Yeah, it’s a solo track from the lead singer of The Calling, and yeah, I’m pretty sure it came from an angsty preteen film, and yeah, it’s one of those “live life to the fullest” kinds of things, but it’s a reminder that I have a pretty charmed existence. I’m incredibly blessed to be healthy and stable and happy and comfortable and employed and debt-free with the best family and friends a girl could ask for. To have all of these things at age 24 is amazing. So as stressed and overwhelmed as I get at times, it truly doesn’t get better than this.

That said, February is very much an out-of-sorts month for me. It happens every year. It’s still winter-ish and I’m tired of being cold and we’re in that post-holiday dead zone where there’s not a lot to look forward to in the immediate future. I get cranky and blah and call my mom in tears with no specific complaints other than that things just aren’t right. I know. It’s just the way it goes, and for whatever reason she tolerates it.

After this happened late last week, I decided to take a few days to do what I wanted to do. I got my workouts in, but I did them by myself and on my own schedule. I spent an afternoon at the bar, drinking beer and watching basketball. I had a late-night Skype chat with my sisters, which is the next best thing to actually being at Duke to cuddle up and watch bad TV together. I had an out-of-this-world 4.5 hour brunch experience at a semi-secret supper club, where we were served fresh Indian street food and educated on the history of chai. We also popped champagne for this lovely lady’s birthday. I cleaned and organized my apartment, got my finances in order, baked, and made progress on decorative pillows I’ve been meaning to sew for a month. And that, folks, is the perfect weekend.

It’s hard to nail down what sends me into this February funk every year, as it seems to be dictated by circumstance. In 2011 it was mostly due (I think) to the end of a relationship that had defined/controlled my life for quite awhile. This round of yuck is partly related to the injury streak I seem to be on, but I also believe it has a lot to do with the nature of triathlon training as a whole and the day in and day out sharing of our entire lives on the Internet.

As someone who has a way with words so aptly put it, blogs are a bit of a mindfuck. I love following everyone’s training and racing successes and disasters. It’s just too early in the season to be driven insane by the one-up-everyone-all-the-time rat race that is the tri scene and/or the blog world. It is NOT too early — or too late, or whatever — to remember one of my big priorities for the year, which is not to get so wrapped up in my training and/or everyone else’s that I lose sight of all the non-sports-related activities that are important to me. I have too many other exciting things going on in my life right now to jump off that cliff.

For example, next week I’ll begin coaching with a brand-new all-women’s triathlon team in the D.C. area, which is a fantastic way to be involved with the sport and meet amazing women without getting my own priorities (and competitive personality) mixed in. I’m so honored to have been asked to lead the bike portion of the group’s 70.3 training schedule. It’ll be a huge challenge but one that I’m beyond excited to take on. I’ve also been tasked with planning the Long Family European Adventure of 2012 — in another life I think I’m actually a luxury travel consultant — which means I’ve been researching off-the-beaten-path towns for us to check out. There’s still a bit of disagreement over where we want to go (we actually can’t do Belgium and Greece and Holland and Switzerland and southern France all in a one-week trip, sadly) but I’m not complaining about the excuse to read Travel + Leisure in my spare time. [Edit: I realize this falls in the overprivileged white girl category. Which is fine, I'll own it.] And in other creative pursuits, I’m still working on apartment decor/design, experimenting with homemade bread recipes, and making up for lost time with all the D.C. food scene priorities I missed over the last year because I didn’t have the time or money to partake.

So will I still be training? Well, yeah, I still have a race on my calendar, but it’ll be on my own terms and kept in check with the million and seven other hobbies, interests, and talents I have that I don’t want to lose sight of. I promised myself after Ironman that I wouldn’t slip back into the strict (and very dry) train-eat-sleep-repeat existence because, let’s face it, I’m not a pro and don’t have to, and that’s a pretty boring way to spend my 20s. I need to train because I enjoy it and it keeps me healthy and sane, not to compete with everyone else to see who can put in the most hours at the highest intensity on the most expensive bike.

All this to say: Speed Laces is going on hiatus for a little bit.

It won’t be forever, and maybe not even for that long, but at least until I get my head on straight. I want to be in a place every. single. day where I can say that it doesn’t get better than this. As my sister would say, “Girl, you do you.”

