Alrighty, here we go. Time to train for another marathon and this one will be in Madrid.
Before I begin, I guess that I'm officially registered for NYC's Marathon, which will be held on Sunday, Nov. 1st. It looks like there will be no Halloween festivities for me this year. Man. Back in 2005, if you told me that I would pay over 200 bucks to run a marathon, I would have looked at you like you had ten heads. My how things have changed.
Although this was the first week of training for Madrid's marathon, I have not 100% decided on a marathon training plan. I'm pretty much going to take bits and pieces from multiple training plans. Some from Hanson's Method, Hal Higgons, and Front Runners of NY. Like most of my marathon training plans, we all know that this plan more than likely will go to sh*t by week 8 or 9. Why do I set myself up for failure? ;)
General Training Crap
-This is probably a stupid idea, but I completed my first week of 16:8 intermittent fasting (IF). It seems a bit weird to do IF while training for a marathon, but I really need to lose some weight. It's simple physics or mechanics; smaller things tend to move faster. My big a** needs to move faster.
Tuesday was a bit of a fail because the office catered lunch from Dinosaur BBQ. I'll be damned if I will turn down free BBQ. Oh, Dino BBQ's creamed corn is SOOOOO amazing.
Monday: Strength Training and 3.25mi
Tuesday: Strength Training
Wednesday: x-train
Thursday: Speedwork (Morning) + Zumba (Evening)
Since I obviously would to get faster at some point in my life, I definitely will need to incorporate more speed (and hill) work during this training regimen. Yeah, I'll probably never return to my 8:30min/mi half marathon pace status from seven or eight years ago, but I can always try.
For my speed workout, I wanted to run twelve 0.25mi hard intervals with 0.25mi easy recovery. I was kind of excited to do this workout because I found a portion of Central Park that has a 0.25mi circular dirt path.
However, I think that I was too excited because I did not notice how cold (25F) it was on Thursday morning until I started to run the intervals. After running about 4 of these intervals, my fingers were quite cold, and I had to run to the nearest New York Sports Club. After the run, I jogged to the gym to stretch, but my fingers were still feeling weird for 30 minutes after the run. So I learned an important lesson from this workout - WEAR GLOVES FOR ANY OUTDOOR WORKOUTS BELOW 30F. Actually, I don't even know where my running gloves are.
Since I did not do as much as I wanted to on the "track", I decided to hit up a Zumba class, which I've been missing. Since joining New York Sports Club, I have not attended a Zumba class since January. I think that I attended my last Zumba a week before Christmas.
The Zumba class was just oooookay. I'm not sure if this was because I'm not used to this instructor's method of teaching . . . aka the spazztastic method. I probably will not make this class a weakly thing. One of my biggest pet peeves with Zumba is when the instructor does not have his/her playlist together. We should not have to stop after every song so you can find the next song.
Friday: HIIT and Stretching
Saturday: Long run (10.5mi)
The plan was to run 12 miles, but my strugglin' a** was a bit tired. I think that I had one too many of gin tonics at one of my favorite Spanish restaurants (Tomiño Taberna Gallega) the night before. See, I'm already screwing up my marathon training.
I guess old habits are hard to break
For this long run, I wanted to try a completely different route so I ran from Harlem to Fort Lee, NJ.
My run was just ok, but I probably put in about 70% effort on this run. I really was not feeling this run. It was one of those runs where you look at your GPS tracker and you are like: Wait! I've only completed 2 miles. I thought that I was at mile 4 or 5. After mile 2, I knew that the run was going to be a bit of a struggle. Going forward, there will be no hanging out on Friday nights . . . Well, very minimal hanging out on Fridays.
Oh one cool thing about the run: I found $10 bucks during the run. Dollar, dollar bills, y'all.
Upcoming Race: Rockapulcorun V-Day Half Marathon (Feb. 15)
According to the email that the organizer sent, it looks like there will be a brunch after the race. I wonder if there will be unlimited mimosas? ;)
we will be at Rogers Pub from 8:30 am on. Number pick up and race day reg. Then a nice Brunch after the Half. Sign up and our full calendar at www.rockapulcorun.com
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