Amy Reinink

Our latest backpacking trip to Shenandoah National Park left me with the following: aching calves and quads, six bug bites, several scratches and one eye infection (hint: if a bug flies in your eye and you blink on it, resist the urge to swipe at your eye with your grimy, unwashed backpacking hand!).

Good thing I also left with four bear sightings, several deer sightings, and memories of a moonrise, a sunrise and sunset at the highest point in the park and a jump from a 12-foot cliff into a natural swimming hole.

I’m still sore after carrying what I’m estimating was a roughly 50-pound pack (more like 30 by the last day, thanks to me being the designated food-carrier), and I didn’t get in a single run over the weekend. But I have faith that hiking between four and six miles a day with a big ol’ pack up steep, rocky grades did as much to prep my lungs, legs and joints for the stress of a marathon than actual running could have.

If not … well, there’s always my tempo run tonight and my 17-miler on Thursday!

Is there a better dinner the night before a big run than pizza?

I don’t think so. Neither does Olympian Keith Brantly (read the transcript of my 2007 Web chat with him here.) Neither does sports dietitian Suzanne Girard Eberle, a former elite runner who says she won a pizza-eating contest at Uno Chicago Grill on M Street when she ran for Georgetown.

For me, any old pizza will do in a pinch. But I prefer it to be my homemade pizza, which couldn’t be simpler to make, easier on the stomach or a more delicious way to get some good carbs the night before a run.

Here’s how to do it:

Preheat oven to 375

Procure a ball of dough from the bakery section of Publix, Whole Foods or your grocery store of choice. Roll out dough with rolling pin.

Cover with tomato sauce (I like to make it at home with plain ol’ canned tomato sauce, with every Italian spice imaginable simmered in — basil, parsley, oregano, rosemary, garlic powder and some red pepper flakes to spice things up). Cover with mozzarella cheese to taste.

Add toppings of your choice. I like sliced tomatoes from the farmers market, especially this time of year, and basil form my balcony garden. Steve prefers pepperoni. I don’t judge.

Sprinkle liberally with aforementioned Italian spices.

Bake on pizza stone, or a metal pizza pan you bought for $10 from Wal-Mart (can you guess which one I use?) for roughly 12 to 15 minutes.

We usually make two pizzas to ensure leftovers, which we’ll be enjoying tonight before heading off to the Shenandoah for three days of backpacking tomorrow.

And it’s a good thing I have those leftovers: I’ve been one hungry little dude lately. After my 15-miler yesterday, I had my typical post-run recovery shake, then lunch of a quesedilla and tomato/black bean salad two hours later, then a delicious concoction of peaches, berries and balsamic vinegar mixed in a saucepan then topped with Greek yogurt two hours later, then … well, you get the idea.

It’s like my body and I are engaged in our own rendition of “Little Shop of Horrors,” with my body pleading: “Feeed me.” (Does it have to be chocolate?). “Feeed me.” (Does it have to be wine?) “Feeed me, runner … ”

This week has marked a vast improvement over last, when I didn’t give into the hunger in any way post-13-miler … until I made brownies for a friend’s get-together. I ate so much of the batter, it affected the cooking time, leading to burned brownies I had to scrape from the pan. And did I throw out all of the brownie char? No. No, I did not. I actually stood over the pan, picking at the rubble to see if I could find a nugget containing one of the Ghirardelli chocolate chips I’d baked in. And one would think that I’d be so horrified by that episode, I’d be disgusted by the thought of brownies. One would be wrong, as I ate two from the next batch in quick succession. Yikes!

The lesson: My body’s needing a bit more fuel these days, at least on the days surrounding my long runs. If you’ll excuse me, it’s time to feed the running-monster some pizza.

(Pizza photos on the way soon: There’s packing for the Shenandoah to be done!)

The best long runs are, in my opinion, a combination of a workout and a journey.

I ran 10 miles of this week's 13-miler on Sligo Creek Parkway Trail.

