Daylight Savings Time: There Goes the Sun

All winter, I've gotten up before the sun and gotten in my early morning miles. Each day, the sun has risen a little earlier (literally ~1 minute) and only recently has it become light for the entirety of my runs. Spring has arrived! (Officially, according to the calendar, it comes next week.) Until last weekend, when 1:00 Sunday morning magically became 2:00 Sunday morning and all my hard work was wasted. (And an hour of precious sleep lost!)

I realize, of course, that my efforts in the early mornings have nothing to do with when the sun rises. My steps don't bring the sun up earlier. But after weeks of darkness, the early sun seems well deserved. We earned this light. And then, just like that, it's taken away. It's cruel, like running 18 miles of a marathon, and then someone grabbing you off the course and transporting you back to the start so you have to do it all over again. Now we're in the dark again (until after 7 am!!), and back to the slow process of waiting for the sun to come up.

DC is trying to make up for the annoyance of Daylight Savings Time with a pseudo spring (close to 80 degrees today) and the cherry blossoms blooming. And while I will admit winter is also annoying because of the cold and the bleak and dreary landscape, the thing I hate most is the darkness. So warm weather and flowers won't win me over. If we put it to a fight, who would win: darkness or the cherry blossoms? In a rock, paper, scissors style fight, darkness covers cherry blossoms. And it's true, they don't look as pretty at night. (Although they do still smell. And not entirely pleasantly.)

Sorry cherry blossoms. You don't make up for the lack of sun.

In the coming days, the tourists will be out in droves, clogging up the running trails to see the blossoms. But I'll be out early, running through the darkness, with the trails all to myself, eagerly awaiting real spring and the return of the sun.

*If you think this is an over the top exaggeration, I'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning. Bring a flashlight.

Dream big, 

Teal 

Race report: St. Patrick's Day 8K

Prerace. Sunny but cold!

Last weekend I ran the St. Patrick’s Day 8k. I ran the same race a year ago, when it was my first time at the distance (just a hair less than 5 miles.) The great thing about a new race distance is getting an automatic PR (personal record.) No matter how fast or slow you go, it will be your best for that distance. It can be a bit of a reality check when you run it for a second time, and realize it’s not as great as you thought it was.

Sleep running around mile 4.

A year ago, I ran at a 6:21 pace, five weeks before going sub-3 hours at Boston. This time, since I’m hoping to take 15-20 seconds/mile off that marathon time (I already took 9 seconds off at Chicago), I was hoping to run 15-20 seconds/mile faster for the 8k. Six minutes flat seemed a little nuts, so I aimed for 6:05. I hit the first mile a little fast (5:57) and slowed drastically for the next two (6:20, 6:21). I got a little boost coming through 5k when I realized I had beaten my 5k PR en route (with a 19:12, which shows how pathetic my PRs at shorter distances are.) At 3.5 miles, there was a turn around where I realized my place among women (13th; since the first 10 win money, this race gets some top local athletes), which kept me going a bit. Also the entire crowd seemed to be cheering incredibly loudly for some “Karina” girl who was right on my tail. I finished in 31:02 (6:15 pace), happily in front of the infamous Karina. BUT, since the overall results are based on chip time (with the time starting when you cross the start line) and not gun time (the time starting when the gun fires) she beat me and I wound up 14th, the same spot as last year. We were both clocked in 31:02 but she started a second behind me and finished in an overall time that must have been a tenth of a second (or less!) faster than me. Note: In the closing stages of a race, no matter how much you think you have on your competition, keep pushing. (Most overall awards, such as the top places that win prize money, are measured by gun time. They consider chip time for age group awards.) I also won 2nd in my age group. (The top ten winners don't count for age groups. Last year I won my age group but was 30 seconds slower.)

Both years, I trained through the race, meaning I didn’t take time off or taper leading up to race day. (In fact, my long run the day before was the same as 2011: 18 miles.) Because of this, I have to account for a time that’s not my best. In addition, I had been having stomach issues all weekend, which I’m attributing to work stress. Still, I was disappointed with this race. I feel like I should have improved more in the last year, especially given my ambitious marathon goals.

Swag and prizes. (The sweatshirt actually looks better here.)
Not pictured: the yummy cookies we devoured at the finish.

