Where Does Your Sole Take You?

Take time to get to know the world around you.

Take the time to get to know yourself: body, soul, and mind.

You, Entrepreneur, you don’t know who you are. You just know what you want. Immaculately manicured and studded with gold rings, your cold hand clasps other cold palms in a rigid alignment signifying a deal, a frigid bargain that is effortlessly broken by the weight of selfishness. You read the black and white newspaper morning after morning so that you’re up to date with the latest trends and gossip.  You push numbers, you exploit the less advantaged life forms below you, and you kiss the ice-cold ass of the powerful giant you aspire to overtake. Your goal is to steal his shoes. Black tie, white shirt, black pants, and your own shoes are unusually spotless because you habitually polish them after every lie you tell. You don’t even know the sole of your foot; you just know it lands where you lay your torrid eyes. A progressive, perpetual motion stipulates the journey you embark on, never becoming intimately familiar with a moment or a scene of true color. You take a breath to quickly breathe it back out, never feeling the life-giving presence of the air in your lungs or respecting the process of breathing in itself as a remarkable phenomenon. You simply use the process to advance forward and up, up, up. I dare you to turn around and look at your footprints. You’ll find that your heel digs too deeply, that your toes pierce and tear, and that you crush the tiny wonders of the world. You say you can’t be blamed, for you didn’t know they were there, in your way, as you trudged tenaciously toward the North Star. Polaris, yeah that’s the one: the stubborn, static one that blindly reveals your demeanor. You’re stuck. You climb without fail. You climb to the top that when you reach it you will discover how bereft of true life it is. You’ll have a title and a lot of wealth, but you will be lonely. Those that you ignorantly clambered by, who were frolicking from cloud to gleaming cloud, will be cart-wheeling through sunny fields of daisies attracting rays of sunlight to the earth with their smiles. They see the earth’s beauty through kaleidoscope eyes, ever-changing and abundant in character. You don’t see what makes them so weightless and blithe, and you don’t understand how you can have it all yet fail to feel the fervor for life that they feel. You will be isolated, having never learned the immeasurable dimensions true love. True love lies in the warmth of a smile that you failed to requite. When you allow yourself to float like a leaf, true love is found in the channel of the wind that carries you to your next endeavor. True love lies in the serenity of nature on a still December night and the effortless descent of a thousand snowflakes silently landing on the ground all at once. It makes known its presence through the texture and scent of an old oak tree – the winding branches tell a tale of the possibilities of love when it is allowed to grow.

You must know, dear Tycoon, that it is not too late to kick off your shiny black shoes and walk barefoot with nature. Slow down and feel earth’s true skin. Allow your own sole to become intimate with the land that gives us life. Recognize that the meaning of life is to love. Realize that the soft embrace of another palm is more fulfilling in your hand than the stiffness of a crisp dollar or the cutting angles of a pristine diamond. Admit that more emotions are stirred from gazing into the eyes of a friend or lover than from seeing yourself with an abundance of material possessions. Believe that life is a product of love, and life’s mysteries are the challenges we face while finding our place in the world. We will rarely foresee their coming or understand their outcomes, so we must be flexible to change and simply enjoy the journey. 




Truth: Society by Eddie Vedder

Lion's Mane

I'm not exactly school motivated tonight. I often get caught up thinking about what really matters in life, and I believe it's not cramming information into my brain and regurgitating it onto an imperative piece of paper within a strict time limit. It feels good to get an A on an exam or a "great essay!" on an eight page paper that took about eight days to complete, but I spend a lot of time dreaming about the things that feel even better in life. The warmth of a kind heart, the sight of nature in it's most undisturbed guise, a simple melody coupled with an eloquent construction of words... it can all release the tethers that restrain the purest of emotions inside you.


