Getting into a Groove

For some strange reason, Madonna’s “Into the Groove” has been in my head for the past few days . . . hence the title of today’s entry.

Some new kicks:

I have finally purchased some new running shoes, which was a bit of a struggle. Here’s the shoe story of my life. I went to a local Jack Rabbit store to purchase a pair of kicks. The salesperson was so excited (maybe it was a slow day in the store) to show me all of the new models of shoes from New Balance. After telling him the specifications of my big and wide feet, he pretty much told me that the store had only 3 options for me. From my personal experience, once you go past a size 10.5 (if the place offers half sizes past 10), running shoes options dwindle to about 50%. Then, that percentage goes down even further if you need a wide shoe. In addition to the reduced number of options, the potential running shoes tend to have the most ugly arrangement of colors.

I went with these Brooks Ghost 13 because the other option of shoes was butt ugly.

With this purchase, I feel a bit like a traitor because I have been wearing New Balance running shoes for the past decade. You know, it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. I took them out for a test run (errrr, drive) on a treadmill, and they seem to be ok. All is not lost because a colleague told me about Joe’s New Balance Outlet (Link: ***), which carries larger-sized running shoes. Also, I was told that they carry wide shoes up to EEEEE.

Running recap:

Even before purchasing my new kicks, I have been running about 3 - 4 times a week. Yay me! It has been a slow climb because I’m pretty much doing Galloway’s Run-Walk-Run method. With this method, I have been mostly alternating between running 400 m (or 800 m) and walking 200 m. Although I’m moving slowly, I do realize that Rome was not built in a day. Also, I am pretty happy that I’m back to running full loops in Central Park (~6mi). Hopefully, in the upcoming weeks, I can transition to more continuous running.

Over the past few months, it has been really hard to jumpstart my motivation for running. Yes, a part of this was due to my lack of interest in running outside during winter. But, I also think my low motivation was caused by not having anything to train for. I have realized that doing virtual challenges does not work for me because there is nothing like an in-person race to really get you into competition mode. While this “competition” is more with myself (or the “stopwatch”), it’s easier to push myself when I have someone running the same race.

The plan is to use the next couple of months to get in some sort of pre-marathon training shape to start training for TCS NYC Marathon. Isn’t so strange that I feel like I have to get into shape BEFORE training for a marathon? While we do not know if NYC’s marathon will happen on the first Sunday in November, it could not hurt to train for it. If this year’s marathon is canceled (again), I do not think that I will be too disappointed. Perhaps, I can settle with running a smaller full or half-marathon if the NYC Marathon is canceled. Let’s see where the next few months will take me.

Getting social:

A while ago, I wrote a post where I discussed how difficult it has been for me to integrate into my two running groups. Over the weekend, I "gave" my LGBTQ+ group another shot and volunteered to participate in the group's cheer zone for folks who were either racing or doing their long run in Central Park. I gotta say that I had a nice time cheering for my fellow runners (I guess technically they would be my teammates). Maybe I will start participating in some of the group's weekly fun runs.

Plans for the week:

-Clean/organize my running drawers. I have two full drawers dedicated to my running clothes, but the drawers are a complete mess. It’s beyond time to toss out the running clothes that I never wear. Oh, I have accumulated so many running clothes because many races give your a technical “finisher” shirt.

-Start executing a sleeping plan. I need to start getting to bed and actually going to sleep earlier so I can start my runs earlier in the morning.

-Plan to run a couple of New York Road Runner or NYCRuns sponsored races in April.

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Training Update: Marathon Madrid Wk. 2

Monday: Rest Day (technically)

Since my beer club was meeting in downtown Brooklyn, and I finished work a bit early. I decided to hop on a Citibike and ride from work to Brooklyn, which was about 10 miles. 

I really enjoyed my ride along the Hudson River, which is pretty beautiful around dusk. During my bike ride, I was wondering why I stopped biking. Maybe after NYC Marathon, I'll get back into biking again. Well . . . maybe not. I think that I stopped doing long bike rides (50+ miles) because I became annoyed about constantly having to change my bike's tires.

Of course, having a nice IPA after the 10-mile bike ride was a very well deserved reward because those Citibikes are quite heavy.

Circa Brewing Company, Brooklyn, NY

Tuesday: 3mi 

An easy treadmill run. Nothing groundbreaking to write about. Well . . . I think that I was supposed to run 5 miles. Oh well. 

Wednesday: Rest  

Thursday: Hill workout and x-training  

I think this workout might have screwed me up for Saturday's long run. I probably did too much during this workout. Since it was raining outside, I decided to do my hill workout a treadmill. Note to self: No more hill workout on treadmills at New York Sports Club.

The workout plan was to do 0.25 mi "sprints" on a 7-8% incline with a 0.25 mi cool down on a 2% incline. The workout was going pretty well until the 2nd to the last interval when the treadmill started to freak out a bit. Unfortunately, the treadmill's speed controls stopped functioning so I had to literally jump off of the belt. The crappy state of NYSC's cardio machines is a major pet peeve of mine. For example, on several occasions, I've had to move to 2, 3, 4 different cardio machines to find one that works properly. Ugh. 