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go back to researching Croatian beaches and Austrian castles. Later.

So *that’s* what I’ve been doing wrong all this time?!?

I can run through the tendonitis in my knees and calves, no problem. It’s annoying but not game-ending. I cannot run through plantar fascia issues. It’s too effing painful and can only get better with rest. So all I can do is take it one day at a time — and keep on keeping on.

2. I very much appreciate having free access to an awesome pool (well, not totally free, my ridiculously high taxes fund the place), but geez do I dislike the people who work there. The city government, and therefore Wilson, is understaffed, I get it. But is it impossible to find employees who are polite or competent or — gasp — both? Even setting aside the lane line disaster and the fact that the lifeguards never police the unsupervised children playing in the aqua jog lane, no one there has a clue, and they aren’t willing to be flexible or help you out.

Take yesterday morning, for example. The pool was set up for 25 yards — which is why I swim M/W mornings — but whoever does the lane changes sucks at tightening the lines. Inevitably, they snake all over the pool so you run into them in the middle of a set if someone in the next lane is super splashy. This in itself isn’t a problem, they’re easy to tighten. So before I jump in, I make sure to do just that. But when I went to do so, the lifeguard came rushing over and was like “I GOT IT.” So I was about to get going and let him take care of it but then noticed that he was loosening it. I said as much, and he snapped back at me not to tell him how to do his job. So we went back and forth a few about how it was unnecessary for him to raise his voice and for me to question his skills, which basically ended in a four letter word and me jumping in the water with a huge splash. File this under: unless you have had your coffee and I’ve at least started my workout, we probably shouldn’t be speaking.

Anyway, I’ll give the guy credit for coming back over during a break in my sets and apologizing for yelling at me. What I didn’t realize was that he was loosening the lane line to move it over to a different hook, therefore actually widening my lane. If he’d said as much, that would have been the end of it, especially because it wasn’t (entirely) my intention to accuse him of not being able to do his job. The upside? Now Larry the Lifeguard and I are besties.

3. In better news: GO TO HELL CAROLINA GO TO HELL.

BOOM. Victory never tasted so sweet.

On a related note, this whole mess has made me super religious about my recovery and prevention strategies. I’ve been icing multiple times a day for weeks now, stretching like it’s my job, practicing proper form with my squats, strength training/yoga-going/core-working, and, most recently, learning what it means to foam roll the shit out of my quads. I’m pretty used to working my calves, but GEEZ is the quad a different beast. To assist with this self-inflicted pain, I’m very seriously considering the purchase of one of these suckers:

The general Internet consensus is that it’s worth every penny (and it’s not even that expensive as designer foam rollers go). My current one is the cheap kind from City Sports, and while that’s fine for now, I think the GRID will last longer, work better/deeper, and be good for travel. No price is too high for for injury prevention, or something.

And related to that, I’m at the point — again — at which I have to decide what to do about my gym situation. I’ve been living off of LivingSocial or intro passes for months now (prior to which I didn’t really do any consistent strength training) and now that my last Washington Sports Club card is about to expire, I have to figure out how to maintain this excellent but pricey habit I’ve created. The reality is that once tri season (ie. spring/summer) rolls around, I’ll be pretty unmotivated to waste workouts in the gym when I need to be swimming/biking/running outside and can do core work at home, especially given that I’d be paying a decent amount per month to go once or *maybe* twice a week. I joined WSC when I first moved here primarily for the boot camp classes but quit after discovering I was halfway decent at triathlon.

So, I have several options. I can join Results for pretty cheap through my office. It’s convenient to work and home and has an underwater treadmill, which is kind of awesome. I can hope that Groupon or someone keeps coming up with passes, though serial gym switching is getting kind of old. Or I can start building my own little home gym with the minimal equipment I actually need to do my routine. I have a yoga mat, a pull-up bar, a trainer, a foam roller, and outdoor/rooftop space (abs at sunrise, anyone?), so at the get-go I’d only really need to invest in some free weights. I mean, I’d love to have a TRX set and a Bosu trainer, but, baby steps. The upside of this is that with an initial investment, I’d avoid paying gym fees forever and always. The downsides are the $$$ upfront, my teeny apartment, and the fact that I wouldn’t have access to classes. This is basically a non-issue except for yoga — in which case I’d rather have a pass to a studio anyway. So I think the solution is to get a yoga pass, part of which would be covered with a sweet work wellness benefit, and work on my personal equipment selection.