A long run is a journey in the most literal sense: If you travel 13 miles by foot, as I did Thursday morning, you are literally going somewhere. It’s also an adventure. Things go awry. Get lost on a 3-miler, and you can always backtrack. Get lost above the half-marathon mark, and you’ve got a problem to solve.

A long run is also a test requiring thought and mettle. Feel tired in the middle of a 30-minute tempo run, and you know you can finish by slowing up a bit. Feel spent in the middle of a 13-miler, and you’ve got some strategizing to do: When to walk? When to detour to find a CVS to buy more water when you haven’t come upon a water fountain as you’d expected to?

Then again, I’ve never felt the joy of accomplishment, or the giddy slap-happiness of hearing your favorite song during a particularly hard part of a long run, during an easy 30-minute jaunt.

These are all situations and realizations I encountered while running 13 miles, 10 of them on Sligo Creek Trail, early Thursday morning. The run felt ugly from the beginning, plodding and awkward, and every time I stopped at an intersection, I was deeply, deeply grateful when I came upon red lights. Plus, I planned to run 2.5 miles out on the trail, then run 5 miles in the other direction, backtracking 2.5 miles to get back to the start, where I’d stashed a water bottle. Problem is, the water is only helpful when you actually remember the right place to stop for it. I ran right by, and didn’t encounter a water fountain the entire way. (I learned later that day there’s a fountain literally a few feet away from my turnaround point. Awesome.).

So I was not only exhausted, but dehydrated, and I had all the doubts one has at this point of marathon training: If a 13-miler feels this bad, who am I kidding thinking I’ll be able to stand 26.2 of them at a faster pace? Should I have brought an energy gel? How weird would it be to dunk my whole body in the creek?

I got pretty depressed about how slow I felt, until I got slap-happy. To anyone who saw the skinny, awkward white girl exclaim, “That’s my JAM!” while running over a bridge over Sligo Creek: Don’t judge. “M-E-T-H-O-D Man” had just come on my iPod, and it was a really hard run.

When I got back to my apartment, anxious to dunk my body in an ice bath and write off yet another sluggish long run, I looked at my watch: Two hours even! This is good for me on any day, but especially on a day when my ego felt bruised by how awful the run felt. And then, I remembered how many times I called my friend Sarah while training for the Nashville Country Music Marathon in 2007, resigned to the fact that I wouldn’t be able to run the race with her, after all, based on a really difficult long run.

She told me then that long runs aren’t supposed to be happily sprinted. They’re meant to be gotten through, with their sole purpose being to fool your brain into thinking your body can go just a little farther than it’s ever gone before every week. This is so true. I ran the marathon in 2007, and just like Sarah promised, it was nothing like a long run. Water and energy gels DID appear every few miles, the crowds DID cheer like I was an elite, and my body DID perform better than it ever had before.

A bonus: I felt pretty awesome right after my 13-miler, in stark contrast to the week before, when I suffered from some weird heat-exhaustion business for literally days after an 11-miler. Next week: 15! (Gulp!)

Is August a frenzy of travel and chaos for everyone, or is that just me?

We kicked off the month with a visit from one of our oldest and best friends, Mike, who took us on a whirlwind tour of our own home city while he was in town from Colorado.

The day after Mike left, we went to a Dave Matthews concert with other great friends, after which we boarded a plane to San Francisco for a vacation that made me want to shed my East Coast status permanently and stake out a comfy little place in Monterey, which I’ve decided is a runner’s paradise.

And we just got back from a five-day jaunt to Florida to see my parents.

The question: With all that travel, how does a girl stick to any sort of routine?

I’m happy to report that I’m still right on track for my truncated Marine Corps Marathon training, and that I actually squeezed in quite a bit of my hard-core core work, too. How?

I’d love to say it’s by waking up before dawn to squeeze in long runs, or by balancing on things while sight-seeing (don’t get me wrong: There’s a reason we saw San Francisco by bicycle). Mostly, this time, it was by being selfish, and by surrounding myself with people — my husband, my runner-friend Sarah, my parents — who understand and respect my goals, and who don’t see an early-morning run as a bit strange or selfish.