Iron & Wine couldn't have said it better:

Run like a race for family

When you hear like you're alone

The rusted gears of morning

And faceless busy phones

We gladly run in circles

But the shape we meant to make is gone

Love is a tired symphony

You hum when you're awake

Love is a crying baby

Mama warned you not to shake

Love is the best sensation 

Hiding in the lion's mane

So I'll clear the road, the gravel

And the thornbush in your path

That burns a scented oil

That I'll drip into your bath

The water's there to warm you

And the earth is warmer 

When you laugh

Love is a scene I render

When you catch me wide awake

Love's a dream you enter

Though I shake and shake and shake you

Love is the best endeavor

Waiting in the lion's mane 

Lion's Mane by Iron & Wine

What To Do on a Windy Day

Checklist for a Great Day:

1. No studying

2. Song Meanings

3. Learning origami

4. Guitar lessons on YouTube

5. Warmth of the sunlight through the front window

6. Ugg Boots and homemade Fuzzy Duds

7. "Skinny Love" station on Pandora

8. Settle for nothing but a good mood

Yup =)

The Climb (part 1)

Normally, I would be studying right now. Keeping up with Biochemistry, Microbiology, Microbiology lab, and Environmental History is a handful. The problem is that I don’t have any more hands than the two that are vigilantly bearing my running lifestyle. But I suppose that’s where my impressive juggling abilities come in, and as long as my responsibilities are in the air or in my hand, everything is in balance. Once shit hits the ground, well, then it’s refocus time.

Fortunately, juggling is my forte and things have been going pretty swell in the running department. Since early June, I have been consistently training with the 2011 Big West Championship Meet in mind. Every mile tallied into my base, every interval split sketched into my running log, every drill session performed visualizing the perfect stride; it all added up and before I knew it, I was at the top of the mountain that represented my last collegiate cross country season, staring starry-eyed at the flag in my foreground reading “All-Conference”. It danced gracefully in the zephyr, the same breeze that kissed my weary cheeks, flushed from the climb. I felt magnificent on top of the world. I built this summit as high as my dreams allowed me, and then dared to rise above it. As I reached out to grab the flag, a sudden gust threw me off balance, reminding me that my feet needed to be firmly planted before I seized the banner. In the wake of this reminder, I peered back over my shoulder, gaping down the mighty mountain of my collegiate cross country career. The memories from the season came rushing back to me...

It was a solid summer of training. I put in solid miles and solid workouts, yet detected no indication that I was improving at the rate that reflected my dedication and diligence. This often tampered with my head, and the thought of red-shirting looked more and more enticing as I mulled it over. The red-shirt idea dissipated after our team time trial, where eight of my teammates and I sustained 6:10 pace for over four miles, at which point our coach stopped us. He had seen enough, resolving that we were a solid team and every individual had done her work during summer training. This day marked the beginning of something uniquely special with the UCSB women’s team: together we lit the torch that ushered our way through the season.

As our first race approached, the Lagoon Home Opener against Cal Poly, I decided to get a blood test to see my ferritin level. I had been taking my iron twice daily for two months and had an intuition that I was going to hit a record high. This wouldn’t be hard to achieve, since the two times I’ve gotten it checked it’s been 19 and 16. I predicted that it would be in the mid-forties. Two days before my race I got my results back. It’s bizarre the way practical math doesn’t seem to provide the correct equation for some bodily functions:

(2 iron supplements)/(1 day) + (2 dinners including red meat)/(1 week) + (feeling pretty good) – (calcium supplement within two hours of iron supplement) – (coffee and tea) = ferritin level of 13.  

What? Did I do the math right? Hot damn, I didn’t think I left any variables out of the equation…

Well, regardless of this unsatisfying news, I was feeling pretty good. I wasn’t expressing any symptoms of iron deficiency, so I tossed my test results aside and began visualizing my race. I wanted to break 18 minutes in this 5k. I wanted to roll.