Which leads me to the real point — if you were building a home gym in a studio apartment and didn’t want to spend a lot, what would you add?

Still going with the related theme, I got back on my bike this morning for the first time in awhile. Yeah, it was on the trainer, but I did an actual workout and really enjoyed it. I understand that part of the deal with marathon training is that something’s gotta give, and since swimming is basically a recovery activity, that something is the bike. I hate this, mainly because 1) I just spent every last cent I don’t have on a new ride 2) the winter has been mild enough to basically avoid the trainer and 3) I worked really super hard last season to be a strong cyclist and I’m not into the idea that I’ll get to May and have to start over at zero. Even though I have a background in running and swimming and almost none in cycling, my bike split every. single. time. was my strongest relative to the rest of the field. I have to hope that by staying strong with consistent run/swim training and throwing the occasional trainer intervals or outdoor ride in there, I won’t totally fall apart when tri season rolls around. The slightly good news is that I won’t need to train to race more than 56 miles, and I killed that last May after only a few months of only half-consistent from less than zero thanks to, you guessed it, marathon training.

And lastly, this time on a not-really-related note, last night I made pasta for the first time since July. In all the GF stuff I basically gave it up (GF varieties are really expensive) in favor of quinoa supplemented by very occasional lasagna goodness. I also experimented with mung beans. Have you ever heard of those? No? Me neither. They’re a lot like lentils — I think — which means they’re pretty bland but delicious when combined with other ingredients. Right now I’m way into recipes from Ashley over at Edible Perspective, so I tried her Mexican Spiced Veggie Pasta using GF brown rice spirals. Other than cooking the beans a little bit too long, it turned out great, and now I have enough pasta in my fridge to feed an army. I also highly recommend using her recipe for homemade tomato sauce instead of buying it in a jar. Now to decide which recipe to try next…

Happy Thursday, all! The weekend is almost here!

In case you forgot, I’m clumsy. And I fall a lot. And I had one particularly hard fall back in December that left my knees pretty banged up. I took some time off from running — though, looking back at my Garmin stats, not as much time as I originally thought, and not immediately after the injury, whoops — and swam and biked and did lots of yoga. After about two weeks of a self-imposed no-running mandate, I did some light running to gear up for my marathon training plan. I felt pretty good. Then I did a tempo workout, followed by a long run, and that was the end of all the good. My knees were stiff and sore and tender to the touch and I was really afraid I’d reversed any healing I might have done in that 12-day break. I made a PT appointment the following day.

So my wonderful PT (a fellow Blue Devil) first rolled his eyes at me and then asked me what the hell I was doing back in his office and then finally got around to checking out the damage. The hardest part was explaining the pain to him, as it comes and goes and I can’t exactly identify what triggers it and where it is and at that moment I wasn’t actually in pain. He said he didn’t think there was any damage to the cartilage behind the patella or any bone fragments floating around — all positive things — but that I should stick to pool running and do some stretching and range-of-motion stuff and other manual therapy in the meantime. We did a few rounds of dry needling and whoa was that a shock to the system for someone who is deathly afraid of needles, but it relieved a lot of the trigger points in my quads. So I spent two weeks doing all of my workouts in the pool — right — and finally was cleared to run 3 miles at a time on land every other day. I was allowed to run at any pace I wanted to, as his guess was that the volume, not the speed, was the problem. I also started jumping through the requisite hoops to see a doctor and get some imaging done.

My first two road runs were a little bit rough. I didn’t have any pain while running, but I got a little bit sore later in the day. My third run — at the track — was ah-mazing. No pain during or after, and if anything, I felt better after running (fast). I didn’t hurt again until 2 days later after a rest day. I think the message here is, run everywhere?!?

Then I finally got an appointment with my new primary care doc, who didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know but was able to send me out for x-rays and refer me to someone else + PT. When I showed her my knees, she looked really surprised and said, “Umm, do you fall a lot?”