My one big downfall: vacation wine! I know there’s nothing wrong with a glass of wine here or there during a tough training session. Moderation is key, right? I’m not sure that two to three glasses per night, every night, with a few wine tours through Sonoma and Monterey County mixed in, counts as moderation, but it was certainly worth it. I’m also fairly certain it’s out of my system for a LONG time now. My other downfall: A semi-planned, semi-accidental, three-week break from swimming.

Now, the question becomes: How do I get back to my routine after all that travel and fun?

I start with a swim date with my husband tonight. It’s a sort of Monday-Wednesday-Friday routine, and I’m not going to put any pressure on myself about it. I’m just going to go, and jump back in.

How do you stay on track on vacation, and get back on track when you return?

I’m visiting my parents in Florida, which means this recent DC transplant is getting a reminder of what real heat

With any luck, today's workout will take place here.

It’s not that it doesn’t get hot in DC, just that the heat in Florida in August is a different kind of relentless. My friend Sarah, whose own Florida stint overlapped with mine (a year in Gainesville, three in Jacksonville), once described training for a marathon in Florida like “trying to breathe into a hot, wet washcloth.” And not that this is a factor this trip, but Floridians have no reason to expect a break from the hot, wet washcloth until October, or even November.

After my experience with a heat-exhaustion-induced funk last week, one would think I’d learned my lesson about running in the mid-day heat. But then, after getting back from a morning on the boat with my parents yesterday, the skies had clouded up to the point that I had goosebumps. My perfect opportunity to steal an afternoon training session!

Too bad the clouds only lasted until exactly the moment I walked out the door. I ran a moderate 40 minutes anyway, promising myself that if I felt at all dizzy or funky, I would stop and walk. It went pretty well, leaving me feeling energized and relaxed rather than drained.

Today, we’re planning on another boat day, which means I can plan on a workout a little more conducive to my surroundings: a nice open-water swim in the Gulf. Wish me luck!

I think I had my first encounter with heat exhaustion this week.

A possible encounter with heat exhaustion Tuesday drove me to the treadmill today.

I tackled my long run, something like an 11-miler, late Tuesday morning, when temperatures topped 89 degrees in Washington. I felt OK immediately after, but starting Tuesday evening, I began to feel like a truck hit me. I’d brought a little 18-ounce water bottle on my run, sipped water compulsively throughout Tuesday afternoon and continued to hydrate and be smart on Tuesday night, when I skipped having a drink at the Nationals game to keep my body feeling good.

Still, I woke up on Wednesday feeling like death, the way I’ve only felt after a few Gate River Runs in Jacksonville and one 18-miler in Jacksonville that I made the fatal mistake of leaving for at 8 a.m., meaning I was running in Florida, in April, at noon. Gaah!

Is there such a thing as late-onset heat exhaustion? I’m not sure, but if there is, I certainly felt it Tuesday and yesterday. I think my biggest mistakes were running without being acclimated — my poor body was expecting the 65-degree glory of Monterey and San Francisco, not the hottest and most humid day of the year in DC — and not taking more water, considering I had to literally wring out my shirt several times. Also, I made the major mistake of waiting until I already felt bad to ease up during the run. Truly, after living in Florida for four years, everything feels cool by comparison. I was so busy congratulating myself for being hard-core on this count, I forgot that 89 degrees is just plain hot when your body’s not used to it.

In any case, I think I slept it off, going to bed around 9:30 p.m. last night and waking up at 9 a.m. today, which is simply unheard of for me. I also learned my lesson, and am forgoing my planned trail run this morning for a speed workout on the treadmill, since today’s even hotter than Tuesday. I dislike the treadmill to the extent that, when I tried to think of a positive spin I could put on today’s workout, I could only think that doing speedwork on the treadmill makes it less boring, and means it’s over quicker.

But it will make me faster. It will get me in shape to run the Marine Corps Marathon in the fall. And … well, it will be over quickly, if nothing else. Wish me luck!