I moved on with my summer goal of fermenting
more veggies and started with pickles. I purchased some organic pickling
cucumbers at the Durham Farmers Market, along with some dill and garlic. Came
home and two days later followed the directions in the Nourishing Traditions
cookbook, with one exception. I used kefir whey instead of yoghurt whey.
Instead of preventing mold, mold exploded and the floating cukes were covered with white stuff. When I opened the jar they smelled so good, but
they were so gross!
Needless to say that the pickles have
left the building. I hope to start over again today if I can get some cukes
from the organic blackberry farmer and bee keeper whose farm I am going to this
morning to pick blackberries. This time I won’t use whey, I will use extra
salt, and I will make the pickles immediately. Here’s hoping.
I still needing to start cooking with fresh
herbs and make some sourdough bread. Baby steps…just have to remember that.
I thought I was home free, being able to run three
miles in the Vibrams four times in three weeks surely meant that 4.5 miles was
doable. Oh how wrong I was!! Yesterday, four days after my 4.5 mile run (which
was easy), I did some interval training. My Achilles tendons and ankles were
sore from the start. They loosened up some, but not completely. Every stride
had pain, but I toughed it out and completed my first morning of interval
training (which was great fun!).
The soreness in my ankle area went to the
next level and I hurt even just sitting. Today, I am pain free while sitting,
but I can’t even imagine running. Going down stairs hurts. I thought I would skip
this due to all the preparation I did leading up to this. I walked in the
Vibrams for six weeks, then I went to three mile runs successfully for three
weeks. Apparently the muscles that I hadn’t used much for most of my life weren’t
ready for over four miles.
I did some internet searching, and I am not
the only one reporting these problems. I will take the next week off of running
– maybe the next two, and then start slowly. Slow is so hard to do when my
legs, lungs and heart can do so much more. But, like most things, it is a
journey, not a sprint, so I need to reset my expectations.
Still love my Vibrams!
It was a good morning for a run. I was up
early, and I decided to go further than the usual 3 miles. I bumped it up to 4.5
miles, and it was fantastic. I had plenty of energy at the end. I still can’t
believe what nutrient dense food and a lot of squats and lunges can do to
improve performance. My limiting factor is water, so I think I need to buy one
of those and grip bottles or a water bottle belt so I can hydrate as I go.
How did I feel after? Great! Until later. My
calves and ankles are a little sore, and I was too relaxed the rest of the day.
I felt that I was moving in slow motion and had no desire to tackle anything
with gusto. I don’t like that feeling.
I have learned to better prepare myself by
eating a banana before the run, and an electrolyte drink and some French Toast
after. The electrolyte drink is not a sports drink, but a powder mix. I am not
sure that I like even drinking that because I am anti-prepared food, but it
seems to help me be less drained. I need to do some research regarding post run
eating, as more than three miles in this heat drains me to a state of day long
relaxation. Ryan says that’s a good thing and I should just go with it, but I
want a little more pep.
Summer solstice, and it is time to write down
my food goals for the summer.
1. Ferment more foods. Need to push on past sauerkraut,
kefir and kombucha. Hello pickles!
2. Learn to cook with fresh herbs. Right now
I am pretty much clueless, except for basil.
3. Be more adventurous with the nutrient
dense cooking. My friend Shirley is the inspiration for this one. She is always
trying something new, and everything I have tried has been great!
4. When I hit the food wall, completely lost
and uninspired, cook something new! Maybe I will learn to cook with berries, as
I am about to pick 100 pounds of blackberries…I hope!
What are your food goals for the summer?
We should have known better, but it was a
perfect night for it. There Ryan, Colson and I sat, playing Crazy 8s and listening
to Colson’s great guitar teacher playing outside of a coffee shop. It seemed
that more and more people around us were eating ice cream. Eventually Colson
asked if we could have some. Sure…it seemed to be the perfect night, after all.
It tasted so good!
By 11:30 last night I was developing a pounding
headache. Thankfully aspirin took care of it pretty quickly. By 3:00 a.m. Ryan
was going for the aspirin. He was borderline migraine, but the aspirin knocked
it out in two hours.
