Inspiration, Spring Marathons, Links, Products and More

Here is the usual Thursday mish mosh round up:


Runspiration


Do you want to kill yourself after 30 minutes on the treadmill? Dean Karnanzes recently ran 48 hours and 212 miles on a treadmill. He didn't break the Guinness record, but man!


MOVIE: If you need more inspiration, I highly recommend the Spirit of the Marathon movie, check for local screenings! You don't even have to move, how easy is that?


Top secret announcement--the upcoming NYC Team in Training Chapter will be training for three fabulous Marathons:


Rome Marathon (Run/Walk) - March 22, 2009 - Rome, Italy
Country Music Full & Half Marathon (Run/Walk) - April 25, 2009 - Nashville, TN.
New Jersey Full & Half Marathon (Run/Walk) - May 3, 2009 - Long Branch, NJ


If you live in NYC, I can personally assure you that TNT will make it your marathon experience magical! However, I am sure all chapters of TNT seriously rock, so see if your what your local chapter is training for. If you don't do groups, think outside the box, there are marathons in the most incredible locations: Rome, Paris, The Great Wall Marathon (China), The Polar Circle Marathon (Greenland), The Big Five Marathon (South Africa), just to name a few!


To properly fuel yourself, check out Vital Juice Daily's fall produce picks, replete with some yummy recipes.

PRODUCT FINDS
For some fuel on the run, I just tried a Chia Spice Kardea bar
I am really trying to eat only all natural bars. Ingredients are far more important to me than fiber, fat or calories. Even my beloved Kashi Golean Crunchy Chocolate Caramel bars, have too many weird things (Mechanically Fractionated Palm Kernel Oil?) in them for me to feel good about ingesting them. These were offered to me by Kardea, and after checking out the stats online they seemed to be pretty good. These bars have a few items that seem to be added to punch up the fiber, like psylium husch and chicory root fiber, but overall everything seems like it came from the earth not a factory. Inside they look like nuts and grains stuck together with maple syrup or honey. However, they are not too sticky or too sweet, although I wish the first ingredient wasn't Brown Rice Syrup. And I love that agave, a low GI sweetener was included, as it is expensive for companies to add. Overall 9 grams of sugar is not bad at all, and at modest 150 calories these provide a tasty and satisfying snack perfect for taking the edge off the 4PM hunger call. Despite not being a fan of chai tea--but love cinnamon, these were really good. And not so sweet that they made me crave sweets all afternoon. A keeper.

The Amphipod

I have really been needing something to put stuff in while I run, and I think the Amphipod Micropack Land Sport may be my answer. It clips on to your pant or shorts with just enough storage for your credit cards, id, keys, mp3 player and money. This way I can stop being a bra stuffer...btw metrocards are sweat resistant up to 12 miles :). Most shorts and pants don't have the proper storage for things besides gus and gels, but this looks great for when I don't want to bring my bulky fuel belt!

Racing through my summer reading list

I have two weeks before classes start and I have read no books this summer! I used to be the biggest bookworm, I guess now I am a blogworm. But I intend to get through as many of these as possible in the next two weeks. My week on the Cape/Martha's Vineyard should help me make a dent.

In no particular order:

Above: recommended by friends and soon to be movie...How To Lose Friends and Alienate People

Answered Prayers, halfway through, so good, but can't seem to finish!
A classic that I borrowed from the library, Woman in White

Just treated myself to this with a 25% off Borders coupon: Runner's World: The Runner's Diet.
Finally broke down and bought What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I keep reading it at Barnes and Nobles, so good! PS Way cheaper when you buy it at Borders.com. Again another treat, very long stressful week at work. :(


Dean, my hero, haha! I loved Ultramarathon Man, so I need to read this also of course.

If you are looking for some literary runspiration, I recommend Marathon Woman by Katherine Spitzer or Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnanzes or Marathoning for Mortals by John Bingham.

There are so many good ones out there, but those I can vouch for. I hear Running with Buffaloes is also stellar, and while I am at it, you can't beat this title: Anything for a T-Shirt Fred Lebow and the New York City Marathon, the World's Greatest Footrace by Fred Lebow.
I have a few more book recommendations on my about me post.
.

xo, Meliss

The other Magic Kingdom

Every so often you read or listen to something that profoundly influences you. Recently I listened to an interview with Karen Knowler on RawVeganRadio (interview 58) that really resonated with me. Are you scared to reach your true potential? Be it your dream job, the best relationships you can have, your best level of health or success in another area of your life, sometimes no matter how much you want something, the fear of what might happen if you truly reach your goals can be terrifying. Change is scary.

Rather than go into my opinions and thoughts, I'll just leave you with my favorite quote and some resources to look into if you are interested in learning more. I think it is about time that all of us beautiful blog girls started living our dreams lives, simple and divine, and magical ones at that.

"Sometimes it can really scare people to get what they want [She then references a book called "How Much Joy Can You Stand] People don't like feeling not good, but they are scared of feeling great." KK

It is long, so listen while cleaning your room or download to your ipod and listen to it on the work.

Karen Knowler is one of the most giving people one the Internet. She produces free articles and does many interviews that you can access for free on the web. I have several of her ebooks and her print ones. I also had the chance to see her at Successfully Raw hosted by WeLikeitraw.com several months ago. I also think that she is so relatable and offers real ways to change that the habits are holding you back and deal with the emotional issues.

For more read here: Heart to Mouth: How to Deal with Those Raw Emotions

Karen, Sarma, and Natalia are my favorite authors on health, emotion, body-image, almost like fairy-raw-mothers. Sexy ladies wearing high heels not hemp!

PS In other very exciting news, a new organic market opened up in the bottom of my building today. It is EXACTLY like Whole Foods, except with way better produce prices and everything is locally grown. It even has cafe seating and great looking salad and food bars. Before we really didn't have a good supermarket (just a couple smallish gourmet delis) within reasonable distance. Even the semi-sketch c-town was a good 10-15 minute walk, so I was hauling stuff from TJs on the subway. Now I just have to take the elevator down a mere 29 floors for an organic utopia. I have to admit, I am a little jealous of myself right now.