Powered by Blogger.

fiddlehead ferns and other oddities


Dinner tonight at Peter Lowell's with Adam and Jenna. Had the pasta primavera -- housemade pappardelle with fiddlehead ferns, artichokes and peas. Chose it because I've never had fiddleheads before, and they just look so bizarre -- like tiny alien fists or the descendants of some kind of prehistoric plant. But I found that despite their strange appearance, they tasted pretty normal -- kind of reminded me of young, tender green beans.

Perhaps more unusual than the fiddlehead is the fact that I am running the Avenue of the Giants half marathon Sunday and am not completely freaking out right now. I feel oddly calm, like I've done all the studying I can do before the big test, and at this point, cramming won't help -- I just have to trust in my preparations.

The thing is, I'm honestly not sure I've done enough. I mean, I know I've done the homework when it comes to speed and hill training -- I've worked harder in these areas than I ever have in previous training cycles. And I know I'm a stronger runner because of that effort -- I did 5 x 400 tonight (before dinner, of course) at the track, and I could tell I've improved. I've also been running more often than before -- I've upped my run days from four days a week to five, and the change hasn't been too difficult.

What I feel like I might lack, though, is long runs. My longest training run for this race was 10.66 miles, and that was almost two weeks ago. I know I can run 13.1 because I've done it before, but I just don't know how tough it will be this time around.

So in some ways, I guess this race is going to be an experiment. Do I have enough of a balance between speed, strength and endurance?

I guess I'll just have to wait and see. And eat a bunch of weird-looking vegetables in the interim.

No comments