Enter your email Address

ENTROPY
  • About
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Advertising
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Info on Book Reviews
  • Essays
    • All Introspection
      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      The Animal Form

      January 22, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      On Fantasy and Artifice

      January 19, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Tales From the End of the Bus Line: Aging Ungraciously

      January 18, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Salt and Sleep

      January 15, 2021

      Introspection

      The Birds: A Special Providence in the Fall of a Sparrow

      January 2, 2020

      Introspection

      Returning Home with Ross McElwee

      December 13, 2019

      Introspection

      The Birds: In Our Piety

      November 14, 2019

      Introspection

      Variations: Landslide

      June 12, 2019

  • Fiction
    • Fiction

      The Birds: Little Birds

      December 11, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: Perdix and a Pear Tree

      December 9, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: A Glimmer of Blue

      November 23, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: Circling for Home

      November 13, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: The Guest

      November 9, 2020

  • Reviews
    • All Collaborative Review Video Review
      Review

      Review: Dear Marshall, Language is Our Only Wilderness by Heather Sweeney

      January 21, 2021

      Review

      Review: Shrapnel Maps by Philip Metres

      January 18, 2021

      Review

      Perceived Realities: A Review of M-Theory by Tiffany Cates

      January 14, 2021

      Review

      Review: Danger Days by Catherine Pierce

      January 11, 2021

      Collaborative Review

      Attention to the Real: A Conversation

      September 3, 2020

      Collaborative Review

      A Street Car Named Whatever

      February 22, 2016

      Collaborative Review

      Black Gum: A Conversational Review

      August 7, 2015

      Collaborative Review

      Lords of Waterdeep in Conversation

      February 25, 2015

      Video Review

      Entropy’s Super Mario Level

      September 15, 2015

      Video Review

      Flash Portraits of Link: Part 7 – In Weakness, Find Strength

      January 2, 2015

      Video Review

      Basal Ganglia by Matthew Revert

      March 31, 2014

      Video Review

      The Desert Places by Amber Sparks and Robert Kloss, Illustrated by Matt Kish

      March 21, 2014

  • Small Press
    • Small Press

      Gordon Hill Press

      December 8, 2020

      Small Press

      Evidence House

      November 24, 2020

      Small Press

      death of workers whilst building skyscrapers

      November 10, 2020

      Small Press

      Slate Roof Press

      September 15, 2020

      Small Press

      Ellipsis Press

      September 1, 2020

  • Where to Submit
  • More
    • Poetry
    • Interviews
    • Games
      • All Board Games Video Games
        Creative Nonfiction / Essay

        How Zelda Saved Me: The Inspiration, Feminism, and Empowerment of Hyrule

        November 2, 2020

        Board Games

        Session Report: Victoriana and Optimism

        December 14, 2019

        Games

        Best of 2019: Video Games

        December 13, 2019

        Games

        Hunt A Killer, Earthbreak, and Empty Faces: Escapism for the Post-Truth Era

        September 21, 2019

        Board Games

        Session Report: Victoriana and Optimism

        December 14, 2019

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: Lady of the West

        July 27, 2019

        Board Games

        Session Report: Paperback and Anomia

        July 27, 2019

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 12 (Once in a Lifetime)

        November 10, 2018

        Video Games

        How Zelda Saved Me: The Inspiration, Feminism, and Empowerment of Hyrule

        November 2, 2020

        Video Games

        Best of 2019: Video Games

        December 13, 2019

        Video Games

        Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the Spirit of Generosity

        December 31, 2018

        Video Games

        Best of 2018: Video Games

        December 17, 2018

    • Food
    • Small Press Releases
    • Film
    • Music
    • Paranormal
    • Travel
    • Art
    • Graphic Novels
    • Comics
    • Current Events
    • Astrology
    • Random
  • RESOURCES
  • The Accomplices
    • THE ACCOMPLICES
    • Enclave
    • Trumpwatch

ENTROPY

  • About
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Advertising
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Info on Book Reviews
  • Essays
    • All Introspection
      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      The Animal Form

      January 22, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      On Fantasy and Artifice

