Drafting...Or Not

I distinctly remember being six years old and biking the Schuykill River Trail with my dad. The first time I rode the trail I was determined to complete all thirty miles of the out and back course on my pink, sparkly bike with a single gear and shiny streamers. I wanted to take the lead and feel the rush of the wind in my face. That’s the best part right? Little did I know that my dad was drafting (or receiving some sort of wind blockage from a tiny six year old). 

It’s now sixteen years later and little has changed. I have no clue how to lube a chain. I couldn’t tell you where the derailer (is this even on a bike?) is located. And I have a helmet that could fit a doll. Most of all, I still love to hammer on the bike – into the wind, up mountains, and in the lead – always at top speed and maximum effort.

Now though, I have a partner in crime in my biking adventures. David and I are two equally stubborn, equally adventurous personalities. The result? We share the lead and cover incredible Colorado courses in record mountain bike time. Plus, he occasionally reminds me to drink and informs me of obvious biking techniques. Large chain ring for going down big hills? Duh, Megan.

We have covered epic bike routes (especially when considering our mountain bikes, and dear god, my 29er). The list is forever growing and will hopefully continue well into the summer even through Philadelphia and Durham.

1. Boulder Sunrise Century: 100 Miles, 7,000 feet of climbing. All starting at 6 AM. (OK, this is the only route where we rented road bikes). I learned how to eat a Clif bar in four seconds and learned that if you put Cytomax in a Camelback, you should really clean it out immediately. I also learned that David is not a camel. We were chasing the lead riders and bypassed every water station after mile 57. Considering I was the second rider in and David the fourth, it paid off, but David had some dark, dehydrated last few miles.

2. Magnolia Road: 36 miles round trip from Boulder, but 2,170 ft of climbing in 4.5 very painful miles. The key on 25% switchbacks is to listen for cars (actually Mom, I checked my shoulder three times) and then to take the middle of the road. Otherwise, it’s possible to run out of gears and fall in the bushes on the side of the road. I learned this last year.

3. From Idaho Springs up Mt. Evans – 6,000 feet of climbing in 28 miles. 100 degrees at the base and 50 degrees at the top. 55 mph sustained winds. Check out those numbers. It was crazy. I was lucky to have a 29er because I may have been blown sideways off the mountain.

The Last Switchback - Best Moment Ever

4. Left Hand Canyon to Brainard Lake – 5,000 feet of climbing in 32 miles. We did this as a second workout on a two-a-day. What were we thinking? I am pretty sure I swore on every switchback.

Drafting Fail... Battling for the Lead

5. Aspen to the top of Independence Pass – 4,500 feet of climbing in 20 miles. My heart rate was too high to contemplate drinking. David, however, had to pee. My response - “too bad, pee your pants.” We were going for a record mountain bike time.

Random Trail We Found at the Top of the Pass

6. Rio Grande Trail – 1,500 feet of climbing in 27 miles. After all of our climbing, I thought this was flat; however, google informed me otherwise. The first four miles around Aspen are hectic. Fortunately David was well versed in “ON YOUR LEFT” because we may have destroyed a small child at top speed. Or an Aspen lady biking a $6,000 bike with sandals, no helmet, and curled hair. What’s worse would be endangering her much older, questionably degenerating husband.

For now, those are the highlights. I have inherited some espresso gel shots from my dad, so the biking adventures should become more entertaining in the next few weeks.

Thanks for reading! You guys are awesome (Mom, Dad, David, maybe four friends?)

Ketchup Time

I think I mentioned in my first blog post that I started my blog because I was anticipating being bored in the coming weeks. Somehow though, I have been incredibly busy and have been keeping myself remarkably entertained. Alas, I need to catch up on my blogging.

Here is what I have been up to in the last couple of weeks:

1. Graduation – On an adventure front, I split a 15 minute 200 meter to reach my seat in the stadium. I also had two clif bars stashed in my gown in awkward places. Fortunately, gowns are not form fitting, and chocolate brownie breast implants are remarkably even. Except after I ate the first clif during the student speaker.

Find me? Where's Waldo for Stalkers

 At my neuroscience graduation I am pretty sure the announcer secretly thanked my parents for my pronounceable first name and simple, yet comical, middle name of Daisy. After many difficult name pronunciations, followed by “wrote a thesis on 5RQ1TRP Channel on Apflyksia Trystonia,” my simplicity was a nice intermission.