(to be continued)


What I'm listening to right now: Missed the Boat by Modest Mouse

Yummies to Kick Off the School Year

Coconut Goji Granola

Ingredients:

            3 cup rolled oats

            2 cup puffed millet

            3/4 cup sliced almonds

            3/4 cup sunflower seeds

            1 tbs cinnamon 

            1/3 cup coconut oil

            1/3 cup honey

            1/4 cup brown sugar

            Cooking spray

            1/2 cup shredded coconut

            1 cup goji berries

Directions:

1.  Preheat the oven to 325.

2.  In a large bowl, combine oats, puffed millet, almonds, sunflower seeds, and cinnamon.

3.  In a saucepan, combine coconut oil, honey, and brown sugar. Heat until the mixture melts and becomes homogeneous, stirring frequently.

4.  Pour the hot liquid mixture over the oat mixture and stir to coat.

5.  Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and coat with cooking spray. Pour the combined mixture onto the sheet and spread evenly.

6.  Bake for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Add the shredded coconut the last 10 minutes.

7.  When the granola finished, remove it from the oven and stir in the goji berries.

8.  Let cool then store in an airtight container. 

9.  Enjoy =) 

Happy Goji Granola

What I am listening to right now: Trani by Kings of Leon 

Magnificent

Mammoth Vacation

One week in Mammoth is never enough. I remained happily busy the entire time with various activities including running, hiking, fishing, biking, paying guitar, reading, eating, and warding off mosquitoes… billions of ravenous blood-thirsty mosquitoes.

Twin Lakes - a view from The Bottomless Pit

My favorite aspect of running in Mammoth is that everyone is doing it. With dozens of high school teams scurrying about the town and trails, inspiration as well as competition can be found everywhere. During most of my runs I was accompanied by my best friend and nearly sister, Jenn, aka the crazy-vegan-minimalist-marathon runner. Oh yes, it doesn’t get much more raw than that! After the trials she faced during the week (tripping on a run, crashing on her bike, nearly passing out on our long run) I’m so proud to hear that she got 6^th place overall in the Crater Lake Marathon on Saturday!

On a couple of nights, we visited with our high school team at the apartments they were staying in for their training camp. It’s hard to believe that I started there, that seven years later I was coming back to inspire the kids to be great runners. My high school coach asked me, Jenn, and my brother Nic to host a question and answer session for the team regarding running after high school. I’m not one who enjoys public speaking sort of activities (in fact, I dread them), so I was reluctant to verbalize my knowledge. As I sat down in front of the high schoolers, the nerves that tingled my twitching smile, provoked my clammy hands, and flushed my face red were flooding through my body and mind as fifty young eyeballs were cast upon me. Every pair of eyes surveyed me with a different gaze, and behind each gaze was a unique mind and mission. Some eyes were glazed over with a screen that splintered my words into tiny particles that dissipated into Z’s through a sleepy serene mind. Other eyes gaped wide open exposing a crouching receiver waiting open-handed to snatch the words that flew in and neatly sort them into the brain's bank. And then there were the eyes hiding confidently behind a foolproof veneer through which no words perforated and the only collection of information gained was from observations tied to self-commentary. Most of the questions came from the same handful of kids. 

The question that slapped me in the face and is still throbbing a week later was this: “What would you be doing right now if you weren’t running?” This inquiry was almost too overwhelming, like the last block placed clumsily on top of the Jenga tower of my composure as a runner. The pieces came crumbling down for an instant as I thought, “well shit, I’d be… backpacking, traveling, mountain biking, doing yoga, eating raw, adventuring, watching every sunrise, starting a food blog, racing triathlons, pulling straight A’s, barefoot running, meditating at the peak of a mountain, starting a band, rock climbing, kayaking… STOP!!!” After a mad wave of adrenaline, I shook my head, rewinding the clumsy placement of that detrimental Jenga block, and took a deep breath. I placed the block back on top carefully so that the tower showed no sway what-so-ever, and thought to myself, “I am a runner because I love what I do. The challenge, the camaraderie, the positive lifestyle, the grunt followed by the reward: it makes me who I am. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

But really? Really? Did you really just ask that question? A competitive runner lives for running. I call it the Running Disorder: every decision and action made is set in motion only after one asks her/himself, “how would this affect my running?” We live to run, and if we didn’t have it, we’d be a bit lost.

