Hello! Happy Tuesday!
I am writing this to you on a day when I have no obligations. I am taking a few days off from work, and today I have absolutely nothing to do, not even a run. Gosh, I don’t even have to shower! I feel light as a feather!
Yesterday, I kicked off my staycation/vacation (I’m still in California) with a 19-mile run along the beach path from Huntington Beach to Newport. It was a flat run at an easy pace, so the challenge was fully mental for me.
I tried to channel Eliud Kipchoge, who won the Tokyo Marathon on Sunday and is known for smiling when the pain of a marathon sets in. I tried to smile for about a mile and even got a peace sign and a hang loose from two other runners. Friendly group of runners over in Orange County, let me tell you.
I listened to an episode of Smartless for the first hour, a podcast that always puts me in a good mood. For the second hour, I listened to Camille Herron on the Ali on the Run show. I briefly touched on Camille’s story in last week’s newsletter—she recently broke the 100-mile World Record at the age of 40—and I’ve listened to many interviews she’s given. There’s never anything particularly new-to-me, but I find her attitude towards endurance running inspiring because she approaches running 20 miles with the casualness that most of us treat five miles. She does run with her hair down though, which drives me nuts.
If this newsletter has inspired you to start running, or run more than you usually do, don’t forget to do a few minutes of light strength work every day. I once paid $700 out-of-pocket to go to a sports medicine doctor who told me that my knee pain would go away if I did clamshells with a resistance band every day. (It did.) I’ve had a few waves of knee pain recently and have been trying to dedicate 10 minutes a day to light exercises: clamshells, donkey kicks, fire hydrants, single leg raises, and walking around the kitchen with a resistance band on my thighs. (If you’re in the market for resistance bands, I’ve tried many and have found happiness with these ones.)
That’s all I’ve got for you today. Hope this wasn’t a total bore. Consistency is key, amirite.
Happy running!
Elaheh
Right there with you on the very expensive clamshell recommendation…. !! Inspired to do mine (at least today)