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.

Longest run ever

Yesterday, I ran farther than I ever have before.

26.8 kilometers total. I carried a smallish pack, with all the things in it that I'm considering essential for long distance runs. Things like my first aid kit, wind shell, snacks, etc. I took both of my flexible 600mL bottles, which turned out to be just about enough water for the run (one of the bottles) and recovery immediately after (the other). I ran a full 6km of the whole with a forefoot strike, and ended up at the Salem commuter rail train station in just enough time to have a snack, drink some water, and put on my wind shell before I got a ride home. I bought some groceries on the way home, filled most of my water containers, and then crashed to eat an entire bag of tortilla chips.

It was marvelous. It was over 40 percent of my distance for the week, due mostly to getting slightly lost once or twice, but I'm not worried; I just came off a rest week, and I didn't have any serious pains yesterday or today.

Anyway, I didn't run at all today. I'll run to and from work for the rest of the week, I think, and that will just about finish my distance for the week.

It's been awhile

Since I last posted. I'm into a rest week now, but it's still quite rewarding. I've been doing forefoot striking for 10% of my runs for some time now, basically making sure to do at least 100 steps of running with my toes striking first for every KM in a given run (not necessarily 100 steps in each actual km, but the number of km in a run, rounded up to the nearest whole number, is the number of 100 step toe first iterations I'd do). At some point, I started doing at least 300 at a time. Today, I did 20% of my run to work with forefoot striking. It's working out well, and I at least partially credit having added toe and arch exercises to my routine.

I received a package from REI today. A pair of 600mL ultraflasks, an emergency bivy, that sort of thing. I'm now well into the territory of having assembled a good trail running kit.

I figured out that my vivoactive 3 just does not have enough battery life to cover a trail marathon in April. Not even close. I'm seriously considering a different watch.

More milestones

On Saturday, I went for a run during a proper blizzard; I ended up taking my jacket off, too. I had icicles built up on my eyebrow and eyelashes by the end. Worth it.

On Monday, I achieved all 100 reps of both situps and squats carrying 10 pounds. I then ran to work with a 7.5kg pack. Between adding my wind pants and jacket to the pack for the run home, it was actually 7.9kg on the run back. Both of those weights included 2 1-liter bottles of water. My right knee bothered me ever so slightly, so today I took public transportation to and from work, and took the opportunity to move a few things both ways. I took a variety of medications to work, where I achieved some success sealing them in plastic straws. I found that I could print a piece of paper with the name, dose, and expiration date of each pill, then heat seal it into a small section of a drinking straw. The font must be simple and the type very small (size 4), but it remains legible through the straw. I also bought some single-use tubes of super glue, butterfly strips, and a spool of half inch waterproof medical tape. All told, I've got just about everything for a good medical kit that should fit into a tin.

I also brought home my new cutting mat, ruler, and the patterns for the backpack I hope to make, along with my new hydroblu water filter. It filters water with much less pressure than I anticipated. There is no appreciable flow of air back through it, so the filter has to be unscrewed to allow the bottle to re-expand before more water can be squeezed through. I wonder about an intermediate attachment with a check valve. I also wonder about the wisdom of using a small piece of tube to bring the water from the outlet to the clean water bottle, to minimize the chance of dirty water leaking out from around the joint and dripping down into the clean bottle.

I've been wearing my low-drop shoes for all casual walking around, exercising my arches and toes, and running at least 100 steps per kilometer with a toe-first strike. Tomorrow, I'll run to work again, with another reasonably heavy pack.