I decided that I wouldn’t think about what I would be doing right now if I wasn’t running, because it’s like a pointless “what if” question. It doesn’t really matter, because I’m not doing it. I’m competing collegiately and building character. I’m exercising my work ethic to its max and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Yes, all because I chose to be a runner, I am a success.

The day after I got home from Mammoth, a sad day indeed, I did a mile repeat workout that knocked me off my feet, literally, for two days. Hip pain is one thing I won’t test my boundaries on, so when I was feeling a stab in my hip, I laid myself down for the next two days to let it recover. I’ve had too many bad experiences with running through injuries and they never lead to anything right: IT band syndrome, stress fracture, torn plantar fascia, and a quad strain, to name a few. The recent decision to rest was one of the best I’ve made because I was back and running on Tuesday with no pain at all. If an injury is ever in question, it’s always smarter to rest rather than working through it. It could save your season.

But it wasn’t an easy decision to take a couple days off running, especially after reading in Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul by Deepak Chopra that “one research study found… if college athletes in the peak of fitness are put flat on their backs in a hospital bed and not allowed to get up, within two weeks, their muscles lose ten years of training.”
 ...TEN YEARS!!??!! Yikes! Frightening, eh?

So I’m back in Santa Barbara now, training with my girls, and it’s the best feeling ever. It’s so much easier and more gratifying to train at your optimal level when surrounded by your team. In Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald, I read that in a study, runners “performed 21 percent better in a maximal exercise test when they competed against other subjects of similar ability than when they did the same test alone.” Racing season starts in a couple weeks, but first we have a time trial and get to welcome about a dozen new freshmen girls into the program.

On a very last note, my family went to a Chinese restaurant a few days ago and my grandma’s fortune cookie stated, “You are a classic.” So fitting! Mine vaguely read, “People are waiting for cues from you.” Hmmm... I'll toss that one around my mind for a bit.

Rainbow Falls

What am I listening to right now? Astral Weeks by Van Morrison 

Homemade Granola

I’m setting off on a family vacation to Mammoth Lakes tomorrow, so yesterday I ventured to Barnes & Noble to purchase a couple of books for the long car ride and the hours of waiting for a fish to bite while my line is in the lake. The two books I bought were Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul by Deepak Chopra, and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan. The latter of which got me thinking about my ever-changing relationship with food… 

Michael Pollan’s book inspired me to reflect on my family’s eating habits and how they have changed over the years. Up until college, I didn’t have much concern for the type of food I ate, the proportion, or whether I sprucely polished off every unit of the food pyramid daily. I ate what I was fed, and on weeknights when my mom worked late, it wasn’t uncommon for me to help my dad prepare (aka, unwrap, arrange on a pan, slide into the oven, and wait for the beep) a batch of frozen Costco taquitos, corndogs, personal pizzas, or chicken nuggets. I actually remember being quite fond of the frozen chimichangas a lot more than my mom’s homemade ones, but always knew better than to voice it. Slowly, our world turned upside down, and the dawning of a new health conscious era brought salad to the table everyday. Lean protein, hearty grains, and even more vegetables are a nightly necessity these days, and every meal is diligently prepared, usually following a recipe from Cooking Light Magazine. Our freezer consists of vegetables and meat, and there are no premade meals to be found. I guess you could say cooking is a hobby my mom loves. We barely go out to eat, so dinner every night of the week is homemade, often from scratch, and always delicious and healthy.

Even though as a child, my mom predicted I’d never be domestic (it’s just the feeling she got), I have proved her very wrong. I love cooking, especially baking. I think it’s because I have a passion for building things from raw materials – cooking, baking, crafting homemade cards, weaving bracelets, the list goes on! One of my favorite foods to bake is granola. I hate how store bought granola is often loaded with sugars of various names which are only familiar to me from taking years of chemistry classes. So, I make my granola with good ol’ honey and maple syrup. I enjoy being able to choose the combination of nuts, seeds, and dried fruit to sprinkle in! I baked my latest batch to take camping with us, and it's a hit:

