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Showing posts from 2012

My Pain Training

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My winter waxing break. Now that it's winter my legs and arms will not see the light of day much w hich can only mean one thing: hairy legs and pits and a bikini line that closely resembles the Tahoe National Forest. Yeah. If I let myself go I can be that hairy. I try not to, but hey, it happens sometimes. [ By the way, i f you are squeamish about  things that cause bodily pain or horrific details of childbirth here's your out   because cute puppies never fail to soften the blow of my way too honest posts. ] I'm lucky since a lot of my body hair is blondish. So instead of looking like a gorrilla I'm more of a blonde yeti. But it's still there and annoying as hell. For as much as I lean in the liberal direction on the political scale, I hate being hairy and I do not embrace my inner hippy in this respect. Sorry. At least I've chosen to epilate and wax for environmental reasons which IS embracing my inner hippy so I consider that close

The Devil's Treadmill - 10 Things I Learned

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I did something I've never done before. No … I didn't wear mom jeans and a tube top in public or try to freestyle rap in the grocery store. Loudly. And I did NOT buy that vibrator at a garage sale. It's pretty safe to say I would never do any of those things. EVER . But since I never say "never" I retract that statement for superstitious reasons. Still, I did something I've been hesitant to do and honestly a little afraid to try for a long time now. What is it? I ran on a treadmill. With my coordination I'm lucky I'm still alive.   The recent rains made our trails obscenely muddy and last we ek I had limited time to sque eze in a trail run AND go to the grocery store so I consul ted the devil (you know? The one on your shoulder that pokes his little pitchfor k in your ear ... ) and he said that I should definit ely try the tr eadmill. He said the trea dmill would keep my shoes clean AND would make all of my running fan tas ies come

Steep Hills and Deep Mud - A Sweeping Adventure

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Coastal Trail North Face Endurance Challenge I didn't do the Merrell Mud Run this year, but I got my fill of mud sweeping a portion of the marathon distance at the North Face Challenge in San Francisco recently. The trails were ridiculous. And when I say ridiculous I mean insanely un-runnable. But the front runners in the marathon were ahead of their projected pace times which could only mean one thing. They were using the mud to their advantage on the steep descents and probably sliding down parts of that trail on their butts. It was THAT muddy. They all had muddy asses so that was my best conclusion (hey... its hard not to look. They were some nice asses) and i t was hard to escape not falling on your ass in a race like this. Talk about a logistical nightmare. The two day race which was to include a 50 mile, 50k, marathon and marathon relay on Saturday and a half marathon and 10k on Sunday was nutty and chaotic. The 50 miler had to be rerouted onto the 50k and marathon c

Foul Weather Training

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California Super Storm Its now officially all of a sudden winter here in California and there's going to be a deluge of weather in the next ten days. So I, being the sane and sensible person that I am < insert sarcastic voice here >  decided to do something very reasonable. I decided to help sweep the marathon portion of the North Face Endurance Challenge Championship in Marin this weekend. I did that. I seem to be getting good at doing stupid things. "But why is this so stupid, Krista?" you ask. Because it just so happens that this weekend (and probably for the next ten days) we are under extreme weather alert. Its our little mini west coast version of hurricane Sandy. We like to call it a Storm Siege California or California Super Storm. You know. Whatever makes it sound like California is going to fall off the edge of the continent at a ny moment will describe this storm perfectly. And no Super Storm would be complete without catastrophic activity lik

My 100 Miler Decision

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My rented room in Sheffield England When I was 24 I moved to Sheffield England. My plan was to attend Sheffield Hallam University Art School as part of an "exchange program" through my college. I use quotes here because this "exchange program" was loosely structured and not really sanctioned by the college itself, but instead informally organized through a mutual agreement between two professors in two different countries. The airfare was expensive and cost me around $800 roundtrip but lucky for me I had smartly invested a small amount of money in my very first mutual fund du ring my last year of high school and its dividends were just enough to get me overseas. Barely. I had left a relationship back home which was starting to go sour. Very sour. Leaving the country was an ideal out for me and probably the best decision I have ever made in my life. But it was scary. I had never travelled solo before and although I had the support of one of the university pro

Ten Ways To Annoy Me At The Gym

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Yeah. This is my gym. Enough said. I'm the first to admit I'm a living, running, breathing gym fail and I'm OK with that. Most of the time I end up laughing at myself for something stupid I just did (like when I was stretching between reps of back squats and somehow managed to hit my head on the squat rack. Who does that?) But even with all my stupidity and lack of grace I try to stay focused with my gym workovers so I can get in and out of there. But, sometimes that's hard to do because of... well... people.   Really. People.  I know I'm not one to talk. Hell, I've had my fair share of being the annoying person (dude who I almost kicked in the head doing pullups would probably agree), but I think we can all share the burden here. So if you really want to piss me off in the gym here are a few guidelines. WARNING: Petty post and r ant ahead. Make snarky comments about my minimal shoes.  Even better, make sure you tell me that Vans are inappropriate fo

My Favorite Things For Running

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"The Stash" A local favorite running trail   I'm a minimal runner in many ways. Not only do I prefer minimal shoes or barefoot, but I try not to be a pack mule when I run. That means I usually run sans the technology or a ton of other gear. You won't find a big fat Garmin on my wrist and the only reason I bring my phone is in case I get lost or there's an emergency. Or if there's a big fat five foot rattlesnake in the middle of the trail that I come a couple feet from stepping on and I need to run back a couple hundred yards to facebook about it. Yeah. I did that. But I only facebooked about it because should it eat me alive (Seriously. That mother fucker looked like it had just swallowed a small deer) then people would know where to find my body. I happened to be running barefoot on the trails that day at sunset and could barely see the beast when I almost stepped on it. I don't think I've ever barefoot backpedaled so fast in my life! There are