Regardless, I did win a gift certificate to Pacers Running store and a green sweatshirt. I don’t mean to sound unappreciative; I have to say the T-shirts they give out for this race are always pretty tasteful. But the prizes are pretty ugly (last year was a fleece vest with completely clashing colors.) I don’t know why the designer of the T-shirts doesn’t also design the sweatshirts. I think I can safely say this sweatshirt will be designated my ice bath sweatshirt. (Turn in to future posts for more about my relationship with ice baths.)

Dream big,

Teal

#Seen on my run

If you spend enough time running, you tend to see some interesting stuff. Often, in the form of other interesting runners. On one of my favorite weekend routes, I regularly see a man doing tai chi by himself on the side of the trail. I've also seen a woman who dance-shuffles instead of running (there's a lot of grape-vining and arm waving.) Both of these people look they are having more fun than anyone else. I also saw a man with a genuine (looking) long white beard and a little round belly, wearing only a red tank top and red shorts. In December.  (Doesn't he have elves to attend to at that time of year?) 

In honor of my sister's birthday, this is her dog, Jaden.
He's not up for adoption, but he is a runner,
specializing in sprinting events.

This morning I saw a different pack of runners: runners with shelter dogs.  I had heard of this in Philadelphia, but didn't know there was an equivalent here in D.C. Basically you sign up to run a few miles with a shelter dog (who wears a little "Adopt me!" vest.) It's a win-win for everyone. If you're interested in having a furry running partner for a day, it seems to be organized by the Washington Humane Society. And if you're not in the area, it seems like most humane societies have similar programs. 

Dream big, 

Teal 

Science Friday: Exercise changes gene expression

Although all your cells have all your genes wrapped up in their DNA, not all those genes are expressed. Heart cells don’t express genes specific to your liver, for example. The genes which aren’t expressed are turned off by being kept tightly wound up, like thread wrapped around a spool, so that proteins and various cellular machinery can’t get to them. To get them turned on, they need to be unraveled from the spool. One thing that keeps them wrapped up is a process called DNA methylation, which is basically the addition of a small group of atoms (a chemical “tag”) that puts a lock on the spool. Removing the methylation allows the DNA to unwind and proteins to interact with it (eventually creating more proteins, the worker bees of the cell.)

These chemical tags are epigenetic changes.  Epigenetic changes are not something you are born with (like your DNA is) but are modified during your life, perhaps because of some external influence. In a new study, one of these external influences seems to be exercise.

Juleen Zierath’s group at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm took muscle biopsies from the quadriceps of adults and found that methylation was decreased after exercise (biking.) In particular, the methylation of genes known to play a role in fat and carbohydrate metabolism (including PGC-1 alpha, which we have heard about before) was decreased (meaning these genes were turned on.) They also compared low-intensity exercise to more strenuous exercise and found the decrease in methylation only after a hard effort. Interestingly, they found that this was caused by contraction of the muscles themselves (not messages from the rest of the body) by isolating a piece of muscle from a mouse and making it contract in a petri dish. Even cut off from the rest of the body, the methylation still decreased. Finally, they used yet another system (muscle cells grown in the lab) to test the effects of caffeine. Caffeine causes calcium to be released from intracellular organelles and they hypothesized that calcium release might be causing the demethylation. Their findings supported that idea, as caffeine also demethylated the genes in question. The authors are quick to note in various press releases that that does NOT mean caffeine has the same effects as exercise. Bathing your muscles in the same amount of caffeine the cells got would mean 50-100 cups of coffee/day—close to the lethal dose. It has already been shown that caffeine may be beneficial to endurance athletes, but for other reasons, which is certainly verified by anyone trying to squeeze in a workout before the sun comes up.

One important thing to note: a lot of the press regarding this paper claims that this means exercise changes your genes. That isn't the case. Your genes are something you inherit from your parents and aren't changeable. Epigenetics don’t change the actual genetic code, just the expression of those genes. Although this group plans to test if epigenetic changes are heritable and can be passed on to your children, as far as this study is concerned, the changes discussed are transient.

Note: This research was presented on the real Science Friday! I listened to it while doing my own experiments with cells in culture.

Dream big,

Teal 

A girl and her shoes

As Sex and the City taught us all, girls love their shoes. And while I count myself among those, I don’t have a particular affinity for the Jimmy Choos, Manolo Blahniks, and Louboutins of the world. No, I’ve bought far more Saucony Rides than stilettos, and worn each of them into the ground.

I donated my last collection to Shoes for Africa in November. Which means I've accumulated this many since then. Are you listening, Saucony?  