Ashley’s August Granola

Ingredients:

            3 cups old-fashioned oats

            1 cup raw sunflower seeds

            1 cup ground flax meal

            ¾ cup sliced raw almonds

            ¾ cup chopped pecans

            ¼ cup maple syrup

            ¼ cup honey

            ½ cup canola oil

            1 teaspoon vanilla extract

            1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

            ½ cup shredded coconut

            1 cup Trader Joes Triple Fruit Treat (dried fruit)

            Cooking spray

Directions:

1.  Preheat the oven to 350°
2.  In a large bowl, mix oats, seeds, flax, and nuts.
3.  In a small saucepan, combine oil, honey, maple syrup, vanilla, and cinnamon. Heat over the stove until it starts to bubble a bit, stirring carefully.
4.  Pour the hot liquid mixture into the oat mixture and stir to coat.
5.  Prepare an oven pan by covering it with aluminum foil and coating it with cooking spray. Then, pour the granola onto it and spread it evenly.
6.  Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes at 350°, stirring every 10 minutes. Before the last 10 minute interval, stir the shredded coconut into the mixture. Please do not overcook it. Watch it carefully, I find that it takes a bit less than 30 minutes.
7.  After the granola bakes for 25-30 minutes, take it out of the oven and transfer into a large bowl. Immediately add the dried fruit and toss to combine. Let cool completely. It may seem soft, but don’t worry, it hardens as it cools.

And there you have it, your own homemade granola. You can mix and match if you don’t like certain nuts or seeds. Some suggestions are walnuts, cashews, pepitas, or sesame seeds. Also, there are so many different dried fruit you can try in it too, including raisins, dates, apples, or apricots. The freedom is yours! Enjoy!


What am I listening to right now? Hey by The Pixies

A Tribute

Dear Dad,
I admire the methodical manner in which you pare your oranges. I will carry on the art in your name.
Love, Ash

What am I listening to now? The Trapeze Swinger by Iron & Wine

July Camps

Last week was a busy one, all fortunately concentrated around the one thing my life seems to endlessly orbit: running. Five days of working as staff of a high school track camp, directly followed by a weekend in Santa Cruz with my teammates kept me busy, focused, and revved up for this cross country season.

“Track Camp” is what we call it, but it’s more like supervising a blast from the past, being reminded of what we were like as high school track-letes. Girls in spandex and vibrant sports bras seem to have little concern for body image holding them back from peeling off their oversized Mt. SAC t-shirts, and placing more emphasis on face make-up and nail polish color than the concern of an untoned belly or under-defined deltoid muscles. Boys, wearing long baggy shorts as if all the pale skin of their thighs is too sensitive for sunlight, spike their hair with gel and fake a deeper voice whenever flirting with the young ladies. Despite the humor of it all, most the teens out there were sincerely interested in absorbing our wisdom about training the right way: nutrition, recovery, lifestyle habits, and workout diversity were presented as new tools for optimal performance. Their progression was visible, by the end of the week there was an evident increase in efficient running form (taught via drills), interest in aqua-jogging, embrace of the luscious salad bar over the greasy day old hash browns, and a vibe of enthusiastic camaraderie amongst each other. Observing their progress and resolving their curiosity on running related topics provided gratitude that overpowered the downside of the whole camp for the staff, which comprised mostly of overtraining and under-sleeping. The camp ended with a staff lunch, where I stuffed my face with a fat burrito and moseyed home to embrace the sudden evaporation of back-to-back “things to do.” I let the sunny summer boredom steal my sigh of relief and carry it through the warm wind that blew through Isla Vista. A couple hours later, my restless legs sprung into action, as my brother Nic and I rode our road bikes a half an hour to Bikram Yoga, sweat half our body weight out onto a soggy towel, and then hit up Whole Foods for dinner before riding back to my apartment, chasing the sleepy sun into it’s cool ocean bed. 

