Take that ferritin levels!

Although this doesn’t directly pertain to running, it does pertain to females, who happen to abstain from consuming meat…and also like to run very long distances in their spare time. As a strict vegetarian of about a year, I recently discovered that my iron levels are lower than normal. It has been worrisome to say the least, and certain runs do seem excessively difficult. But today I ventured into the world of buffalo. I don’t mean that I wandered out into the prairie to kick it with the herd. I ATE buffalo. Not only did I feel a little badass, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that 1) I don’t get sick from consuming red meat all of a sudden and 2) My iron levels will be revived and I will feel fast and strong! According to the woman at Whole Foods today, buffalo is incredibly lean with very little cholesterol. They feed primary on grass as well!

More on running: yesterday I went on a 12.5 mile run. Alone. It felt soooooo long! It was unbelievable how different of an experience it was from the usual chatting and, “deedle-eedle-deet” of the Garmin. I was running the U-district-Golden Garden-Ballard-and-back loop, and by the time I reached Golden Gardens, I thought for sure I had been running for ages. I glanced down at my watch. ‘44:21’ glared back up at me. Oh. My. Gosh. I didn’t realize how quickly time passed when I was gabbing incessantly (haha). I finished my run much faster than normal, mostly because I was incredibly bored. Thank goodness for running buddies! -

Happy running,

Camper

The Taste of Spring

This spring break, I headed home to the Bay Area in California for some fun in the sun, before heading off to cold Michigan for my Grandma's birthday. The first day I got home, I planned to go with my uncle, but not run, since I'd been running a lot the whole week before. But, when we got to gym, I felt that itch, the trail was calling! I headed out for a run in the sun!

All the runners we saw on the way to gym had on longsleeves and shorts, it was a bit windy out, but at 68 degrees, I knew I'd be fine in my shorts and tank top. I put on my ipod, which was weird since I'm used to running with friends, or without music, and headed out of the parking lot. The first thing I noticed was the severe lack of trees along the road. Since California is more dry then Seattle, I expected this, but the sun was really beating down on me, making me so glad I left the long sleeve at home. As I headed up the one "hill" on my route, I realized how lucky I am to run in such a great beautiful green city (Seattle of course) with so many trails near by, rather than the desert like climate of my home (but it is alwasy nice to come home from Seattle in winter and be able to run in the sun).

Despite the lack of trees, the sun on my back felt fantastic and I cannot wait until it gets nice enough in Seattle to run in shorts and a tee shirt along the water and admire the view.

I hope its not freezing in MI, where I'm headed next to run, undoubabtly wishing I was still in the California sun!

~Soph

Ah yes, the third voice of the trio chiming in.

Today was a glorious day in the city of Seattle. After spending an entire day sitting inside and fitting people with running shoes, I was itching to get out into the setting sun and 50 degree fresh air of the evening to partake in a jaunt of my own. Despite mild sickness and lack of sleep (thank you, final exams), I laced up my running shoes anyway. I mean, it’s spring break! Why not?! So off I went down Ravenna blvd to make a loop around the outer perimeter of Greenlake. While tromping around the lake, it’s almost inevitable that I will see a few of the other runners twice during the circuit. As the type of runner that makes eye contact and smiles…shoot, the type of person that makes eye contact and smiles, it’s a secret goal of mine to smile at everyone who I cross paths with on a run. When I see a runner for the second time around the Greenlake loop, I hope that they return the favor and crack a smile. Some of them beam the first time, which makes life easy. I feel like that is the spirit of trail running. Be friendly, get people laughing and smiling, enjoy the fresh air, and run.

Happy running!,

Camper

How this all started.....

Although I've only been running for a little more than a year (I was a rower before then), I've quickly been sucked into the world of long distance and trail running. Today while sitting with one of my roommates I told her how excited i was that we started this blog. She looked at me and said "Oh Sophia, you've crossed the threshold to a runner." I was thinking about this today and looking back on the past year, all three have us have come a long way.

We all met at Husky Running Club last winter quarter. After running for a few weeks together, Allison and I were talking about how her New Year's Resolution was to run a marathon. We both though nothing of this for a bit, and in March she threw out the idea of the Seattle Marathon in November. Me being new to running and all hesitated, but the ambition and adventure inside me told me to go for it. A week later we signed up and Phylly joined us on our wild ride of training. They both had run before in college/high school, but me being the newbie, I had no idea what to except. We built up slowly, and before we knew it we were saying things like "We only ran 10 miles today, I really wanted to do more."