[Just so you know, not all of those scars are from falls I took myself. At least two of them I blame on other people.]

X-rays the next day came back clean, and everything is still in its place and there aren’t any little pieces of bone floating around and there’s no obvious damage to the meniscus (phew). Any other soft tissue problems would only appear on an MRI. I’ve continued to mix in lots of swimming and pool running and easy spinning and the big problem is still that I can’t identify the triggers and that sometimes it’s one knee or the other or both or neither. WTF BODY?!?

This weekend I finally consulted the Internet (note to self, this is ALWAYS a bad idea) after weeks of ignorance and bliss and read about all the strains and sprains and tears I could possibly be experiencing and then went back and forth between being totally freaked out that I’d need surgery for some long-term permanent damage and calmly settling on a self-diagnosis of minor tendonitis and a little bit of leftover bruising.

More than likely, what’s actually going on falls closer to the latter. While the course of treatment could still vary from complete rest (and giving up on this round of marathoning) to icing and strengthening, I’m fairly confident that I’m going to be okay.

I’ll finally get to see an orthopedist on Friday, so hopefully within a week or so I’ll have an answer and a clearer idea of what to expect in the coming weeks and months. He (also) went to Duke and specializes in sports medicine, so I’m pretty sure we’ll get along just fine. What stresses me out the most at this point is not the injury itself — it’s the ridiculous bureaucratic process that is our health care and insurance system that basically means it takes a month and lots of paperwork and back-and-forth to get anything accomplished. My parents’ health insurance is incredible, and my biggest mistake in recent memory — besides falling in the first place — was not jumping back on it when I was between jobs a few months ago. Lesson learned.

Also found in the my-body-is-falling-apart chronicles: my stomach is a mess. You may recall my six-week gluten free experiment before Ironman, which was a test of how my body would respond to eliminating something that could potentially be causing the uncomfortable cramping etc. I was experiencing. Because I did this leading up to my big huge race, I was strict. I avoided the homemade muffins my mom brought to our beach vacation. I didn’t drink any beer (THE HORROR). I was *that* girl when dining out and made all kinds of special requests. In general, I felt really good — almost no discomfort. Problem solved.

Fast forward to after Ironman. I love beer (have I mentioned this?) and bread and all other manner of gluten-containing goodness. I continued to eat mostly GF at home when I was preparing meals for myself, and I still bought GF crackers and Luna Protein bars and other special (read, $$$) food substitutes. Recently, I’ve been using other kinds of flour and making my own bread and brownies. We’ll say I’m casually gluten free. And this has been sorta fine, though I still sometimes feel that horrible full and heavy “yuck” I’d worked so hard to avoid over the summer. It seems like an obvious point that the gluten was the issue. However, when I asked my doctor about this last week, she noted that dairy allergies also cause all of these same symptoms and are more common — and that an excess of fiber also could be the culprit. I know, duh.

So begins a little bit of sleuthing. I’m doing a strict dairy-free/gluten-free week to see how my body reacts. I can then reintroduce both of these things, one by one, to see what happens. And if it remains unclear, there are actual tests for these things. In preparing and shopping for my meals this week, I realized how really freakin’ hard it is to avoid dairy. Gluten I’ve got down, made easier by the number of companies that cater to a GF diet and the fact that I shop at Whole Foods and the general habit I’ve created over the last six months. But dairy, man, dairy is in everything. Aside from yogurt and cheese, both of which I love, I have to cut anything made with butter (all kinds of crackers, cookies, baked goods) or milk (chocolate, ahem, CHOCOLATE). Also, dairy substitutes, like gluten substitutes, are pricier than normal foods. My grocery list gets shorter and my bill goes up. Sigh.