2. ECACs (East Coast Championships) – My whole family got to come out to the race and experience their first track meet! After watching many of the steeple chasers puke and fall flat on their face before my race started, my family accepted my simple pants-peeing with relief. I forgot to ask my splits and I still don’t know them, but considering I heard a whole bunch of 85 second 400 splits for the first mile and a half, I think the last half/third of the 5k was as quick as it felt. I wound up running a 16:32 in a very tactical race to take 3^rd.  

3. NCAAs – DNF. Ugh. More than anything in my life I hate those three letters strung together. This was actually my first DNF in any race, rep, run, or event, ever. I was having foot pain for a week leading up to the race and just ran on the Alter-G treadmill before the race. I am pretty sure I have a huge pain tolerance because I couldn’t even feel my foot during the race, but I literally just could not land on my right foot. After 4 miles, I became concerned about shattering my metatarsal bones. Alas, I stepped off.

It’s funny that I initially felt relief after seeing the X-Ray a couple of days later. I have stress fractures in my second and third metatarsals and a reaction in the fourth. I guess in my mind it justified the horrifying DNF letters.  However, the relief lasted a mere hour - I spent the next three locked in my room throwing a massive temper tantrum. Mature, I know. I could have even logged the temper tantrum in my training log. My heart rate probably exceeded standard pool running maximums.  

My NCAA takeaway – 1. Don’t run with stress fractures 2. Run an all out 100 meter dash at the start of the 10k to avoid the mess of 48 people in a track start. Then slow down to 90 second pace and force a tactical race.

Again - Where's Waldo? This absurdity resembles a graduation procession in speed.

 5. Apartment Re-doing – This involved creating three piles for everything in the apartment: 

      1. Why in the world is this here? – no one should ever be subjected to this – TRASH

             Examples – David’s wolf shirt. Musty Firewood. 2009 Mustard.

      2. Goodwill donations

Examples – 2^nd grader pjamas. Animal Hats.

     3. Things to bring back home.

Examples – Racing arm warmers.

We did, however, find a street sign that said “no ball playing allowed.” This was spared from all three piles and now hangs in the bathroom.

6. Cooking – read ketchup and kale.

7. Epic amounts of reading – Life of Pi, Wild, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Hunger Games Trilogy, A Long Way Gone. Part of the apartment re-doing comes with creating a library composed mostly of used books acquired from second hand stores. No matter how cheap a book is on an iPad or Kindle, I just won’t do it. Hmm, literally.

Although I'm in Boulder, I promise (Mom, Dad - this is for you) that I'm not a free-lovin' soul. I just found this hilarious.

I’m in Colorado at the moment and will post more adventures as they occur! Mostly in the form of epic bike climbs until my foot heals up. Thanks for reading!

Love and Baseball

My love for baseball was first sparked at a young age in tee-ball and continued into my early retirement from competitive little league. I retired on top – a solid 1.00 batting average on the tee-ball year. 1 for 1 on the plate, with 100 outfield dandelions fielded, 12 cool ranch Doritos bags consumed, and about 15 temper tantrums before at-bat attempts. Unfortunately, the start of baseball coincided with my stubborn five year old ways and my flat out refusal to participate in any sort of social event, which included school, birthday parties, and play dates. Although I never returned to playing baseball, my parents’ perseverance (still evident in the numerous books entitled Your Difficult Child that line our bookshelves) enabled me to return to other sports a few years later.

Alas, I became a little league fan and frequently attended my brother’s games. Some parents would line the fence hollering at their sons to slide, in a tone more appropriate for exclaiming, “Don’t hit your sister over the head with a 2 x 4.” Other parents and fans would stand passively, continuously promoting a little league time limit. I simply busied myself consuming water ice and attempting dangerous playground feats. Even though I still couldn’t differentiate between shortstop and second base, I was an avid spectator. If only for the water ice.

Somewhere around this time I began to follow the Phillies. As a dedicated Phillies fan, I assumed a natural loathing for the Braves. In first grade music class, I refused to sing the line of the national anthem – “home of the Braves” – thinking that Francis Scott Key was not giving the Phillies adequate justice.

