amc loop 10k amsterdam

Posted on May 31, 2015 by Sarah S.

Since I had to miss this year’s Pittsburgh half marathon (for a good reason: this Europe trip!), I haven’t actually participated in a race of any kind since my last triathlon last September. For me, that’s a long time to go without! So I asked my sister to help find a race in the Netherlands that we could run together. We ended up at the AMC Loop 10k, running with some of Dutch coworkers.

There was one obvious Dutch-specific peril to this race: a near-constant, serious risk of being nailed in the face by an elbow. Life can be rough when everyone is an good foot taller than you… And while it was raining and I was experiencing the awful beginnings of an upper-respitory infection, the race was super fun. Angie and I ran an absolutely perfect negative split (each mile time gets faster and faster throughout the race) and a nine minute mile average. We celebrated with a fantastic healthy lunch in Utrecht (and soon I imagine also lots of cookie butter…).

tot ziens!

Sarah

This post is #47 of the #The100DayProject. For more updates on my progress, be sure to follow me on Instagram and look for the hashtage, #100DaysofMiaPrima.

Tulip Speculation

Waterfalls + Covered Bridges

running (free) through the bossche broek

Posted on May 12, 2015 by Sarah S.

If you’re a runner (or a triathlete), you know how easy it is to get hooked on data: GPS watches, tracking apps, heart rate monitors… Whatever device it is, there is something absolutely addicting about knowing your progress, mile for mile (and often publicly sharing that progress too). But getting caught up in numbers can take away the basic joy of running sometimes. Besides a casual 10k race at the end of this month and triathlon in September, I’m not currently in the throws of training. But still I monitor each run with more gusto than it’s worth. I start to judge the quality of the run based on its length and pace- even for my “fun runs,” which should, after all, be purely for fun.

So today, I left my GPS watch at home and took a (who knows how long!) run through the Bossche Broek. Without a watch, I took moments to pause, take a breath, and really enjoy the scenery. It’s a run like this one that reminds me why I run in the first place.

Tot ziens!

Sarah

This post is #33 of the #The100DayProject. For more updates on my progress, be sure to follow me on Instagram and look for the hashtage, #100DaysofMiaPrima.

Related Posts

Otherwise Knowns as s’Hertogenbosch

Waterfalls + Covered Bridges

Because I Can: Pittsburgh Marathon Highlights

Pain is Inevitable; Suffering is Optional: Staying Motivated Through Injury

Run, Baby, Run

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Sarah S.

(like the world is ending).

This is What Happens When…

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Sarah S.

…the trail race you are running runs out of safety pins.

p.s. Exactly one month and a day until my first marathon!!

Windy City Run: Lake Front Trail & Grant Park

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Sarah S.

Wow, was it great to be back in Chicago! My sister and I went down to the city for Easter weekend and took the opportunity to run through Grant Park and the Lake Front Trail. I started training for distance races about nine months ago, so I never ran in downtown Chicago when I lived in the city. Now I realize what I missed! The day was a gorgeous (though cloudy) with temps in the 50s. For two girls coming from 30 degree weather in Wisconsin, it was heaven! Below are some of my favorite pictures from the run (and some of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite books):

“You don’t have to be fast. But you’d better be fearless.”
― Christopher McDougall, Born to Run

“That was the real secret of the Tarahumara: they’d never forgotten what it felt like to love running. They remembered that running was mankind’s first fine art, our original act of inspired creation.”

“Try the meditation of the trail, just walk along looking at the trail at your feet and don’t look about and just fall into a trance as the ground zips by,” Kerouac wrote. “Trails are like that: you’re floating along in a Shakespearean Arden paradise and expect to see nymphs and fluteboys, then suddenly you’re struggling in a hot broiling sun of hell in dust and nettles and poison oak… just like life.”

“…there was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love [running]. The engineering was certainly the same: both depended on loosening your grip on your own desires, putting aside what you wanted and appreciating what you’ve got, being patient and forgiving and… undemanding…maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that getting better at one could make you better at the other.”

“The reason we race isn’t so much to beat each other,… but to be with each other.”

― Christopher McDougall, Born to Run

Where is your favorite running or cycling destination?

Ciao!

Sarah

Running the Coast: 15 Miles of New Hampshire Coastline

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Sarah S.

Coast Run miaprimacasa.wordpress.com

Over the holidays, I dragged two of my sisters out for a 15 mile run up the New Hampshire coastline. Arguably, the coast is either 13 or 18 miles depending on if one considers the coast of New Castle as part of the whole coast or not. In our case, we chose a compromise milage of 15 (three miles more than I’ve ever run and five more than my sisters had gone). A bit ambitious to be sure, but how often do you get the opportunity to brag that you ran a state’s whole coast line? Below are some pics we shot while on the run.

NH Coastline Run miaprimacasa.wordpress.com