Anyway, I’ll report back if I figure any of this mess out. I will say that food allergies seem to be all the rage, though there seems to be new evidence daily that most people are affected by them in one way or another. [As a sidenote, I'm reading a really interesting book -- Why Some Like It Hot -- that talks about the origin of food preferences/allergies and how genetics, environment and culture are all at play. I highly recommend it.] For me, it’s not a life-threatening condition or even one that actually warrants a militant approach to diet. It’s more of an annoyance that could be mostly avoided by some basic awareness of what’s causing the problem. The reality is that if I have a minor gluten intolerance, I’m not going to give up beer. I’m just not. And I probably won’t stop eating baked goods (or fro-yo, God forbid) forever and always just to avoid dairy. But information is power, and I will be able to steer toward things that won’t make me feel like crap. I like food too much to associate the experience of eating with being uncomfortable.

I feel like I need to say something about what my body is doing well. Um, killing it in the pool? And the very regular yoga/strength/core work is really helping my muscle definition. I can almost taste that whole race in a sports bra goal…

Sometimes I think the subtitle of my life should be “Brought to you by Nike.” The gear, mainly, but I would also be pretty happy with those abs.

Does your body just up and decide to rebel on you? Anyone want to entertain me for 2 hours of pool running?

1. I’ve had a huge crush on Zach Braff since forever. Like, HUGE.

2. On a related note, I’m working my way through every season of Scrubs.

3. I missed my senior prom to present epidemiology research I conducted to a panel in D.C. Nerd alert.

4. I’m deathly afraid of needles. I passed out when I got my ears pierced, and I’ve never been able to get through a blood donation.

5. For the first two weeks of college, I lived in a forced double — bunk beds! — with a roommate who played World of Warcraft anytime she wasn’t in class. Yup.

6. My first drink ever was a peppermint patty shot. Ooof.

7. I’m going to see Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney in concert together in August. Yes, it’s 8 months away, and yes, I’m so unbelievably excited about it.

8. I think cardiology is fascinating. When I was little, my dad would take me to work with him and use a model heart to explain conditions he was treating.

9. I fell down the stairs as an toddler. Guess the clumsiness isn’t anything new?

10. I run into people I know everywhere. At the top of the random list: in a hotel lobby in Barcelona and on a street corner in Paris.

11. I went to a Journey concert in high school. It was awesome.

So I never argue with pizza, especially pizza made completely from scratch. I have a great recipe for whole wheat dough, but I wanted to try a GF version. So I attempted this millet-buckwheat crust from Edible Perspective, along with a homemade tomato sauce. Both were so easy to make and are way more delicious than the processed store-bought versions. I roasted eggplant slices, sauteed bell peppers and red onion, and topped the whole thing with feta cheese and fresh basil.

It also makes delicious leftovers. Have a great weekend!

• 6 cups (1/2-inch) cubed peeled butternut squash
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
• 12 garlic cloves, unpeeled (about 1 head)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• Cooking spray
• 1 large onion, vertically sliced
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 (9-ounce) packages fresh spinach
• 5 cups 1% low-fat milk, divided
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 thyme sprig
• 5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) shredded fontina cheese, divided
• 3/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon grated whole nutmeg
• 3-4 cups cooked quinoa

For quinoa: Use 2 cups water for every cup of dry quinoa. Place in saucepan on stove, bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for 12-15 minutes, or until water is absorbed. Same process as rice. It expands a lot, so you won’t need much to get 3 cooked cups. Or you can put the unused portion in the fridge for later!

Preheat oven to 425°.Combine squash, 1 tablespoon oil, sage, garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and black pepper in a large bowl; toss to coat. Arrange squash mixture on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Bake at 425° for 30 minutes or until squash is tender. Cool slightly; peel garlic. Place squash and garlic in a bowl; partially mash with a fork.

Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion, and sauté for 4 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low; continue cooking for 20 minutes or until golden brown, stirring frequently. Place onion in a bowl.

Add 2 tablespoons water and spinach to Dutch oven; increase heat to high. Cover and cook 2 minutes or until spinach wilts. Drain in a colander; cool. Squeeze excess liquid from spinach. Add spinach to onions.

Heat 4 1/2 cups milk, bay leaf, and thyme in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil; remove from heat. Let stand for 10 minutes. Discard bay leaf and thyme. Return pan to medium heat. Combine remaining 1/2 cup milk and flour in a small bowl. Add to pan, stirring with a whisk until blended. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, and simmer for 5 minutes or until thickened, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; stir in remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 1/4 cups cheese, red pepper, and nutmeg.