      January 19, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Tales From the End of the Bus Line: Aging Ungraciously

      January 18, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Salt and Sleep

      January 15, 2021

      Introspection

      The Birds: A Special Providence in the Fall of a Sparrow

      January 2, 2020

      Introspection

      Returning Home with Ross McElwee

      December 13, 2019

      Introspection

      The Birds: In Our Piety

      November 14, 2019

      Introspection

      Variations: Landslide

      June 12, 2019

  • Fiction
    • Fiction

      The Birds: Little Birds

      December 11, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: Perdix and a Pear Tree

      December 9, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: A Glimmer of Blue

      November 23, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: Circling for Home

      November 13, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: The Guest

      November 9, 2020

  • Reviews
    • All Collaborative Review Video Review
      Review

      Review: Dear Marshall, Language is Our Only Wilderness by Heather Sweeney

      January 21, 2021

      Review

      Review: Shrapnel Maps by Philip Metres

      January 18, 2021

      Review

      Perceived Realities: A Review of M-Theory by Tiffany Cates

      January 14, 2021

      Review

      Review: Danger Days by Catherine Pierce

      January 11, 2021

      Collaborative Review

      Attention to the Real: A Conversation

      September 3, 2020

      Collaborative Review

      A Street Car Named Whatever

      February 22, 2016

      Collaborative Review

      Black Gum: A Conversational Review

      August 7, 2015

      Collaborative Review

      Lords of Waterdeep in Conversation

      February 25, 2015

      Video Review

      Entropy’s Super Mario Level

      September 15, 2015

      Video Review

      Flash Portraits of Link: Part 7 – In Weakness, Find Strength

      January 2, 2015

      Video Review

      Basal Ganglia by Matthew Revert

      March 31, 2014

      Video Review

      The Desert Places by Amber Sparks and Robert Kloss, Illustrated by Matt Kish

      March 21, 2014

  • Small Press
    • Small Press

      Gordon Hill Press

      December 8, 2020

      Small Press

      Evidence House

      November 24, 2020

      Small Press

      death of workers whilst building skyscrapers

      November 10, 2020

      Small Press

      Slate Roof Press

      September 15, 2020

      Small Press

      Ellipsis Press

      September 1, 2020

  • Where to Submit
  • More
    • Poetry
    • Interviews
    • Games
      • All Board Games Video Games
        Creative Nonfiction / Essay

        How Zelda Saved Me: The Inspiration, Feminism, and Empowerment of Hyrule

        November 2, 2020

        Board Games

        Session Report: Victoriana and Optimism

        December 14, 2019

        Games

        Best of 2019: Video Games

        December 13, 2019

        Games

        Hunt A Killer, Earthbreak, and Empty Faces: Escapism for the Post-Truth Era

        September 21, 2019

        Board Games

        Session Report: Victoriana and Optimism

        December 14, 2019

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: Lady of the West

        July 27, 2019

        Board Games

        Session Report: Paperback and Anomia

        July 27, 2019

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 12 (Once in a Lifetime)

        November 10, 2018

        Video Games

        How Zelda Saved Me: The Inspiration, Feminism, and Empowerment of Hyrule

        November 2, 2020

        Video Games

        Best of 2019: Video Games

        December 13, 2019

        Video Games

        Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the Spirit of Generosity

        December 31, 2018

        Video Games

        Best of 2018: Video Games

        December 17, 2018

    • Food
    • Small Press Releases
    • Film
    • Music
    • Paranormal
    • Travel
    • Art
    • Graphic Novels
    • Comics
    • Current Events
    • Astrology
    • Random
  • RESOURCES
  • The Accomplices
    • THE ACCOMPLICES
    • Enclave
    • Trumpwatch
Health/Wellness

