be blasting from a megaphone because they’re coming from your inner rockstar runner. The runner who wants you to achiever your goals…believe everything they say, those lies will fuel your greatness. Bad Lies * Mid-workout brain chatter: “You can’t keep this pace up.” * Starting line: “Holy crap, I don’t belong next to so-and-so, they’re going to kick my butt!” * Mid-race: “They just surged, they must feel way stronger than me…I’m just going to let them go.” These are all the things that weak, insecure, tired, lazy, annoying, complaining brain likes to shout at you. These are remarks your rockstar runner persona needs to refute and call-out as lies. “I am stronger than I think. I belong at this starting line. A race isn’t over until the finish line and I know they hurting too, I Continue Reading →

My Issues With ‘Fitness’

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I don’t visit many fitness sites. Not because I’m a runner snob or purist, but because I don’t like the ‘business’ side of ‘fitness’. Those who instantly ‘get’ what I’m talking about separates the ‘fitness’ minded from the FITNESS minded. I’m not the running riddler, but the reason I don’t go to lots of fitness sites is because I really don’t like the hypocrisy of it all. I’m a straight-shooter, telling it like it is, kinda gal. ’12 Minutes to FLAT ABs’…’Workout in 8mins or less!’ EIGHT minutes? Seriously? I don’t even consider 8 minutes enough time for a proper warm-up. So I guess I should define what a workout is. I’m not talking about a ‘follow-up’ core routine, stretching, weight circuit. For a runner or anyone who is truly FITNESS minded some of those routines can certainly be on the quicker side, maybe all you need IS 8 minutes because you busted your butt doing 800’s and cardio earlier. When I’m talking workout I mean EVERYTHING. Start to finish, if you do double sessions, those minutes count as rollover. Newsflash: the ‘fitness’ celebrities touting those ‘8 minutes is ALL you need!’ workouts, they for DARN sure don’t do THEIR workouts in only 8 minutes. It’s the business that peeves me. If you’re going to tell people what to do, be upfront. Yes, I know the MAJORITY of Americans DO NOT want to hear they’ve got to bust a sweat doing cardio for at least 30 minutes and follow it up with some core and ab work. Waaaa…I’d rather be watching the Kardashian! Well, you could do both running on a treadmill…haha. So the 12 and 8 minutes things sell, they are hot keywords, they attract the masses like flies to a bush post runner emergency dive. The same also Continue Reading →

Runner Tummies on a Roller-coaster and Clif Protein Recovery and Electrolyte Drinks Review

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Us runners sure do a number on our poor tummies. All the pounding, up, down, fast, jiggling, jiving…if our stomaches and intestines could speak I can only imagine the expletives they’d be yelling at us! Actually, those stomaches and intestines of runners DO speak…just with things much more powerful, dare I even say explosive, than words. Yes, runners and their guts are stuck in a state of ongoing negotiations. “PLEASE behave for my long run, preeeettty please!!” the runner’s silent prayer before heading out the door. Runners plan their foods accordingly, learn from trial and error, we do our best to set ourselves up to avoid a stomach related attack but sometimes it feels like we’re in some kind of peace-treaty contract negotiation House of Cards style. Those runner guts are testy, moody, volatile. Sometimes there is just NO pleasing them despite what feels like us doing our best to abide by the ‘rules’. I’ve done a few posts on handling GI issues HERE and HERE Today let’s talk about those post-run, especially post-workout tummies and guts. After all that jiggling and jiving lots of runners complain of feeling nauseous, that food is the LEAST appealing thing in the world, and sometimes runners actually struggle to keep food down. The issue is that runners ALSO know how incredibly important refueling your body and muscles is within the first 30 minutes of finishing your workouts. In order to maximize your recovery (upwards of 60% better) so you can come back stronger, it really is crucial to find something, anything that will get into your system and STAY there. This is an occasion where liquids can be a runner’s best friend. If you struggle with keeping actual food down due to an upset stomach after your runs and hard workouts take it Continue Reading →