Still though, it’s the time spent watching baseball with family and friends that I seem to love most about the sport. I distinctly remember my dad’s prediction at a Phillies game that Ryan Howard would hit a 6ft x 6 ft Bud Light sign in right field at the next at bat. Sure enough, next swing later, clonk. And, naturally, five minutes later, the click of a Bud Light can. I’m pretty sure that when Bud Light is on the line, probability goes out the window. And so does Natty. (Not that I ever really have either. However, I’m currently stocked on almond milk, pedialyte, and Gatorade. A pre-race party is in store.)

Despite four years of being in Durham, last weekend was my first experience at a Durham Bull’s game. David and I managed to perfectly maneuver a three-hour rain delay by going for a second run, eating dinner, and grabbing ice-cream. In order to keep our sporting event tradition strong, we started our game-watching with a continuous, entertaining critique on the players (only fair if it’s give and take though, please do the same when we are running.)     

I’m pretty sure that some of the most entertaining moments of the evening included the dual occurrence of sprinkler delays and rain delays. The sprinkler delay actually lasted about five minutes, and started mid-pitch, while the rain delay was a good bit more formidable and wound up canceling the game. Now that we have redeemable tickets we’ll definitely be back. If only for Rita’s water ice. 

Sprinkler Delay - 2nd Base Stayed Ready and Low the Entire Time

Durham's Weather Radar: Giant Red Blob

Pro-Kras-Ti-Nating 2.0

I should probably add a footnote to my list on class absences.

* Things that you do indeed learn from attending class: the correct date of the final exam. I would have benefited from this knowledge when I received an email Wednesday at 1 PM informing me that my exam was at 7 PM on Wednesday night. I thought the exam was Thursday night. 

No worries though. I don't think that an extra day would have helped me on this exact exam question:

(Pretty much the same exact diagram)

Describe this structure and process development. 

Now I am assuming there are very few neuroscientists in my blog audience (maybe 9 by now? Please?) 

Regardless, they better accept several answers. I could make a neuroscience argument for axon, dendrite, spinal cord...

However, they never specified neuronal, so technically they should also accept phallus, nail, and witch hat with a graphic description with how to develop each structure. 

Stop Pro-Kras-Ti-Nating

With about six weeks to go until the end of the semester, senior class attendance starts to decline from bouts of senioritis. Shockingly, I followed the trend. Shocking because I never follow trends (I’m presently wearing a 2003 soccer shirt, hoop earrings, and old hiking boots) and because I never intentionally skip class. In two and a half weeks, I attended one class just to make a presentation. My class absence was slightly horrifying on two fronts – 1. When you do the math, each class at Duke costs around $175 and 2. I discovered going to class really is not necessary.

My two and a half week vacation was in fact a blur – two interviews, my first collegiate race, 160 running miles, a 50 minute solo class presentation, a graduate school application, and the ultimate bugger, MCAT cramming. In short, my life was epic. I just kept telling myself, get to April 5, take the MCAT, and you are done. Life will be bliss.

The MCAT was sort of like a race or a game. I really can’t remember any of the exciting details. Alas, my report is as follows: I drank too much caffeine. I faltered over a verbal section on social security. I recharged mid-test on Cliff bars and peanut butter. I prevailed. I finished (note finished, not confidently aced).

Since April 5^th, my brain has been taking a vacation from its vacation. I can’t break down my 300m workout into 100m splits. My Microsoft word zoom is currently set to 200%. Maybe if I make the words bigger they’ll rearrange themselves? Or be phonetically sounded out for me? Sen-Your Dumm-Ass. Stop Pro-Kras-Ti-Nating.

What has been the strangest feeling though is the feeling of being done. Initially I was frustrated. Frustrated at faltering on a section and thinking of ways I could have potentially improved my performance. I even expressed frustration the night after the test by dousing my ice-cream in black sprinkles as opposed to my classic array of rainbow.

It hit me the other day. Megan, you are a Sen-Your Dumm-Ass. Life’s not about getting to April 5ths. There are going to be zillions of April 5ths throughout life -  that’s why life is amazing.

“Be in the moment” is a phrase that has created a cult following. However, I’m a realist and would probably be thrown out of the cult. In the middle of a workout I’m still going to want that last rep done. I’m currently thinking about my Whole Foods dinner. That’s never going to change. My life will still be epic, but it will be done my way: it will be fun and balanced. I am going to look forward to future moments and love past moments.

I love this, which means I'm probably officially booted from the cult.