Spread 1/2 cup milk mixture in bottom of a 13 x 9-inch glass or ceramic baking dish coated with cooking spray. Arrange 1/3 of quinoa over milk mixture; top with half of squash mixture, half of spinach mixture, and 3/4 cup milk mixture. Repeat layers, ending with quinoa. Spread remaining milk mixture over top. Bake at 425° for 30 minutes, and remove from oven. Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup cheese.

Preheat broiler. Broil 2 minutes or until cheese is melted and lightly browned. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Again, like rice, quinoa soaks up liquid around it. If you don’t want your casserole to be soggy, use more of it. This doesn’t hold together quite as nicely as noodle-based lasagna, so you won’t get perfect squares as you cut into it. I kind of like that about it though because it blends all of the flavors in a single bite.

Another reason I love recipes like this is that they feed me for days. I’m not the kind of person that gets bored with food, so I *can* rotate between just two or three dinner options over the course of a week if I have to. But because I live alone — this was all for me — I was able to get a few meals out of it and then freeze individual portions to be reheated later (ie. rotated in with other meals). Talk about bang for your buck.

Any favorite training-friendly recipes out there?

Anyway, I actually didn’t read any triathlon or running blogs at the time, but in those 10 days I came up with a name, made a list of possible topics to cover, wrote and scheduled a few posts, and Speed Laces, Amazing Races was born.

As you’re probably aware, a lot has happened in the last year — in my athletic life, in my personal life, and in my professional life. Things look pretty different now than they did 365 days ago, and in the best way possible. I credit this blog with gifting me a lot of great relationships, with rebuilding shattered confidence, with keeping me focused on what is truly important to me. It’s been a success.

So — Happy Birthday, blog! In honor of the occasion — and because I felt like baking last night — we have my first attempt at Pumpkin Black Bean Brownies. Surprisingly, they are DELICIOUS (and gluten free and low calorie and low fat and not bad for you).

• 1 can rinsed and drained black beans
• 3 eggs
• 3 T canned pumpkin
• 4 T unsweetened cocoa powder
• Pinch salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• ¾ cup sugar

Combine all ingredients in a food processor or blender. Stir in 1 cup chocolate chips or nuts, if desired. Pour into a greased 8×8 or 7×11 baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Cool, cut and eat!

The same goes for running shoes. I don’t hoard multiple pairs of my favorite model; I don’t rotate three different styles; I don’t obsess over how they’re the same or different or what they do or don’t do for my feet. When I was in high school, I trusted the amazing staff at my local running store to pick out the best model for me because they knew me and my training/racing patterns really well. I wore the Mizuno Wave Rider for awhile, followed by the Nike Miler, followed by the Mizuno Precision. They all worked. I never got injured, my shoes never hurt, I was always able to just run. I didn’t ever feel the need to try out anything different “just because.” I didn’t get into the whole barefoot Vibram thing. And I never learned when and why runners wear different types of shoes.

Fast forward to last year, pre-Boston. Some calf tightness led to the discovery that my form could use a few tweaks. Mizuno made the huge mistake of changing up their whole line, and the new version of the Wave Rider just wasn’t what I needed anymore. My coach and my PT were pretty into the Newton/natural running craze, so I decided to try them. As you might have guessed, I fell totally and completely in love. I bought these:

And these:And finally, last week, these too:I know. It’s a problem.

After I got rid of the last pair of Mizunos and started training in the Newton Gravity (orange), I felt great. That tightness resolved itself, and my form noticeably was better. I became a Newton believer — but still, not because I understood or overanalyzed the minute details of what they did. They just worked.

Now, however, thanks to a very informative session with a Newton rep held at Georgetown Running, I can explain to people who ask about my blinding neon shoes the concept of natural running and the purpose of the lugs found on the bottom of each pair. I used to just say the weird soles promoted a forefoot stride. But here’s what I took away from the clinic:

According to the Newton folks, there are two important elements to “natural running” — or, what the body would do if we all ran around shoeless. The first is a slight forward lean, which stretches muscles and tendons like the calves and achilles so they can store more energy and eliminates the small unnatural bend in the lower back that occurs if you are straight up or leaning slightly back. The other is cadence — 180 steps per minute, or 3 per second, is the exact amount of time it takes tendons to store and release energy. This is also known as elastic recoil. Contrary to reason, a faster cadence does not mean faster running. A slower-than-180 cadence also is less than efficient. These two factors combined create proper natural running form.

