Happy Friday! How has your week been so far? As with every week, Friday Thrive rounds up some of my favorite articles, workouts, and more from the week – and here are my favorites from this week.
Race
“Molly Huddle and the Perks of Racing Dangerously” by Martin Fritz Huber for Outside.
A couple weekends ago, Molly Huddle broke the America record for a women’s half marathon, beating Deena Kastor’s 12-year-old record – and, in her own words, “blew up” in the process. Huddle did not make the common mistake of starting out too fast and falling apart in the second half of the race – but she did make a calculates risk and ran the final 5K at 10 seconds per mile slower than the rest of the race (5:05 down to 5:15 – and think about those paces for a minute).
I will never tell someone to start out a race too faster or run a faster time than their training indicates (nor is that what Huddle did). But this article makes me wonder if at times in the past (like my half marathon in early 2017), if I raced too conservatively through the middle miles.
Run
There are no magic workouts. The most effective workouts sometimes can be the least glamorous, but they improve your running because they require you to concentrate and work hard. My latest workout on Runkeeper’s blog is a long interval workout – 8-minute repeats – to build both speed and endurance in one hard but effective workout.
Read
I guest posted over on Meredith’s blog this week, discussing what female runners should know about how their cycle can affect running. It’s a fascinating topic, so I encourage you to hop over to The Cookie Chrunicles and read!
Shop
StrideBox has a huge sale on their StrideBox Elite website, featuring name brands such as Saucony and Nike. Use the code StrideBox50 for 50% off your orders. This is an awesome discount! I purchased these Saucony Scoot shorts for a great price.
Eat
It may be a runner cliche, but I love peanut butter. I think the cold weather makes me crave fat more, because all I want after a run is a big spoonful of peanut butter on a bowl of oatmeal… and that’s after having some peanut butter on my pre-run banana. (Here’s the recipe for how I make my own peanut butter – if you even want to call throwing peanuts and salt into a food processor a recipe.)
[Tweet “Catch up on this week’s favorites from @thisrunrecipes, include @StrideBox sale, guest posts for @cookiechRUNicle, and workouts from @Runkeeper #runchat”]
Do you race conservatively or aggressively?
What foods do you crave when it’s cold outside?
13 Responses
Ive been eating a lot more oatmeal this winter! And I love adding peanut butter to it. I buy freshly ground peanut butter at Fresh Market which is really good. I think in general I race too conservatively. I have had a few races where I went out too fast, and now I worry about that happening again! It’s tough to find a good middle ground.
That fear of going out too fast again is real! It is so hard to find that middle ground, especially if the pain of going out too fast has happened before.
I did not see that Molly Huddle article so I will have to read it – so interesting! And you already know I’m a huge fan of Stacy Sims and all her work on training as a female and getting to know the business of your cycle. My new article/interview with her should be up on Women’s Running next week 🙂
And I got two amazing tops (for a total of $50) with the StrideBox Elite sale!!
As for peanut butter? I could eat it all day. My fav!
I can’t wait to read your article! The StrideBox sale was too good to pass up!
I need to read that article on Molly. I’m a conservative racer. Or at least I was in the past. It’s been so long since I actually raced a race! And PB? All day, every day!
The article really made me think about pushing harder in those middle miles and end of a race. I hope you get a chance to race this year if you want to!
I haven’t run a race in awhile but I’d say I race pretty conservatively. Does depend on the race distance though, I feel like a short race you can afford to be a little riskier than a marathon. But I agree with taking *calculated* risks…
Your new shorts are really cute and that PB looks good. I’m gonna have to stop eating so much PB!
Shorter races can afford to be riskier, although I do think the middle miles of a half can be as well if it is calculated. And no such thing as too much PB!
Wow…admittedly I haven’t been following much running news these days, but I had no idea about Molly breaking the record! That’s awesome!
I tend to race pretty conservatively. I’m not going to be setting any records or breaking the tape any time soon, so I would rather get a slightly slower time and finish strong than blow up and have a miserable race experience.
It is so awesome! Somehow that story didn’t make the news as much, but Huddle is a force in running and I really am excited for her to race at Boston. And I agree on having a slower race rather than a miserable one – it’s a fine balance between taking a calculated risk and not having a miserable race.
I love PB too – and I tend to crave more bread when it’s cold outside, so more PB on toast!
PB on toast is soooo delicious this time of year (or really, all the time!).
That long interval workout seems like so much fun and I will definitely try it with the aim to improve my running, Laura!