Rest week, concluded

Every iteration of my strength training this week has included 105 reps of every exercise, more than any previous week. All of my runs have consisted of at least 30% forefoot first striking, except today. Today, I ran a hair over 9 kilometers in my 5mm drop shoes.

Ever since I bought them, I've added arch and toe exercises to my morning stretching routine, continually increased my forefoot striking while running, and generally worn the 5mm drop shoes for walking around. When I went for a run today in those 5mm drop shoes, as opposed to the 10mm drop shoes I normally wear, I didn't even notice. Which is fantastic; I'm moving towards being totally adapted to running in zero drop shoes.

Tomorrow, I'll test my dehydrated stroganoff and egg noodles.

Rest week

I started doing at least 30% of my running as toe-first striking this week. It's a rest week, so a good time to increase. I also did 105 reps of all my strength training exercise on monday; I plan to maintain that as a minimum.

On Sunday, I steamed 500 grams of sliced white mushrooms, and 500 grams of sliced yellow onions. Both got drained, and the draining and steaming liquids got mixed and strained, and came to about 250mL. Today, I cooked that liquid with 40 mL of tamari, 5 grams each of salt, pepper, and garlic powder, 25 grams of flour, and 30 grams of milk powder until thick. I then added the mushrooms on onions and divided the entire deal into 4 portions in the dehydrator.

Earlier in the week, I cooked 200 grams of egg noodles for 9 minutes, then strained, rinsed, and dehydrated them. I may end up with a passable stroganoff with egg noodles soon.

A full, rich day

Today, I ran the rest of my distance for the week, leaving tomorrow and Sunday as rest days leading into a rest week. That makes my cumulative running for this week total more than two full marathons. I've maintained doing well over 20% of my total distance with a forefoot strike; next week, I'll transition to 30% minimum.

Beside that, though, today I did my laundry for the week, including folding, filled a water jug, powdered a couple pounds of kimchi, went grocery shopping, and prepared for making red beans tomorrow.

I'm also thinking more about dehydrated meals, largely for backpacking but possibly also for work. I think I can make a decent dehydrated mushroom stroghanoff. I'll probably steam some mushrooms and onions, cook them with some garlic and some soy sauce or miso, then dehydrate the mixture and package it with milk powder and vegetable or beef sock powder.

Reset Successful

Last week, I ran to work every day, and home from work every day except Saturday. The runs later in the week were particularly satisfying; I got back to running along the Charles river esplanade, and the run to work on Saturday included a 6.5kg backpack. I had slight pain in my right knee on the first run to work, and slight pain in my left ankle on the first run home, but other than that things went very well.

Today, I had a nice long run to work (somewhat over 15 km), and at an average pace of 5:38/km with pack. I'm quite pleased. I replaced all the screw in my shoes; it seems like 200 or 250 km is a good time to replace them by. If I'm going to replace my shoes at 500 km, it also provides a convenient halfway point.

I purchased a set of cookbooks by an author that specializes in dehydrated recipes for backpacking and related activities. I'm interested in experimenting with such recipes; they could even form the basis for some decent work meals, if only occasionally. He's got some very interesting combinations, and I may just experiment with such things as pad thai. I would probably end up buying at least a few dehydrated ingredients rather than trying to tackle them myself. Others I probably couldn't find commercially even if I tried. But in any event, I should be able to pack a full meal into a pint mason jar, vacuum seal it, and reconstitute it with hot water without too much trouble. I think one of my first experiments will be with cooking, rinsing, and dehydrating some pasta.

Resetting

Last Monday, I ran farther than I ever have before. It was only slightly farther than the previous Monday, but because I ran a more efficient route, I got to the next farthest commuter rail station. I was extremely glad to have packed a jacket and windproof pants; once I stopped, I got cold quite quickly.

Over the course of the next few days, I had some pains in my right knee. I ran slower and skipped a run or two, but while running to work on Thursday, I noticed some real differences in how it was feeling, so I stopped and called an uber. I haven't run since. Five days of healing should be enough, especially since my knee hasn't bothered me for a couple days; I'll run to work tomorrow, and see how things feel. I also skipped my strength training on Friday, but today was just fine.

Today, I took advantage of having access to a vehicle and established a (small) emergency supply cache in the basement of a friend's house. I'd like to get to the point where I'm visiting the supplies about once a month, dropping off new and taking away old supplies. If I take away about a week's worth at a time, they can make up about a quarter of my diet; rice, beans, coffee, salt, etc.

I also made vanilla ice cream today. I mostly used the recipe in how to cook everything, but with a few lazy parts. I combined 1 cup each milk and light cream in a saucepan, whisked it while I sifted in 2 tablespoons of cornstarch, added 1 cup of sugar, and heated it until it would hold a line on a spoon. I then chilled it; once it was chilled, I added it to my ice cream machine along with another cup of light cream mixed with 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. That left me with another 2 cups of light cream in the carton, so I mixed them with a scoop of ground coffee and put it in the fridge; I'm planning to see if it makes a good coffee ice cream.