So what are Newtons supposed to do? They eliminate the drop between heel and toe that other shoes have, which basically means that your foot remains on a pretty level plane. If the heel is 4mm or higher than the toe, your muscles and tendons compress and don’t have the same ability to store and release energy. High heels are a huge exaggeration of this, but could you actually run efficiently and comfortably in them? [My sister probably could.] Newtons also have minimal cushion, which means the foot feels the solid ground more quickly, spends less time there, and requires less energy to push off. The whole lug thing is what Newton calls Action/Reaction technology [I mean, the company is named after some famous physics guy...]. The shoes also promote proper forefoot landing, and the middle of the lugs on the bottom should hit at the top of the first metatarsal — which means that the size you wear in other running shoes may be pretty far off from the size you wear in Newtons. Case in point, I normally wear an 8 but am now in a 9.5.

So that’s my best understanding of the science behind the shoes. But how do you put that into practice? The rep led us through some drills (many of which runners probably already do without understanding their purpose) and stretches that get the body ready to find that natural running position. The shoe alone does not create it for you. One of my problems is that I land (correctly) on my forefoot, but my stride is a bit long and too far forward — the actual power in running comes from having a long stride *backward*. Butt-kicks simulate that. Skipping promotes forefoot strike first and then settling on the heel — because forefoot does not mean “run on your toes.” Marching in place, then running up and down in place, then leaning forward to move forward simulates proper running position by focusing you on the two elements of form. Throw your shoulders and arms forward as though you are doing a butterfly stroke to feel an even stronger pull. If you’re doing this drill, lean back once and feel how that destroys your momentum. Interestingly, we were told to “lean forward” but never to run. And yet, somehow running was exactly what we were doing.

If your form is going to shit, there are a few things you can do to collect yourself and get back on track. Stop, stand up straight, stretch your arms to the sky and look up. Roll your shoulders back. Think about your core and upper back being pulled up by a string. Tighten your core muscles. Hold your palm in front of your chest, put your pinky and thumb on either side of your collarbone and your pointer finger on your chin (this puts your head in the proper position). Regroup and start again. And guess what? All of these things actually make sense and feel natural when you translate the theory into practice.

The last thing I learned? People go on and on about how Newtons last so much longer than other brands and models. This is only sort of true. Basically, the number of miles you get out of your shoes depends on your form. Once the lugs on the bottom are completely worn down, it’s time for a new pair. If you pronate to one side or the other, you might wear down one side first. This means you might get anywhere from 300 to 800 miles out of them. I’m at 100 or so miles on my Distance model and 350 on my Gravity pair. Both have minimal wear, so I think I’m going to be on the upper end of the range. My new MV²s probably will get less because they’re an extremely light racing flat.

Bonus points for the cool colors. Who doesn’t love that?

It’s also worth pointing out that the Newton Running Lab in Boulder, Colo. looks and sounds like the coolest place on earth. I’ve been told they have a couch or two, so, in theory, I could move in.

And that’s what comes from drinking the Newton Kool-Aid. They definitely aren’t for everyone, but I’m happy with them and thrilled to finally understand how and why they do what they do.

So the first week of January treated me well. I spent NYE swimming a crazy 10,060 yards with Katie and running a 4-miler with my favorite girls and eating and drinking and Apples-to-Apples dominating and generally enjoying the hell out of life. I rode my bike in shorts — twice — and had some great running workouts and caught up with a lot of awesome friends. Yesterday marked the formal end of my off-season and the start of my marathon training plan — 16 weeks, you guys! — and now it’s game on.

Along with that comes a return to my regular eating and cooking habits. Not that I haven’t been in the kitchen preparing great meals and sticking with a generally healthy diet — I have — but now I’m making a conscious effort to pay attention to what I’m taking in and to focus on eating fresh and local. The Dupont farmers market stays open through the winter, hooray!

