Running/Fundraising Update - Bonus Gross Blister Photo

My favorite spot in Hyde Park - the Italian Gardens, a gift from Albert to Victoria 150 years ago.

Mother effing snow! A lot of it. That's what we got in London last week. It made for some gorgeous glowy evenings, but not so good for running. Also, London just freaks out and all methods of transportation go haywire at the hint of flurries. We actually ended up getting 3 inches maybe - and they were calling Snowmageddon 2013.

Chicago or NYC laugh at 10 inches of snow, London falls apart with a dusting. To be fair, the city doesn't own sophisticated snowplows or anything. A whole lot of snow is still rare. But really people, get a grip.

So I had to run like 12 miles on Monday and there was nowhere to run that wasn't snow covered and slippery. Since running even a mile on the treadmill is the equivalent of my own personal 7th Level of Hell, I ran outside.

All was OK, except I was slow and had to adjust my stride on the snow. Then my foot got wet and I was wearing relatively thick socks. And by mile 10, I could feel the giant blister forming under my big toe and forefoot.

Scheiße!
 
I just kept running because I am so smart. Now I am paying for it, though (having popped the blister, EW) each day it is getting better. I have to run long again on Monday WHILE IN PARIS, I should be OK by then.


Fundraising Update
Thanks to all my beautiful friends and family! We have raised £1132 - and that's a lot of dollars in case you haven't been watching exchange rates.

Only £1368 to go - so I still need your help! If you are feeling generous, or even if you aren't, you can give easily by going to: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/AmieAshton.

It's more fun than online shopping and just as easy!

More to come from PARIS. I am off on the Eurostar tomorrow morning. We are meeting J.P. over there for some general goofing around.

York, UK - The Source of Really White People

We decided to brave the cold and snow and head north of London to the Disneylandish town of York for an overnight trip. We traveled the 210-mile journey on a super fast train, which only took about 2 hours. Pretty sweet, considering a bus takes 5 hours.

To be clear, it seems that only foreign tourists go to York, and they come by the thousands in the summer - practically choking the town. All my guidebooks warned NOT go in the summer. York is apparently on the route of every bus tour that travels through the UK. However, I found it perfectly lovely for a day or two in the winter - despite the cold.

So what's up in York? Well, it has several things going for it in my book (I left out the Jorvik Viking reenactment/village thing, which is wildly popular but I have a feeling it is like a bad Renaissance Fair, and I hate Renaissance Fairs):

• Great food and pubs
• A whole lot of old shit, York is drowning in history: Roman, Celtic, Norman, Viking......
• The most friendly people ever, period (or maybe I am just accustomed to London's big city edge and snootiness)
• The Yorkshire accent, LOVE

Hello Beer Belly
York is a bit of a foodie town. There are adorably tiny butchers, cheese shops, and green grocers everywhere. There are fancy restaurants and twee little pubs built for Hobbit-sized people, including our favorite pub - Pivni. I am an asshole and accidentally ordered a bottled beer from Colorado while we were there. The beer was tasty but I still felt like a total douche. Also, there are too many small gourmet restaurants to count.

Old Stuff
Here is the "list" of what to see/do in York if you only have a day-and-a-half (pictures speak louder than words):

See the Gothic Minster, spectacular and built in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Dave in the Minster, don't miss the carvings and stained glass.

Check out the Castle Ruins, Dave is thrilled.

Hike the 4-mile-long city walls, portions date from Roman times.

Have an old-timey pub lunch, this pub is haunted BTW - and Dave looks possessed.

 

Walk "The Shambles", there has been a market on this street since the 14th century.

See more old castle ruins (I have so many layers on and I am still freezing).

Ponder history at the numerous gates along the city walls.

Friendly People

The Yorkies (is that the right term?) are almost annoying talkative and friendly. EVERYONE we talked to or asked a question of told us everything we wanted to know, and more.....sometimes a lot more, to the point that we had to just start backing away or else we would have been stuck in York forever. Dudes, we only have 36 hours here and I have a lot of beers to taste. 

For example - on our last day, a member of the clergy at this super-old Norman church (photo on the right) invited us inside after mass. The church isn't normally open to the public so we got lucky with our timing. Uhm awesome - 12th century stained glass, gorgeous carvings, dead people under the stones in the floor. On our way out (after our 30 minute lecture on church history from the clergyman), a little old lady thanked us for coming to the church, gave us the same detailed history lesson, then invited us to her house for TEA! We declined because we had a train to catch (luckily?).

Yorkshire Accent
It is difficult to describe the charming York accent (here is an example), it sounds maybe slightly Scottish to my American ears. There is no snootiness to it, which is probably also why everyone in York just sounds friendly. I do know the accent has its roots in old English, and they often exclude the word "the". 