I’m currently reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and saw this quote – “Man, when you lose your laugh, you lose your footing.” From now on, extreme sarcasm does not count as laughing. Neither does post-practice test- book throwing. With that in mind, laughing at me, rather than with me, will definitely still count.  

Speed Play

I never knew there could be so many definitions and terms surrounding running. Lactate Threshold. Cadence. Aerobic. Anaerobic. Speed play (definitely not just running….) Fartlek.

Prior to the last couple of months, my daily, and often bidaily, running routine consisted solely of "Megan runs" - a term created by a friend of mine. My routine was as follows:

1. Drink copious amounts of black coffee

2. Walk out the apartment door, run as hard as possible from point A to B, turn around, then negative split from B to A.

Alternate variations include: 5 AM 13 mile treadmill tempos and 4 Al Buehler loops – same rules apply

3. Finish hands on knees

4. Shower (sometimes) and move on with the day. Or go to field hockey practice.

 I highly recommend "Megan runs,"but first I must present a few ground rules:

1. Absolutely no stretching before, during, or after. Don’t even consider drills.

2. Bathroom breaks must be on trail and must be under fifteen seconds.

3. Avoid sidewalks, concrete, roads, and steep downhills at all costs.

4. No water breaks.

5. No training logs.

6. You must Wohoo! literally and outloud, at the top of epic hill climbs.

Now any wise person reading this would immediately shake their head in disgust. This training style, especially when repeated over the course of several months at an average of 13-14 miles a day, seems risky and juvenile. Somehow though, I managed to stay injury free, and churn out some okay race results on roads and trails.

This philosophy has been greatly moderated since I joined the track team. Track has been one of the best experiences in my life - the coaches are fabulous, the team has been incredibly welcoming, and the training has been excellent. However, with excellent training comes aerobic runs. The very antithesis of Megan runs. Maybe someday I'll revert back to 100% Megan run dedication, but for now, the occasional hamstring stretch, google log, and aerobic run are small sacrafices when you have twenty amazing teammates and a Duke jersey in return.  

Here are some pictures (plus proof of areobicity – I’ll just make up my own terms) that I took on a run through Eno yesterday. 

Daisies and Power Lines at Dusk

Potentially Natural Trail Porta-Potty 

The Ritz Carlton of Trail Bathrooms (check out the chimney!)

Trails, Fails & Prevails, Plus Epic Kales

Perhaps the worst blog post title in blogger history. Conventionality would criticize the immediately noticeable grammatical flaw and the corny rhyming, but for now, it’s passable. Plus, it validates the Rachel Ray cookbook on display in my kitchen. Rachel Ray is simply for elegant décor (though she sits next to overripe bananas and large quantities of protein powder), because her smothered mushroom and kale recipe is crossed off in bold sharpie with one step: microwave.

This blog was a spur of the moment decision. It was decided one day after finishing my last undergraduate class, three minutes after handing in a final paper, and seconds after aborting a run due to a flash of lighting. I’m not the type of person to do nothing. Alas, I might as well blog about nothing. I’ve been inspired by blogs of so many people that I love and respect; however, my blogging skills and creativity will probably be meager in comparison. My race reports will likely be three sentences: I zoned out. It hurt. I celebrated with Tutti Frutti. My daily photos will never compare to my aunt’s incredible talents. Though at the very least, I promise that the blog will be entertaining.

When I think back on experiences in my life (that sounds quite yoga-ish), the time that I have spent on trails are almost always at the forefront of my memories. I love mud. I love running at 6:30 in the morning on desolate Colorado trails. I love making my own trails (sorry nature). With whatever comes next in my life (as it keeps changing every four seconds), I still want to have the ability to experience daily adventures.

My fails are equally amazing and entertaining. The thing is, you can only fall the hardest when you leap with the most velocity. V = V_o + at. Pretty much my only MCAT takeaway. And well, I like to run really, really fast. I’ve learned a lot from failure, but what I’ve learned the most is that if you are genuine and real in what you do, you can’t hurt your friends and family. At the end of the day, at least for me, their respect is most important.

Prevails – duh, these rock.

Epic Kales: pretty much my daily routine. Thus, it deserves the double plural. The security guard and I have a special relationship at Whole Foods. He watches as I sample my steamed kale in line prior to paying and I refrain from parking at Whole Foods when I run around East Campus. Done deal.

Thanks for reading! Maybe I’ll land five readers a day. Woohoo!! To all my amazing friends who blog – thanks for the inspiration!!