How Learning to Make Pizza Helped Me Train for a Marathon

written by Guest Contributor September 24, 2018

Pizza, whether deep dish or thin crust, store-bought or delivered, has been my favorite food since I was a kid. Growing up, when my grandparents made the two-hour drive from Grand Rapids to Ann Arbor, they almost always arrived with a steaming, grease-darkened box of Cottage Inn pizza—the local staple—in hand. Pizza was there for me through the birthday parties, summer thunderstorms, and paper plate awards of my youth and the late-night haze of my undergraduate years. Recently, in the midst of wedding planning, I somewhat facetiously suggested we provide a pizza buffet for the reception and that anyone who doesn’t like pizza be uninvited. (This approach, I assure you, is not the way to a mother-in-law’s heart). It’s a dish I find appropriate for every occasion, unpretentious and universal. Pizza, in its consistency, its ability to offer superb taste whether fresh out of the oven or refrigerator, and its widespread geographic accessibility, is a food I’ve treasured just for being there when few other things in my life make sense.

Yet, it wasn’t until a year or two ago my fiancée, Kelsey, and I set out to make our own pizza dough from scratch. At the beginning of 2016, we both started master’s programs—hers in Spanish and mine in creative writing—and our schedules were overloaded while we learned to balance school with our full-time jobs. We spent most of our Saturdays in the library. Sundays were designated for more studying at home, interspersed with cleaning and weekly food preparation. During this time I slowly learned to bake a few types of bread from a cast-iron skillet cookbook. Bread baking became an inconsistent weekend hobby, a means of balancing out long days devoid of much free time. While the dough rested, I could knock out homework, then take a break to knead the fermenting loaf, and return to drafting a paper or reading until the bread in progress demanded more attention. Baking bread is a slow-going process. It takes patience and there is no instant gratification. Sometimes I’d spend hours attempting a new recipe only to arrive at subpar, chewy bread without much flavor. Yet, the pace of this type of cooking helped me return to a more academic lifestyle.

During grad school, I also took a two-year hiatus from distance running. I’ve always exercised regularly, but with work and school I could no longer find time (at least, that was my excuse) to put in the miles. I had completed five marathons and a handful of halves over the course of my early and mid-twenties with mixed results. I figured those days were behind me. To find time in our busy schedules, Kelsey and I transitioned to exercising early in the morning rather than after work. Most days we woke around 4:45 AM to hit the gym or log a short run.

Kelsey finished her degree in summer 2017, but I had three quarters to go at Northwestern University and wouldn’t complete my MFA until the following March. Around Christmas, a friend mentioned she was running a marathon in northern Michigan over Memorial Day weekend, and knowing we were runners too asked if we wanted to run with her. Despite being in the middle of my thesis work, and the Midwestern winter being less than accommodating for training outside, we signed up. Around the same time, Kelsey and I stopped dabbling in making pizza once every few weeks and developed a routine. We designated Fridays for pizza, the perfect way to shake off the mundane stresses of the workweek.

Pizza dough, unlike some other breads, is relatively fast and easy, but not without its challenges. The dough toughens up if you overwork it, so that it becomes gummy or mealy or impossible to spread out over much surface area. Unless you have an oven that can handle high heats, it’s difficult to crisp the crust. Some of our early runs, lackluster in flavor and texture, were solely satisfying in that we’d made the effort to produce a meal.

But in our routine, week after week, the pizza improved. We played with different temperatures and bake times, various portions of sauce to cheese, pre-shredded versus fresh mozzarella, and a slew of toppings, though black olives remain a perennial favorite. Kelsey got in the habit of blending homemade pizza sauce, and now instead of prepackaged cans there’s always a couple mason jars of her product in our fridge. Before we knew it, pizza Fridays became a metronome by which we planned productive weekends. They guaranteed time we spent together without worrying over professional or social obligations. At some point in this cycle, I became obsessed with Topo Chico mineral water and began picking up a bottle at the corner store on my way home, which resulted in passing up the cans of beer I was accustomed to reaching for at the end of the week. Friday nights were a time we dedicated to ourselves and our craft.