As an Aside
If you watch the accent example video (from the link above) you can see how freaking WHITE that lovely girl (GoAlyBongo) is? Half of York looks like that. I mean, I know white, I have a very Irish family. But holy crap there are a lot of almost transparent people in York. This town is the source of the genetic traits of Boris (my current mayor) and that weirdo monk guy from Princess Bride. Half of York could be in the Twilight movies (OMG I mentioned Twilight, my blog traffic is going to go through the roof)!

Supposedly it is because the Vikings conquered the general area and those are the features they left behind. Whatever, there is a severe vitamin D deficiency going on in this town for sure.

Also, here is GoAlyBongo's commentary on America. I like this chick, she needs move to the U.S. and run for political office. I'd vote for her. My fave: "I would rather shit in my hands and clap than eat Hershey's chocolate." Freaking awesome!

 

Also as an aside, WTF? Is this OK?

Low-Iron/Angular Cheilitis - EW

Well my angular cheilitis is completely gone and has remained at bay for a few months now. Hooray for not looking like I had some STD of the face or something, god that sounds gruesome. 

Anyway, I really think it was the iron. In reading around the interwebs, I learned a good bit about dietary iron. I think I have (maybe always) had quite a few of the symptoms of iron deficiency, including:

• extreme fatigue and feeling of weakness - YUP
• light headedness - I PASSED OUT BUCK-NAKED ON THE HARDWOOD FLOOR ONCE, THE SOUND OF MY ASS SLAPPING THE FLOOR WHEN I LANDED STILL HAUNTS DAVE
• irritability - I HAVE REEAAAALLLLYYYY NOTICED THIS IS BETTER (sorry Dave)
• headache - OCCASIONALLY
• low blood pressure with position change from sitting to standing up - SEE ASS HITTING THE FLOOR COMMENT ABOVE
• finger nails that become thin and brittle, they may grow abnormally and get a spoon-shaped appearance - GROSS, BUT YES
• reduction in immunity and increased vulnerability to infection - OR IT IS JUST ALL THE GERMS ON THE TUBE, THE JURY IS OUT ON THIS ONE
• disturbed sleep - YEAH SOMETIMES

In any case, my legs feel amazing lately. I used to sometimes start a run or a swim and just have nothing in the tank, no matter what I had eaten, and I would just give up and go home. Now those occasional days of fatigue are literally gone. Plus, my nails and hair grow super-fast, and I am generally less annoyed at everything Dave says to me - which is nice.

All that being said, I am firm believer in the placebo effect. This iron-thing could all be in my head, I am very suggestable and impressionable after all. However, there seems to be something to this for my body. I am definitely going to continue on with the vitamin/mineral supplement, at least through the end of my marathon training. We'll see what happens when I get back to the U.S. and start cooking more often. Maybe I can keep my iron levels up with a more focused, steak-filled diet.

Keep on running!

An Open Letter to Gordon Ramsay

Dear Mr. Ramsay,

I visited your restaurant Bread Street Kitchen last night. We sat at a table across from you, I was the one with the husband who kept telling me to stop leering. Anyway, I am writing you because I was not impressed - to put it mildly.

I had moderate expectations for your restaurant Bread Street Kitchen. After all, you have those Michelin stars and really cool hair. Plus, the restaurant has a smart menu and the building itself sits in the shadow of St. Paul's Cathedral - which is lovely to look at at night on the walk to the restaurant. Additionally, the Timeout review was favorable. I was ready for a nice meal.

But with all due respect to your 14 or 15 Michelin stars.....dinner was shit. From start to finish, it was total shit. And I am a polite Midwesterner. I generally believe in all that, "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" BS. But I feel mad, bloated, and slightly more poor (poorer?)......so the gloves are coming off!

As you know Mr. Ramsay, the restaurant is upstairs and the bar is on the ground floor. We arrived at 8:00 for our reservation, but decided we wanted to have a drink at the bar first. Maybe the bartender could let the restaurant know? Maybe like take 3 seconds to call upstairs and let them know we'd be in at 8:30 instead? Nope, Mr. Bartender just looked at us as though we were stupid because he was clearly so busy (the bar was empty). Uhm, OK no biggie - I ran upstairs and quickly moved us back 30 minutes. Easy as that, I am not a primadonna. I really wasn't actually bothered by a trip up four flights of stairs to move our reservation, until THE REST OF THE NIGHT WAS TOTAL SHIT too.

You probably saw that your staff was breathlessly flittering around trying to look busy/important/whatever. But they weren't actually doing their jobs. If you actually wanted to ORDER something, you had to flag someone down - which is rather humiliating when you are paying to be served. It wasn't just us, the table next door had to to the same. At first I just thought they were rude, frantically waving the waiter down - nope, they were just hungry......and smart. Because apparently you cannot get anything to eat or drink in that restaurant without doing the arm-raised-anxiously-waving-like-a-second-grader thing.