Let’s go back to last week. I attempted a Paleo-ish cleanse to kick off the New Year, and that did not go well at all. I ate citrus fruit for breakfast and was allowed no dairy, processed foods, grains, added sugars, alcohol, etc. Basically, it was a lot of meat/protein, fruits and veggies. The lack of carbs caused sluggish and miserable workouts, and I was constantly cranky and flat and sleepy. The point wasn’t weight loss, but more of a reset to get my body back on track. The catch? I didn’t splurge at all during the holidays. I didn’t gain weight. I actually don’t have weight to lose. I probably could have continued with this experiment for a few more days, but I was more concerned about balance and the quality of my workouts than the concept of a cleanse. Paleo is not for me. I love my oatmeal and smoothies too much.

Next! One of my big plans for the year is to figure out what the hell I put in my body besides fruit! veggies! yogurt! carbs, protein and fat! Because I just eat when I’m hungry (and duh, sometimes when I’m not) and generally guess that I’m covering all my bases by eating a colorful and varied and balanced diet, I actually have no clue if I’m meeting all of my nutritional needs. So for one week I’m tracking my meals on MyPlate, which is an amazing online tool that already has every food (and brand) under the sun programmed in — plus the ability to enter your own recipes and automatically calculate the nutrition facts. Right?!? My biggest hangup in writing down my meals is manually running all those numbers. No thank you. So I weighed myself at the beginning of the week, I’m keeping track of everything for seven days, then I’ll weigh myself at the end, observe and analyze, and put the scale and tracker away until April. It’s merely a baseline and a way to figure out how much protein, etc. I’m actually eating without turning obsessive about calories and fat. I’ll report back next week.

Moving on to my actual meals. My fridge is full of all kinds of vegetables and fruits, and I’m back to experimenting with gluten-free eating. I’m not going to be strict — it’s mainly that I want to test out some GF baking and determine how easy or hard it would be to do this on a regular basis. I made GF bread on Sunday, and it turned out well enough to consume. So, progress.

One of my new finds is The Athlete’s Plate, a cookbook/nutrition plan hybrid by Adam Kelinson. It’s all about eating local and seasonal and whole, a lifestyle I think is great and well-supported in this area thanks to all the farms in Virginia and Maryland. I’m willing to pay a little bit more for quality meat and produce in particular if it means that it’s local. Anyway, the recipes are a bit out there in that they use ingredients generally found in the supplements aisle like hempseed oil and whole flax, but I think things can be adapted if you don’t want to purchase crazy stuff. And — they’re relatively simple and quick and involve no processed foods. First up?

Pan-Seared Tilapia with Thai Citrus Sauce.

• 4-6 oz. fillets of white fish [I chose tilapia]
• 1 T olive oil
• 1 whole lime, sectioned/peeled
• 1 whole orange, sectioned/peeled
• 1 whole lemon, sectioned/peeled
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup brown rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup raw honey
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 T chopped cilantro
• 1-2 Thai chili peppers
• 2 T thinly sliced scallions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

For citrus sauce: Roughly chop sections of lime, orange and lemon and place in a bowl, reserving as much liquid as possible. In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, vinegar, honey and water. Add chopped citrus, juices, cilantro, peppers and scallions and stir.

Heat ovenproof saute pan over medium-high heat on the stove. Sprinkle salt on both sides of fish. When the pan is hot, add olive oil and swirl. Place fillets skinside down (mine didn’t have skin, so I had to carefully watch the cook time) and gently shake to prevent sticking. Cook untouched for 5-7 minutes while the skin crisps. When they can be easily turned, flip with a spatula and cook 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat and place in oven for 5 minutes to finish. Top with sauce and serve with steamed snow peas and brown rice or soba noodles.

Notes: I made the sauce a day ahead and let it soak in the fridge. It is DELICIOUS. I’d definitely use it on fish, chicken, tofu and even other veggies. The fish is great with the citrus chunks. I’ve always been afraid to overcook or undercook fish, but the timing in the recipe yielded perfectly soft and flaky fillets. This dish is also extremely low in calories and fat and high in protein. I *highly* recommend it.

Any recipe or ingredient suggestions? I’ve got brussel sprouts, kale and fennel on the list…