While our weekly routine suggests a life of rigid order, I can assure you this wasn’t the case until recently. Even throughout most of grad school I treated Friday night as throwaway time for goofing off and drinking. Before returning to school I didn’t accomplish much during the weekend at all. Training for my early marathons was scattershot at best. I pushed my body through hangovers and nights of little sleep. I jammed long runs into my weekend wherever they fit around parties and social events and sometimes skipped them entirely if they inconvenienced me. This time, with some modicum of being older and wiser, was different. With regular Friday pizza plans in place, I also got in the habit of waking up at 5 or 6 AM on Saturday mornings, sober and well rested, ready for my most rigorous and trying training runs. I layered up, pushed a hat tight over my head, shook on some gloves, and set out along the shoreline path of an ice-littered and tempestuous Lake Michigan before the sun came up. The result was that even my runs exceeding three hours were completed well before lunchtime on Saturday. I could spend the remainder of my weekends relaxing and being productive instead of dreading the grueling run that waited. For the first time in my life, rather than counteracting the incessant damage I was inflicting on my body, I was focused on improving my physical health, and my stress level and work ethic seemed to improve along with it. Fatigued from the morning’s workout, Saturday afternoons offered easy writing time, and suddenly I had discovered a new wave of productivity. All of it led back to setting aside time each week to cook my favorite food.

The marathon has passed, but as much as possible Kelsey and I continue to reserve our Friday nights for making pizza and spending time together after a stretch of long days in separate offices. Though it may sound repetitive and tiresome, and while our friends occasionally mock us for being old, we both find joy in this household pastime. Each pizza marks a weekend commenced on a positive note, a bettering of our culinary endeavors, more time spent together, and perhaps less-stressed and rested versions of ourselves.

 


Aram Mrjoian is an editor-at-large at the Chicago Review of Books and the assistant managing editor at TriQuarterly. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Millions, Kenyon Review online, Longreads, Joyland, Colorado Review, and many other publications. He earned his MFA in creative writing at Northwestern University and is pursuing his PhD in fiction at Florida State University. Find his work at arammrjoian.com.

How Learning to Make Pizza Helped Me Train for a Marathon was last modified: September 25th, 2018 by Guest Contributor
marathonpizzarunning
0 comment
0
Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
Avatar
Guest Contributor

Entropy posts are often submitted to us by our fantastic readers & guest contributors. We'd love to receive a contribution from you too. Submission Guidelines.

previous post
Selvedge
next post
Researching Ourselves: Babak Lakghomi’s “Floating Notes” and Liam Agrani’s “Selected Anonymous Marginalia”

You may also like

This Snow, This Day

October 3, 2017

On the Front Porch Steps with a Cigarette

January 8, 2019

The End of the Rainbow in the Inner Richmond

September 10, 2018

Everyone Around You Is Hungry For Something

March 28, 2018
Facebook Twitter Instagram

Recent Comments

  • Lei Yu wow so beautifully written!

    Review – : once teeth bones coral : by Kimberly Alidio ·  January 18, 2021

  • Lisa S Thank you so much for your kind words and your feedback. I can only hope my story is able to help someone who needs it.

    WOVEN: This isn’t love ·  January 8, 2021

  • Ann Guy Thank you, Josh. And glad you didn’t get tetanus at band camp on that misguided day.

    A Way Back Home ·  December 24, 2020

Featured Columns & Series

  • The Birds
  • Dinnerview
  • WOVEN
  • Variations on a Theme
  • BLACKCACKLE
  • Literacy Narrative
  • COVID-19
  • Mini-Syllabus
  • Their Days Are Numbered
  • On Weather
  • Disarticulations
  • The Waters
  • Session Report series
  • Birdwolf
  • Comics I've Been Geeking Out On
  • Small Press Releases
  • Books I Hate (and Also Some I Like)
  • The Poetics of Spaces
  • Fog or a Cloud
  • Tales From the End of the Bus Line
  • 30 Years of Ghibli
  • Cooking Origin Stories
  • YOU MAKE ME FEEL
  • Ludic Writing
  • Best of 2019
  • The Talking Cure
  • Stars to Stories
  • Food and Covid-19
  • DRAGONS ARE REAL OR THEY ARE DEAD
  • Foster Care
  • LEAKY CULTURE
  • Jem and the Holographic Feminisms
  • D&D with Entropy

Find Us On Facebook

Entropy
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram

©2014-2020 The Accomplices LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Read our updated Privacy Policy.


Back To Top