Really I have never seen a bigger server shitshow, and I worked at the Elephant Bar for 4 years, so that is saying something.

Sadly, the food was just meh. I had a tiny portion of mackerel as a starter (the restaurant was out of the scallops I originally wanted). For my main, I had an equally tiny roasted vegetable salad - which was £13 for some lettuce and 3 pieces of oversalted, roasted squash. I wanted to cry......then order a pizza. My husband had a Caesar salad that was 80% croutons, then an overcooked steak about the size of my hand - before removing the gristle. The steak came with about two sad spoonfuls of potatoes. 

Our meal ended up being so expensive, I keep trying NOT to do the GBP to USD conversion for fear of having an aneurism. Really £21 for a glass of Malbec. Man, I am really depressed right now. 
  
To be clear, I am not a lame American who eats at the Cheesecake Factory because I like the menu and the gigantic portion sizes. I understand the value of moderate and even tiny portions when the food is comprised of exquisite ingredients, perfectly prepared. Sadly, my meal was neither exquisite nor well prepared.


I am left here today still feeling bitter. I'll never return to Bread Street Kitchen, and even worse - I will probably always have an aversion to your restaurants in general. 

Sincerely,

The Flying Monkeys

3-Days-Per-Week Marathon Traning Plan

You heard me right, 3 days per week. That is all I run when training for a marathon, which I am right now in case you haven't heard. I am running the London Marathon on April 21, 2013 for the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home (you can donate to my cause here).

I constructed my 3-day-a-week marathon training plan based personal experience training for triathlons, my natural injury prone-ness, and advice from Runner's World magazine. For my body, the MOST IMPORTANT thing is completing the long runs. All those other miles (shown as Run #1 and Run #2 in the table that follows) are there just so I can drink wine and have dessert. 

This really works for me. I used this same sort a plan a few years ago to qualify for Boston when I had to run sub 3:40 at the California International Marathon (I ran a 3:36 fairly comfortably there).

So here is my loose plan. I am technically on Week 2 right now.

Week	Run #1	Run #2	Run #3
1	6	6	14
2	6	8	10
3	4	8	12
4	6	4	16
5	8	6	12
6	6	6	14
7	4	4	18
8	8	6	8
9	SKI WEEK
10	4	8	12
11	4	4	18
12	4	8	14
13	4	4	21-23
14	6	8	13
15	6	6	10
16	2	2	RACE

There are a few caveats/important details involved in this plan since it is rather abbreviated. First and most importantly, all runs are done with a goal/structure. All the runs are done "fast" (well, in relative terms). 

For example, the Short Runs (#1 and #2) are done as:

• Fartlek workouts, generally running fast from one landmark until another with a comfortable pace in between.
• Track workouts involving 1/4s, 1/2s, and miles depending on my mood.

The Long Runs (#3) are done as:

• Tempo-style runs, e.g. 4 miles easy then 4 miles hard, and repeat.
•  Races like the Barcelona Half Marathon - and I hope to throw another few races in there for good measure.

There are no "easy miles" or LSD (long slow distance) runs. Also important, I had to carve out a break for my upcoming ski week in Zermatt, no long runs immediately before or after 6 days of skiing. That would be a recipe for disaster/injury. Plus Dave would probaly ditch me on the slopes if I couldn't keep up due to tired legs.

I also intersperse 2 days of swimming per week (from 1,500 to 3,000 meters per workout) and Bikram Yoga maybe every two weeks (I know BIKRAM, yucky - but it is cold here and the studio is very close to my house).

I don’t have a GPS unit or anything, really - I can barely remember to bring my keys when I head out the door. However, for mileage and pacing purposes here in London, I have recently taken to using my Ipod Nike fitness pedometer. It isn’t entirely accurate, but at least it is a gauge of  mileage and pace of some sort. 

So I am off. Happy running all.

My Enemy - The Wee Brown Mouse

It happened in South Lake Tahoe on a fateful night in 2010.

We arrived at the cabin late at night and I started unpacking in preparation for the weekend. I opened the spoon drawer casually and saw about 400 (exaggeration for effect) mouse poos in there. I just as casually closed the drawer, informed Dave that he is the clean-up man for that job, and left the house for a while. Problem solved, not really. When I returned later, I opened the napkin/plastic baggie drawer and there was a small mouse nest made of napkins - with the little guy dead in the middle of his nest. Ew. Oh and more mouse poos. Ew.

So the other night, my husband (who shall remain nameless), opened the bedroom door onto the garden because he thought it was "hot" in the house. WTF it is January in London, but I digress. And so - a little mouse came into the house and made noise all night scurrying about. Thus begins operation Remove Wee Brown Mouse.