We had ice cream hangovers…AGAIN! You think we
would have learned by now. Our bodies are so clean thanks to the food that we
eat that neither Ryan nor I can handle the stuff!
The morning after Run 2 with the Vibrams, my
ankles hurt. It isn’t an injury type hurt. Instead it is a “ouch, these muscles
don’t get used much and are loaded with lactic acid” ache. With all of the working
out that I do, you would think that my ankle, foot and calf muscles wouldn’t be
caught so off guard. Moving around for
15 minutes got things loose and pain free again.
I did another three miles this morning in my
Vibrams. My calves didn’t feel tight before I started, but when I did…YIKES! I
don’t ever have tight calves, but these Vibrams are causing me to work them
differently. The run was easy, but when I was finished, my calves yelled at me.
I was a little gimpy from the soreness for about an hour after. It is not an
injury soreness, but a muscles soreness.
I didn’t experience any foot pain when I
crossed the concrete driveways and streets. I did have some the first time I
ran.
I noticed something else on this run. Because
I am running through the pretty grass of corporate lawns, deep and thick, I am
having to lift my feet a little more. My quads, which are pretty strong after all
of the squats I have been doing for two years, are getting a new workout and I
can feel them strain a bit.
If you are intrigued, check out Christopher
McDougall’s Born to Run and read my two previous posts.
Anyone who has been reading my blog knows
that I enjoy a good experiment on myself, whether it is intended or not. In Born
to Run, Christopher McDougall states that people’s feet shrink after
wearing Vibrams for a period of time. Many people experience feet that increase
in size as they age. This is due to shoes, which prevent us from really using
our foot muscles, causing our feet to spread out and increase in size. People
who go barefoot a lot or use Vibrams are reported to have shrinking feet because
foot muscles are strengthening and tightening things up.
When I was 20, I wore a size 8, which became
an 8.5 by my late 20s and a 9 in my early 30s. Wanting to test McDougall’s
statement, and spurred on by my father who doesn’t believe that the foot can
shrink as McDougall describes, I tried on a favorite old pair of loafers I haven’t
been able to wear for about 8 years. The shoes used to barely fit and the fit
was very uncomfortable. I know, I should
have thrown them away, but I just didn’t want to. This morning I tried them on
for the first time in years and years, and while they are the tiniest bit snug,
they are wearable. I am glad I saved them, as they are a great measure of
change. I will try them on again in another couple of months and see if the
snugness goes away.
Now for the calves. The day after my 3 mile
trial run my calves are a bit sore. Running barefoot or in Vibrams is a whole different
way of running. Steps are shorter and the foot strike is more focused on the
ball of the foot, which somehow translates into working the calf muscles. I may
try a mid-week run and see if that helps me to be loose.
So far these Vibrams have been a ball!
Today was the day. I finally ran in my
Vibrams. I didn’t intend to, but I did. After 5 weeks or so of just walking,
with a little run of maybe 100 yards at the end, I decided to go for it. What
made this such a big deal is that I didn’t think I was ready. For these 5 weeks
I could never get farther than 100 yards running because the bottom of my left
foot would yell at me.
Why was today different? Why was I able to
run 3 miles pain free? Because I ran on grass instead of pavement. I didn’t
think I was ready, but was I wrong. I didn’t mean to run, but I did. It was the
best run ever!! In regular running shoes, running on uneven grass is usually a
scary thing because it is easy to turn an ankle. With Vibrams, I felt
everything, and it was so cool! My body easily adjusted to all the unevenness.
The grass was wet, keeping my feet cool. Usually, wet feet with running shoes
(or any shoes) would drive me nuts, but Vibrams are designed as a boat shoe and
wet just seems to work. Near the end of the run I did notice that whenever I
crossed over concrete the bottom of my left foot did twinge, but then I
shortened my stride and that seemed to help.
The only “problem” that I noticed is that
during my cool down walk I realized I had developed a small hotspot and now
have a blister. Even so, I will NEVER purposefully run in anything else.
Happy Saturday!