Running: Brought to you by dreams of pancakes and carbs

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That long run brought to you by dreams of PaNcAkeS!!! Or insert your favorite post-run food there. Actually, you can swap out the long run for a race. Scratch that you can preeeetty much just swap that out for any run. Any distance…any food. #runners #workforit #reward #bait ?? While us runners certainly can eat more than a football team, amongst those pancakes, Pop-Tarts, burgers, fries, milk shakes, etc…we DO know that in order to run our best we need to fuel our best. The beautiful thing though, is that eating to PERFORM doesn’t mean you can’t have your cake and eat your apples too. It’s all about balance. There are some KEY elements that all runners in training should be mindful of: * Protein: getting enough and timing that intake * 30 Minute Recovery: eating protein and carbs within 30 minutes of finishing a run * Healthy Picks: insert your fruits, veggies, whole grains, quality carbs here * Vitamins and other nutrients: IRON is sooo important for runners and ensuring they get enough! * Hydration: it’s crucial runners ensure they drink enough fluids and more than just water, replacing those electrolytes too But it’s ALL about balance, and even professional distance runners are allowed their cookies and burgers too. Hey, when you’re burning all dem calories you earn those treats! This post comes in step with my latest article over on Running Times: “The Power of Protein Timing” Good luck to all those racing, and to everyone else go out there and get your run on…enjoy every sweaty mile!! 🙂 ——– More posts all about how to eat to fuel your running and preform your best HERE! Highlighting living in the real world and eating post: “How runners can stuff their faces at restaurants but still perform at their Continue Reading →

Just Think What COULD Be on Your Feet

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Imagine a running world much different than our own. Get up, lace up, and regardless of what’s actually on your feet…get running. —— So lots of exciting things to share here! My friend, and distance running’s #1 Fan Girl, Lynn Cox and I just launched Shoeprints Ink!! It’s a greeting card line devoted JUST FOR RUNNERS! Yea!! Go check out all the action and there will be more cards being continually added. Visit: Shoeprintsink.com The first instructional comic book for runners, “Effective Mental Strategy: Race faster by out-thinking your brain”, that I created was just reviewed by author Mark Matthews. He’s an awesome writer and I always enjoy reading his blog, so read my review and then get sucked into HIS writing for hours and hours. My latest Running Times article that ran in the Dec/Jan issues is now online. Go read “The Power of Protein Timing: Three windows to refuel the runner” If you’ve yet to read another seriously awesome blog that I stalk on the daily, The Anxious Girl’s Guide to Dating, (seriously, I think many runners can relate erring a wee bit on the anxious side!) I contribute posts there and you can go read my second one: “Table for Four: Ditching the judging, critical, killjoy” And on Instagram…I’ve been hanging out with Ariel. She likes my latest running shirt a lot. ——- Enough of me yet?? Fine, then go run. 😉 1) Speaking of shoes and spikes, what running shoes are you currently loving at the moment? 2) What kind of food related shoe concoctions would you toss into this comic remix? 3) Anxiety and all that jazz…what do you do when you are feeling stressed, anxious, nervous, etc.? What keeps you sane and balanced? Well, besides what I already shared…can I state the obvious: #runforsanity

Please Don’t Lick the Merchandise

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Don’t worry, if your local donut shop has an ‘You lick it, you buy it’ policy, CLEARLY they aren’t familiar with runners. We’ll lick it, we’ll lick ALL of them if you force our hand…errr, foot?? It’s kinda cold outside, what with winter and all that, but get your run on, blast the heater, and crack open those pints…errr, half-gallons?? 😉 Yes we’re runners, yes we’ve earned it, so if we want to lick at will…well, we will!! 🙂 ———- Certainly we love to dream and drool about all the glorious tasty delights we’ll be entitled too after those runs, BUT we also make sure to fuel ourselves up right. Eat to perform, right!??! Tips on all that HERE Motivation to get your run on HERE…then you can hit the donut shop. More laughs? Cartoons and comics HERE ———- 1) Are you a sweet or salty kinda person? I dream in cakes and sugar. 2) Last food you ‘day dream/ran dreamed’, and looked forward to post-run? 3) Go-to healthy post-run snack? Cottage cheese and a muffin.