What's Good?

Happy Friday! What's good?

Tomorrow will be the first race that I DNS — "did not start." I'm not injured — don’t worry, Mom! I'm just unenthused. I'm registered to run a 10K — I signed up for it because it has "donut" in the name (and hopefully, at the finish line); but quite frankly, I have no interest in getting up at 5am in order to get to the location two hours before the gun goes off, as per the race director's insistence.

I love racing, and I still have one more before the year is out — the Ted Corbitt 15K in Central Park. (Ted Corbitt. You should know that name, runners.) I don't run each race I sign up for "all out." I pick a goal race, and I structure my training to hit a goal at that race. When I run other races during the training cycle, I might just run them like an easy run (although the energy of the event makes this challenging); I might just count them as a speed workout. I might view them as a learning experience — getting the feel for a particular course or a particular distance.

I don't run each run "all out" either — far too many people do just that, treating even the most casual run as an opportunity to PR.  You should probably be running slower. Counterintuitively, perhaps, it’s how you get faster.

Elsewhere in running: "U.S. Olympic Trials marathon start time moved over heat concerns" — huge sigh of relief here as a noon start-time for a marathon in Florida was some bullshit; and while I don't want to get up at 5am in my off-season, I think prospective Olympians might be more than happy to even have the gun go off at 5am if it means cooler weather for their race. "It’s Time to Rebrand 'Off-Season' for Runners," says Jason Fitzgerald in Outside , preferring the phrase "pre-season." Meh. Call it whatever you want. Just know that your training will (should!) have ups and downs and ons and offs. "Why everyone you know is wearing On running shoes." (I have noticed a lot more On shoes on the feet of New Yorkers.)

Meanwhile, there are other ways to move your body: Citi Bike service has worsened since Lyft's 2018 takeover, says the NYC Comptroller. Yeah. No shit. Have I mentioned lately how much I love my new bike? "What Women Need to Do Instead of Zone 2," according to Stacy Sims. That is, instead of running mostly / more slowly like I just suggested, Dr. Sims says do more HIIT (high intensity interval training) and SIT (sprint interval training). Her argument: "females have better mitochondria respiration and mitochondria density than men, men need to do the long slow aerobic work to be more like women (go figure…!). By peppering your long slow work with specific high intensity work, you will improve your mitochondria capacity and anaerobic capacity by the nature of the high intensity work." I'm still not racing that 10K this weekend though, Stacy. "Why Did Lululemon Dump the Mirror?" — Rina Raphael on how the "subscription economy" works / doesn't work in fitness.

This week's food news: Fans of Oreos are convinced they have less cream in them, and The Wall Street Journal is on the case. "The Corner Lot Where All the World’s Vegemite Comes From." In which Anne Kadet answers a question I've asked almost every morning as Kin and I walk through Midtown: where do the donuts in the food carts come from? "NYC Will Soon Be Home to 15 Robot-Run Vegetarian Restaurants From Chipotle’s Founder" — who knew it'd be the vegetarians who'd cave to the robot overloads first. Some good vegetable news: "Iowa teen grew 7,000 pounds of veggies, then gave them all away." “A Grocery Chain Just Fired Its Self-Checkouts,” The New York Times reports (on the heels of a story last week that claimed we'd all rather go through automated drive-throughs than have human interaction. We really can’t get the robot stories straight, can we. "Erewhon’s Secrets” — The Cut on “LA’s most culty grocery store.”

As always, the wellness hustle: "FTC cracks down on food industry for paid dietitian 'influencer' posts," says The Washington Post (which must be quite pleased as it's been churning out all sorts of stories about the food dangers lately.) "Apple Has Plans to Eventually, Maybe Revolutionize Health Care," says Bloomberg. Trust The Wall Street Journal to continue to stir up fears about pot: "The Cannabis That People Are Using for Anxiety Is Probably Making It Worse." Ness, a credit card that promised to reward users for making "healthy" purchase, abruptly shut down. Oh well. Better luck next hustle.

Even if I'm not racing the donut race, I'm probably going to go get a donut this morning after my easy run. May your weekend also be peaceful and pleasurable.