I really don't like this bold mouse. Yesterday while I was on a call for work, he scurried across the kitchen counter-top (I have NO IDEA how he got up there), I shrieked like an 8-year-old girl, and he ran back where he came from - only after falling into the metal sink and making the most awful panicked clawing noises while climbing out. I am realizing now that I should have stood on a chair while shrieking for full effect.

Dave suggested I could have banged him over the head with a pan while he was running around the counter-top...... To which I countered "STFU Donny, you're out of your element".

By the way, Dave is mouse-poo blind. I can spot them a mile away, it's a gift I have.

For example, this morning I had to show Dave that the mouse had been climbing (and pooing) all over his towel, neatly folded over the towel warmer in the bathroom (don't think we are posh with a towel warmer, it is a POS from Argos that will probably electrocute one of us before we move back to CA). This is one acrobatic mouse.

To be fair to Dave's poo-blindness, he is practically blind in one eye. Also, it doesn't help that I washed a black sweater in the washing machine/oven the other day and there is black lint ALL OVER the floor. The lint looks like little poos. Which freaks me out all the more.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted. We have set up countermeasures, some humane and some not so much. All completely ineffective so far. In fact, I am at a cafe right now because I am afraid to be alone in the house with the wee brown mouse. Pathetic.

Snow Monkeys in the Austrain Alps

After 6 straight days of skiing, I am pooped.

That is tough work. I ski Dave-style because that is all I know after 10+ years of skiing in Utah with him and his Dad: you wake up at 8:00am so you can get the first lift at 9:00am. Then, you ski until at least 4:00pm. Is there any other way to ski, apparently not. Sometimes Dave and his Dad would even suggest (gasp) skipping lunch, which is generally unfathomable to me while skiing.

Overall we had a great trip! The conditions were variable most days; from full sun, to snow showers, to good visibility, to no visibility. We just went with it. Luckily, conditions seemed to change so quickly here. Zero visibility and snow scares all the wussies away, but wait 20 minutes and the sun peeks through and we had fresh powder all to ourselves.

It also helped that the resort was crawling with families and Brits who party HARD every night (the Brits that is, not the families so much). They were the first to call it a day and leave at the hint of bad weather. Perfect for us!

After all, I learned to ski in Utah where freezing blistery conditions are normal. At freaking Heavenly in Tahoe they close the lifts at the hint of flurries or 15mph gusts - sooooo annoying!

Deep in thought with my Weissbier.

We stayed at the Hotel Karl Schranz, which was right up our alley; great staff, great facilities, great food, and a mellow vibe. We met some cool peeps there from Holland (see photos below), and man the Dutch are linguists! Dear Mom - why couldn't you have been Dutch, or maybe Swiss. I'd be speaking like12 languages before the age of 2. Alas.

Venison, goulash, local trout, spaetzle - fuel for the hard days skiing.

The lovely Colette and Mark form Holland, I love these people.

Antonio the super bartender, we were besties.

So why did we choose St. Anton specifically, and why Austria?

Early Snow: Chamonix and Meribel (France) and Zermatt (Switzerland) were also on the list. However, the Interwebs told me that St. Anton was most likely to have decent snow in late December/early January.

Good Deal: I got a sweet package through Crystal Vacations that included flights, hotel, and meals. I would normally shy away from all-inclusives (bad food that you feel like you have to eat because you paid for it), but this one rocked.

German Practice: My German classes don't start up again until February, so this was a nice refresher.

Excellent Apres-ski Action (with NO DRIVING required): There are a million post-ski diversions. We spent a really fun/drunken post-ski afternoon with our favorite Dutch friends at the Mooserwirt. They played my favorite German songs there and EVERYONE was singing - including the always outstanding and classic Shatzi Shenk Mir Ein Foto and Fliegerlied. Everyone knows all the words and dances that go to the songs (except for me). I required some some song translation and dance move instruction. Thank you Colette! 

I always look cold, probably because I am......

Alas we left Austria just in time. Here is Dave at the gondola base in St. Anton in the RAIN the day we left for the airport. That's right, RAIN! Time to go back to London.

Po po Dave.

If you are bored at work today and want to see some further snow-packed action filmed with Dave's GoPro camera (douche), here you are. It includes a good wipe-out so I'll take back the douche thing I suppose. Sorry, I am still a bit torn on the whole GoPro camera thing.

Luckily my one major "yard sale" fall was not recorded. Let's just say I got off easy with a bloody lip and snow EVERYWHERE - caught in my goggles, in my hat, in my jacket. Not pretty.

And can I please plug my favorite snow forecast website ever, Snowforecast.com. Check out the forecast for St. Anton at the link there. It is WARM in Europe this week. Way to warm for skiing. It is a great site for US resorts too.

I hear it is dumping in CA my friends! Get out and enjoy it, especially after the shitshow that was last winter in Tahoe. xoxo