I have been trying to include more strength training for this marathon. Mainly, I'm doing to high rep/low weight for these sessions.  

While training for last year's NYC Marathon, I noticed that I would have soreness in my hip abductors, especially after my long runs. Now, I have been trying to focus a bit more on my lower body. I thought that my weight training season went pretty buuuuut . . .

Friday: Rest

Saturday: A hot mess

The plan was to run 14 miles. Unfortunately, I managed to run only 1.6 miles because my hip abductors were very sore. I figured that it would be better to reattempt the run on another day rather than struggling through the run. Also, I did not have the motivation or desire to fight through my soreness for another 12.4 miles. I think that I will have to give myself a longer recovery time after my strength workouts, especially if I'm doing anything other than easy runs on the same day. I do not think that I'm too injured because both my left and right hip abductors were sore. Maybe I just overworked the muscles on the hip abductor/adductor machines. 

At least I was in high hopes just before starting the run.

Sunday: 4mi

At first, I was going to reattempt the previous day's 14mi run, but I knew that I would not have enough time for the run before going on some random Sunday adventures. Instead, I decided to run a few 800m intervals on the treadmill after a 1mi warm-up. Fortunately, this treadmill did not give me any problems. 

Random:

I am really enjoying Matthew Futterman’s Running to the Edge, which contains a series of stories about Bob Larsen’s quest to train elite U.S. mid- and long-distance runners.

Random II:

For some reason, I have been jamming to Laura Pausini all week. Hopefully, she will have another concert in NYC very soon.

Find me on Strava

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Training Update: Marathon Madrid Wk. 1

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

Find me on Strava

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United NYC Half Marathon Training Week 7 (Feb 2nd 2019)

Planned mileage: 17.5mi

Completed mileage: 18.5mi

Actually, with this training update, I think that I may be on the right path for training for the United NYC Half Marathon. For once, I completed all of my planned training goals, and my back did not bother me as much . . . for the most part.

Let’s get this started.

Monday:

Planned: 50min X-train

Completed: Elliptical and strength training

Unfortunately, I arrived at the gym kind of late and was unable to do as much as I wanted to with my strength training (arms and chest). But something is better than nothing.

Since I did not do much on Monday morning, I had planned to run with Harlem Runs. In a previous post, I mentioned that I wanted to run with a running group. Harlem Runs has weekly Monday and Wednesday runs so I figured it would be a good start. I arrived home from work to change into my cold-weather running clothes, but the BF informed me that he washed our clothes AND the dryer was broken. No run for me because my cold-weather clothes were all wet. Oh well, there’s always next week.

Tuesday:

Planned: 4.5mi

Completed: 4.5mi, 10min stair climber, 35min stretching

Man, I hate treadmill running.

Wednesday:

Planned: 8 X 400m intervals

Completed: Rest. I think that I went out for drinks with friends after work. 

Thursday:

Planned: 3mi

Completed: 8 X 400m intervals; broken up 3mi run; 45min strength and weight training

What polar vortex? Since the temperatures were around 4 degrees, these runs were obviously done on a treadmill. One cool (no pun) thing about this polar vortex was the gym was virtually empty. Score.

Since I skipped Wednesday workout, I combined the intervals with my “3mi” run. I say “3mi” because I did a 0.5mi warm-up followed by the eight intervals and a normal 2.5mi “recovery” run. Actually, my workout was kind of awesome. Aside from the first two intervals, all of the other ones was sub 2 mins.

Friday: 

Planned: Rest

Completed: 20min elliptical and 30min stretching 

Saturday: 

Planned: 9mi

Completed: 9mi 

This run was kind of make or break for me, especially after what happened with last week’s long run. Last week, my back really started to hurt within the first two miles of my long run. I managed to complete this run in Central Park; unfortunately, I had to walk a couple of times. But, 9 miles are 9 miles. I really noticed that I need to stop relying so much on the treadmill because it gives me a false sense of security when I eventually start running outside. In my defense, it has been really cold. Although I walked a few times (those damn Harlem and Sister Hills), I managed to eek out fartleks for a mile or so during miles 7 and 8. Or was it during miles 6 and 7?

Sunday: 

Planned: Rest

Completed: 20min stair climber, 60min strength and stretching, and a couple of bike rides through the city.

All in all, I had a GREAT training week, which is something that I have not been able to say in a VERY long time. I just hope that I did not overdo it, making this training week a hot mess. My back pain has greatly reduced; I think taking out the glute extensions was a major factor. Today after work, I was thinking about going to Zumba class, but maybe I should sit it out and actually take a REAL rest day.

Goals for this week:

-Definitely go running with the Harlem Runs crew. I’m thinking that I will go on Wednesday since that is the group speed workout day.

-Begin increasing the distance for my interval runs (800m or 1600m intervals).

-Although this may not happen this week, but I need to start introducing more hills into my runs. The first part of the new half-marathon’s course is somewhat hilly, and we have to cross a bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan. For this Saturday’s long run (10mi), I think that I will incorporate the Manhattan Bridge, which on the United NYC Half’s course.