A few months ago, I branched out a bit. I was noticing as I glanced around everyone’s feet at races they were all wearing some form of lightweight shoes—what we used to call “racing flats” and now, in the post Born to Run era, call minimalist shoes. I was still racing in my clunky training sneakers, whether it was a 5k or a marathon. I was reluctant to change shoes (if it ain’t broke why fix it?), but clearly the people I was racing against had moved on to more professional looking shoes, so I decided to give it a try.

I bought my first pair of Saucony Kinvara’s (a light 6.7 oz compared to my 9.7 oz Rides) and have been slowly easing into them. Currently I wear them for track workouts, some short runs, and shorter races like 5ks. Immediately when I started wearing them I noticed they cut up my left ankle, but only my left ankle, which made me wonder if I am lopsided or the shoes are. When I wear high enough socks that problem seems to be fixed. (But whether or not I am lopsided is still TBD.) I raced one 5k in them on a cold and icy morning and immediately felt like I had contracted shin splints, but that may have been due to an insufficient warm up for such a cold race. Other than that, they seem to be okay and my disloyalty to my Rides hasn’t backfired. I’m not ready to race a marathon in them (God forbid my sock slipped, my whole left ankle might be sliced off by the end) but I think I’ll keep trying them in successively longer races and see what happens.

They also make me feel a little more official when I head to the track. The track I run on is 3.5 miles away (and then 3.5 miles home) so I haven’t yet graduated to wearing them to and from the track, but I carry them in my hands and change into them when I get there. Which seems like a perfectly logical thing to do to me, but certainly looks a little crazy. On the way home the other morning, a biker stopped, gave me a strange look, and finally asked the obvious question: “You carry an extra pair of shoes??” Like I was running Forest Gump style and would need to switch shoes somewhere on my way to California. I explained briefly it was for the track, but I think he thought I was crazy nonetheless. I was vindicated later, while walking to work, when I spotted the entire Georgetown track team running off to practice, carrying their spikes in hand. (I wish I had looked at them more carefully, apparently Jenny Simpson was in the mix!!)

Ok so I’m not a collegiate athlete with fancy spikes. But I am a marathoner trying to do speedwork and maybe my Kinvaras will help me shave off a second or two. And even if my shoe collection is a little atypical, it’s a bit easier on my bank account than Louboutins. Although, Saucony, if you’re listening, I won’t mind a sponsorship.

Dream big,

Teal

Science Friday: Video Edition

I saw this video a few months ago, in the days before I had a blog, and thought about how it needed to be shared. Fortunately, I was recently reminded of it in a post about how doctors ignore this advice. I know it’s sort of a cop out of a post but I think Dr. Mike Evans says it better than I can. So please take the time to watch the video, and then the time to follow its advice.

Dream big, 

Teal 

The clouds roll in

This morning’s run started off well. It was my normal midweek 15 miler, which (despite starting before the crack of dawn) I’ve actually grown to like. I always bring my Ipod along, thinking by mile five or so I’ll be in need of some musical relief, and I almost never end up using it. The sun comes up, the miles tick by, and I get into the runner’s groove.

Today started off no differently. I even brought my camera to try to capture some of the scenery from these early morning jaunts (see below.) While everyone else was sleeping, I was enjoying myself, having my own kind of fun out on the town. (Runners have a different definition of fun.) To add to the good vibes, these runs have gotten faster and today's first few miles followed the trend.

Points if you can guess what city I live in. A slap on the wrist if you can't.

But then, about halfway through, it took a turn for the worst. I hit a small molehill and my pace suffered like it was mountain. A few miles later, quite literally, the clouds rolled in. Often times, I don’t mind running in the rain, but today, five miles from home and unprepared, wasn’t one of them. I made it through the rest of the run, but it wasn’t fun. I got home drenched to the bone, exhausted, and far from invigorated from my early morning effort.

But that’s the thing about running. Often people compare running marathons to life; there are hills and valleys, good patches and bad. Sometimes you’re struggling and sometimes you’re high on life (or endorphins.) Training is no different. Some runs are great, some are terrible, some are a mix of both. But even on the worst mental days, be comforted by the fact that your heart and muscles are still getting the benefits. Training through the rough patches is excellent training for when they inevitably come up in a race. And even if you end up wet, exhausted, and just glad to be done, you can be comforted that there will be better days. And if you’re lucky, you’ll have the pictures to prove it.

Dream big,
Teal