“Women’s Camp” began the very next day, as my teammates and I woke before the sun opened its big bright eye. Leaving rubber on the road behind, we roamed up the coast to Capitola Beach in Santa Cruz. The weekend workouts went well: two tempos and a long run wore me out but it was invigorating to be training with my supportive and focused teammates. An even spread of goal talk and girl talk wrapped up the weekend and I was back in Isla Vista before Sunday night concluded. I feel relieved now that I expressed my fears and insecurities regarding the season to my teammates, and mentioned the possibility of redshirting the upcoming cross country season. By no means would that decision make any alterations in my training, for I will prepare and race with the same vigor and determination whether the letters UCSB are proudly fixed across my heart or not. With only one more year of eligibility left and two years of school, it seemed to make sense to everyone that my strength will come with time, and reawakening my legs from three months of a bitter foot stress fracture requires more time than I am allotted to be as successful as I can in the Fall.

While nurturing a suffering achilles, I’m holding up well. In Santa Barbara for the rest of the week, I aim to hit 80 miles this week. I’m finally enjoying my training and getting excited for my first week of three strong workouts, drills and weights every other day, a couple sessions of Bikram Yoga sprinkled in, and some Foundation classes to improve my running efficiency. Oh, and of course I’m also excited for the wicked tan I’ll get from paddling around in the ocean on my housemate’s surfboard.

Santa Barbara x (running shoes + a bikini + my road bike) = the perfect summer            


What I'm listening to right now: Wash. by Bon Iver      

Solitude

I finally determined it was time. It wasn’t forced, although it was a long time coming. It wasn’t a sudden spur of spontaneity, but a gradual decline of interest. It was for the betterment of my self, for the sake of facing a fear and a challenge. Strength. I did it so that I would actually keep I touch with the people I care about, not just keep up to date with the over-glamorized façade put up by every person I know. It was an action I took for the sake of productivity and freedom from the overwhelming web of our sticky so-called social life. I’m piecing together a real social life now, cutting free seemingly endless wires that tie me down, plug me in, and make me feel less self-reliant. When it asked me to please explain my reasoning before pressing “Deactivate,” I replied:

“Facebook, you are a time sucker. Your conveniences reduce the worth of real relationships and the importance of truly keeping in touch. You make us think we are staying connected with our friends, but in truth, the depth of each relationship maintained through your services is greatly reduced. Fuck you Facebook, I need some solitude.”

And then… I felt free. 

Jammin' and Snappin'

Since it’s summer, I’ve been picking up some hobbies that have collected dust over the years. Nothing new, just those activities I used to love, but got tossed aside due to the hectic combination of running, school, and fulfilling basic needs that tag along with living with five other girls in a college town apartment. The two hobbies I have been embracing this summer are guitar and photography.

Relearning guitar was at first painful, with my baby soft fingertips. But after a month or so I’ve developed some pretty rad calluses that help extend my playing periods from what used to be two minutes, to two hours a day now! You’d think I’d have a couple songs down at that rate, but my other problem is song ADD. I can’t seem to perfect a whole song and get real smooth at it before dreaming up a different one I want to rock out to. It also doesn’t help that I am constantly listening to a playlist of 88 AMAZING songs on my iPod and want to try to play them all, so I can’t focus on the task at hand. So far, I can play most of Flume by Bon Iver, some of Wonderwall by Oasis, the intro to Naked as We Came by Iron and Wine, and a few others. Sadly, I left my capo in Santa Barbara, but I found a pretty nifty solution:

Photography is also quite a task. I was hoping to learn some tricks and skills from my older brother when I was visiting him in Portland two weeks ago, but time flew by a bit too fast and we didn’t get around to a real photography lesson. He did shield the sun from my lens while I was taking a picture of Multnomah Falls though! What a pal =)   

What am I listening to right now? Thumbing My Way by Pearl Jam. Ahhh so good!

Waiting for My Wings

Lately I’ve been feeling pretty down. Tired, unmotivated, cranky. For the past week, every step of almost every run has been forced and painful. Everyone has those dreams where they are running from something, but aren’t actually going anywhere…well that’s how I feel. When I’m not running, I want to sleep, yet when I try, I can’t fall asleep. Awesome, that’s just great for my training.

