People send me a lot of questions – especially from Twitter (follow me 🙂 )- after reading my blog and/or my Tweets. Most of them involve what I eat, but I also get a lot of questions about training, sleep, and how Hubz puts up with me. Most of the time, I try to answer the person directly, but since many of the questions get asked repeatedly (like the Hubz one), I thought I would just answer them here all at once.

1.  Do you really eat all the crap you say you do? Yes. I love to eat and I’m always hungry. That said, I only tell y’all about the fun stuff I eat because I don’t think you really care about the grilled chicken salad I had yesterday for lunch or the lean turkey tenderloin I had for dinner. The reality is that I eat pretty well most of the time.  I’ve never craved fast food, hot dogs, hamburgers, or pizza, even as a kid (I was a barrel of laughs at birthday parties), so it isn’t hard to avoid most of the nasty stuff. My general rule is that if I’m craving it, I eat it because it must have something in it I need, even if that just means carbohydrates for training. This rule keeps my diet pretty varied and doesn’t allow my OCD to make me a crazy-eater person (can you imagine me on a diet? Yikes!).

2. What is your training pace? My general Easy pace is between 8:45 and 9:00. I don’t wear a watch, so that is simply a range that I’ve learned to stay in by feel. I run about 75-80% of my mileage at that pace. The other 20-25% of my mileage is done fast (surges, fartlek, or tempo), or hard (hill repeats or continuous climbs). I don’t have a specific pace I follow, but I do it by effort – I want to FEEL like I’m working. I have a general structure I follow, but it usually comes down to running fast when I feel great, and cruising the rest of the time. I do a lot of my training alone because I run multiple times (at least 3) per day, and no one wants to spend that much time with me.

3.  What is your training schedule? Like I mentioned above, I don’t really have a schedule other than I do (generally) whatever my running group is doing in the morning, and then whatever my body tells me to do during my later runs.  My only “rule” is to meet my weekly mileage goal – No Matter What. I simply don’t have the mental capacity or patience to follow a schedule – too many brain cells lost with all the training.

4.  What type of cross training do you do?  I love to swim, do aerobics, and core work. Every now and then, I lift weights (which I hate), or use the elliptical (when I’m concerned I’m developing an injury). I tried an organized CrossFit class 3 times, but became convinced the instructor was trying to kill me. I have the flexibility of a Redwood tree, so jumping up and down off boxes and doing push ups in the pretzel position wasn’t going to happen without ending in a trip to the Emergency Room.

5. Why do you run so much? I honestly have no idea – I just love to do it. I’ve always been VERY physically active, so running a lot just developed naturally from that, I guess. I became serious about running at a time in my life when I needed more focus, but wasn’t in a place (very small babies at home) where I could go back to practicing law. Besides, running around in circles for long periods of time seemed (slightly) less painful than working with politicians.

6.  How much sleep do you get? I try to get 8 hours of sleep per night. But remember, I’m 44 years old and had twins. This means that my bladder is the ruler of my body. I usually wake up at least twice per night – so frustrating, but just part of life. Luckily, I do go straight back to sleep. I wake without an alarm, so I take that as a sign that I’m getting enough rest (or that I have some special time-psychic power that means I should have my own reality show, right?). If I have an extra hour during the day (very rare), I will hide in my bedroom and take a nap. Oh, and I snore.

7.  How does your husband put up with you? Honestly, I have no idea. But maybe it’s because I buy him beer on my runs, I hardly ever go shopping (because that would require me to bathe), and I eat like a dude.  Whatever his reasons, I’m thankful that he supports my running, and only rarely mocks my lack of regular grooming.

Feel free to send more questions, but I’m not allowed to answer any about my children (they’ve threatened to become Emancipated Minors or poison me if I talk about them on my blog), but pretty much anything else is fair game.

Happy Running!