Chocolate Cream Cheese and another running book.

I have found a new obsession. It is called Philadelphia Milk Chocolate Cream Cheese:

Seriously, that's a great invention. I love it on my whole-wheat mini bagels but it would make a great sandwich and go well on pretzels. Wayyyyy better than Nutella (sorry Nutella). 

I recently finished a new favorite running book: The Extra Mile: One Woman's Personal Journey to Ultrarunning Greatness by Pam Reed. It's sort of an autobiography/memoir. I'm really glad I plucked this off the shelf because it turned out to be an amazing read and taught me a lot about ultrarunning, a sport which (like most people in the world) I knew nothing about about. 

Pam does a great job of introducing the sport and talking about her experience with it. She's actually a triathlete and wrote a book about her experience doing Ironman Triathlons as well (that'll be my next book!!!). In this book, however, it's really interesting to read about her experiences in 300-mile races and her experiences at Badwater. This woman loves desert races. She "invented" and is the race director of the Tucson Marathon, too. I've always talked about how much I'd like to be the director of a really big regatta like the Head of the Charles...or maybe a organizing a race someday for a cause that it close to my heart. 

Anyways, back Pam!!! I had no idea how amazing she was....I had no idea who she was. But she was the overall winner for Badwater at least twice and was the women's winner more times. She regularly wins these extremely long distance races and creams EVERYONE, even all the men. One time she ran the London marathon and a few days later she ran the Boston marathon back-to-front and then front-to-back (in other words...she ran the entire course TWICE). I found her stories and work ethic really inspiring. If you want to know about all the biggest distance races and ultramarathons, this is the book to read. I was just inspired in general, and I never even really considered ultrarunning. 

The only problem I had with this book is that sometimes she seems to brag a little bit (and I get the impression that other people have this problem with her too). To be honest...I know I can be a little braggy if I'm not careful too, and it makes sense: you want to tout your accomplishments! If you tout them too much though people tend not to like you. So be careful! Overall the book was just really great and I think most people wouldn't even notice the braggy thing. I completely recommend this book to every runner, especially ones who are looking into doing ultras. Personally...I don't know if I will ever really want to do ultras. I can barely get my mind around the half-marathon! I know I want to do a full-marathon, but who knows how long that will take me to build up to! In my mind I really want to be super awesome and do an ultra. I think the shortest ultra you can do is a 50k (31 miles) so if you can do a marathon, you probably have it in you to hustle on for a few more miles. I can't help thinking that I would get to the marathon point and be like "HAVEN'T I DONE ENOUGH???" So...it's probably safe to say that I have years before I really think about doing ultras. I do think that reading about them can be inspiring to any runner or even any athlete; it just reminds you about the mental toughness and endurance that you have to have to get your body to do these things (even if it's not a long run or a run at all! Maybe it's rowing or cycling or walking or swimming). All athletes have to have one thing in common to be successful and to keep going, and that's mental toughness. Pam does a good job with talking about this and it's importance. It's a good thing for us all to keep in mind.