I credit this feeling to a variety of causes. It could be the heat, the altitude (5200 feet, mile high baby!), or my stubborn insomnia. Having recently abandoned my coffee addiction cold turkey, it’s feasible that this is what it feels like not to be riding out an adrenaline rush all day. Pumping caffeine all morning will sure make you feel alive, but I’ve decided that it’s peaked at an unnatural level. Its also possible that this is always the mood of July: getting in shape for cross country after having never finished a collegiate track season healthy and in one piece can be a slow process. Lastly, I can’t rule out every distance runner’s nightmare… the condition that makes us wince in terror…the all too common but worse case scenario of the beast eating our body from the inside out. Maybe… just maybe… I’m anemic!

Which would explain why my eyes lit up with animated anticipation when I spotted a package under my Grandma’s arm as she made her five-yard shuffle from her car to our front door with the daily mail. Normally, she slaps a stack of bills and notices on our table, which only deserves a glance from me, only half of a second of my attention before I proceed with the task I was involved in. But this package wasn’t just any daily parcel. It was a box, brown and slightly smaller than a shoebox, with the little Amazon smile-arrow-doodad along the side. Judging by her effort, it looked as though it weighed about five pounds, maybe less. I eagerly interrogated her about this intriguing rectangular cardboard complex: “Is it heavy? Who is it addressed to? Does it smell like pennies?” I didn’t exactly leave time for her replies, so she dropped it in my lap and I pounced like a five year old attacking his attractively wrapped present on Christmas morning. Her worrisome awareness with my struggle to pry the tape apart with my brute force launched her into a frantic search for the best key on her key ring to cut the Ashley-proof tape with. As soon as she sliced it open, I unfolded the brown cardboard flaps to a glorious sight: three bottles of liquid iron. Yes! Magic Juice!   

There are many theories behind the association between iron deficient anemia and distance runners. To name a few, iron is lost through sweating, red blood cell destruction from footstrike, and depletion that is associated with tissue inflammation. Now, I’ve never been diagnosed with anemia, but whenever I’ve requested a blood test, my ferritin levels have always come back low (the amount of ferritin in one’s blood is directly related to the amount of iron stored in one’s body). It’s said that a normal level is between 10-143 ng/mL, and both times I’ve checked, mine has been 19 and 16. I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to have a ferritin level in the triple digits, so here I am, taking shots of liquid iron twice a day, waiting for some kind of miracle to give me wings.  

A Refreshing Awakening

I didn’t hear the distant rumbles over the soothing melody of La Mar by the Beautiful Girls flowing through my headphones. Rather, what stirred me from my much-needed state of relaxation was the musty smell of rain. Although I hadn’t actually fallen asleep in the last hour that I was laying in my bed (but anticipated slipping into that peaceful darkness soon), I switched directions and gravitated toward the window to greet the rain. Delightfully, it greeted me in return with a crackle and sudden sheet of heavy drops. I was immediately refreshed! The drum of a million sporadic tears from the clouds silenced the racket of cars and wood chippers. The asphalt streets became pollen-filmed rivers within minutes. This transformation proved nature’s power to subdue the tainted spectacle of our industrial world. It was beautiful.

An hour later the storm had passed, so I tied on my running shoes and hit the soggy streets. It was only a thirty minute run followed by form drills, but I felt light and energized. I pondered for a reason behind this revived feeling that contrasted with the heavy, tired sensation I had during my morning run. It couldn’t have been the nap that was prompted by my persistent insomnia over the last couple of nights, because I never actually fell asleep. Maybe it was the delicious block of dark chocolate I munched on after lunch? Unlikely. I concluded that I felt great for the same reason the trees felt great, the same reason the grass, streams, and amphibious creatures felt great: the rain! It washed away my worries, replenished my tired body, and filled my heart with glee. It was just what I needed.

This blog is an account of how my love for running, nature, music, and food interact harmoniously to give life to my soul and my endeavors.