Friday Five - things on the internet

It's time for another Friday Five linkup with the DC Trifecta.  Thank you to Mar, Courtney, and Cynthia for hosting!

The theme for this week is racing but I'm going off theme since I haven't had enough racing experience yet. That's certainly changing though :) Instead, I'm posting five interesting things I've read on the internet recently.

1.  Runner's World has an interesting primer on lower leg pain that I found useful.  I had shin pain when I started and my brother was complaining about it recently because he was saying it was preventing him from getting into running.  Some good tips here for newbies to running.

2.  Lil Mys Ninja had a great post explaining the nuances of stretching and the benefits of dynamic stretching.  As a new runner, dynamic stretching was one of the things I didn't understand and this was a great explanation.

3.  An interesting article in the Washington Post last year about the increase of runners in the DC area.  I'm a new runner so definitely contributing to the increase.  The article talks about running increasing in this area because of the competitive nature of the people who live in the area, but I'm not sure if that's the case.  It's definitely not the case for me.  The article also seems to look down on "participatory" runners who run just for the sake of running instead of being competitive for speed. I consider myself a participatory runner and not competitive so this was strange.  Especially because the article then goes on to acknowledge that a lot of the big races in the area wouldn't be possible without the masses added by the participatory runners.   

4. Ten breakfast skills that every cook should know, including links to recipes.  I've got the eggs and oatmeal covered but definitely need to work on the coffee and baking.

Making brunch reservations, also an important skill :)

5. Just for fun, a cat's guide to taking care of humans.  It's super cute :)

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! I'm hoping that we escape the snow that's predicted for Sunday, but at least we have nice weather to look forward to on Saturday.