My parents were surprised with my running, but quickly grew accustomed to hearing about 2+ hour runs as though they were apart of my everyday existence. When school started, the marathon drew closer. Phylly didn'register for the Seattle Marathon, so she signed up for the Seattle Ghost (read: Marathon Maniac's way of getting back to back marathons) and as our race dates grew nearer, we become more excited and nervous to race. It was going to be the longest any of us had run. When the dates rolled around, Allison and I ventured out to watch and cheer for Phylly on the monotonous and repetive Ghost coarse consisting of laps from Seward Park to Madrona Park (boring I know), which was the day before the Seattle. The next mornign we found ourselves embarking on our journey to finish the race. All in all it was awesome, and the next few days we were all sore to say the least.

A few weeks later, I couldn't help but think, what's next. So that's what we're doing now. Going for the next big thing. We've kept the running up after some marathon recovery time, and ventured out to Orcas Island for the Fat Ass 25k in Moran State park (It was a "whale of a run" but SO much fun and SO beautiful). Since then, school picked up, finals came this week, but after all was said and done, we ventured out to good old Issy (we'd go more if the bus ride wasn't so long....) and ran through misted mossy green forests (aka awesomeness), where the idea arose to start a blog. The idea bloomed from there and so here we find ourselves now.
I hope you enjoy reading about our runs and training!

Happy Trails!
Soph

We're Made to Run -- Science Says So.

While perusing an old issue of Runner's World today, I was intrigued by the mention of a scientific paper published in 2004 on the evolution of long-distance running in humans and our relatives in the genus Homo. 

This article, by Bramble and Lieberman and published in Nature: 2004, vol 432, is a nice review of the research on the biomechanics of running in bipedal animals and how humans, specifically, have evolved to be especially skilled at endurance running. They suggest that certain traits--a musculoskeletal system that decreases the impact of footstrike and increases core stablization, the ability to remove metabolic heat from the skin, and our "legs with long, spring-like tendons"-- have made us especially fit for running long distances. 

The majority of the paper consists of more technical details on energetic costs and kinesiology that are beyond me, but the "Evolutionary Hypotheses" section at the end is an interesting read, in which they hypothesized that endurance running evolved as an advantageous tool our early ancestors used for foraging in areas that were large and sparse in food availability. 

Now, if only they were able to use this hypothesis to justify my need to run to a bakery to "forage" for pastries... 

--Phylly

An Auspicious Beginning

It has come to our attention that blogging is a trend of sorts in the trail running and ultra community. Being fans of bandwagon-ery, it was only natural for us to chronicle our own running exploits and impart to you our words of wisdom (debatable), youthful optimism (generally), and witty insight (we are always witty). 

To start off our first post, nothing would be more appropriate than to describe the first post-finals run of Spring Break. 

First off, we rolled out of bed around 7:30am to meet at a bus stop at 8:30am. Sure, it's nothing like a 4am wake-up time that I know some trail runners do, but think about it: 3 college undergrads, just finished finals, it's Spring Break....it begs the question: why weren't you effin' trashed?! Anyhow, we arrived at the Tiger Mt. Trailhead on 2nd Ave in Issaquah around 10am. The plan was to run for about 7 miles, using mostly the trails that I used to run in high school cross-country (my team was incredibly lucky, I know), and we ended up doing just shy of that distance. 

For those of you familiar with the names of the trails, we ran thusly: up Heartbreak, through Adventure, along the Powerline trail until we arrive at the High Point parking lot, did one loop on the Bus trail (named for the weird abandoned bus on the trail...I have no idea how it got into the middle of the woods), and then came back along Swamp and Big Tree. Luckily for us, there were no run-ins with bears or naked hobos, both of which the Tiger Mountains trails are famous for. We did get to see the Ruth Kees Big Tree, which is the largest tree (a Douglas Fir) within the city limits of Issaquah and is estmated to be between 200 and 400 years old. Some of us (::cough:: Soph ::cough) were not very impressed, but I think it's one of good ol' Issy's highlights. 

Overall, the trail was a little muddy and wet in some parts. The trails are like small agility tests, with all the roots and rocks you have to dodge.  It was gorgeous, though, with some misting in the forest. A perfect way to begin Spring Break, I'd say.

Happy (trail) Running!

--Phylly