RnR Washington DC Half: Training Wk 6

Preface

Ok! Enough of this pity party with these “road to recovery” posts. 😉 The die has been cast, and I have officially registered for Run Rock n Roll Washington D.C. Half Marathon (RnR D.C. Half).

General Updates:

This week has been pretty ho hum in my running world. I'll admit that I skipped my long run this weekend. Fortunately for me, my long run was supposed to be a 5K race. ;) Instead of running a 5K race or doing a long run, I decided to hit the stationary bike for about 60 minutes while singing along to the original Hairspray.

Strength Training:

Strength training (supplemented with HIIT and yoga) has been going ok. Now, I've started supplementing my supplemental training with some exercises from Quick Strength for Running.

While the first week of exercises from the book look pretty easy, boy some of my smaller muscles definitely need work. The few exercises that gave me a run for my money were the adductor leg raises, side leg raises, and windshield wipers.

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Dieting/Proper Eating:

While I have been watching what I eat . . . kinda sorta, I was disappointed by my monthly weigh in. Unfortunately, I did not lose any weight during the month of January. In fact, I gained three pounds, which may or may not be significant. I completely understand that losing weight is 20% exercising and 80% managing your diet (or whatever the real ratio is). Well, I have been drinking these nasty veggie smoothies for lunch. I think the one below was a mixture of an orange, broccoli, spinach, carrots, blueberries, celery, and a scoop of yogurt.

Although I didn't lose any weight, I expected to at leave maintained my current (well, previous) weight since I have been working out. I guess that I need to do a bit more in terms of my diet/eating habits. One thing that I really need to change is my sleep habits. Like my eating, my sleeping is a hot mess for which I blame decades of being a night owl. Most nights (well mornings), I do not get to sleep until 1-3 am and will wake up around 6 am. I'm sure that my ghrelin/leptin hormones are out of whack. In case you are unfamiliar with these hormones:

• Ghrelin tells your brain that you are "hungry"and typically increases during sleep deprivation.

• Leptin tells your brain that you are full.

Goals for the week:

-Try to get to bed by 11 pm at least 3 nights this week.

-Begin meal prepping and planning my menu for the week. I think if I actually have a menu for the week, I'll be less likely to eat random crap.

RnR Washington DC Half: Training Wk 5

Preface

Ok! Enough of this pity party with these “road to recovery” posts. 😉 The die has been cast, and I have officially registered for Run Rock n Roll Washington D.C. Half Marathon (RnR D.C. Half).

General Updates:

Overall, this week was so-so because I did not do many of my runs; however, I managed to do my long run . . . so that's something. Over the weekend, well only on Saturday, we had a touch of "spring in winter" with temps in the upper 50s F. It was great because it gave me the opportunity to do my long run (8 mi) outdoors. Actually, it was so warm out that I had to take off my long-sleeved shirt around mile 6.

I kept this long run simple by running 4 miles along Sligo Creek Trail and running back.

The run was pretty nice, and it was great to smell some fresh air (instead of gym air) while running. I'm still doing the walk (0.1-0.25 mi) run (0.75-0.90 mi) method for each mile. Overall, I'm still falling in the long-run range (11:46-13:12 min/mi) for my training plan.

In fact, I ran the first half at a 12:44 min/mi pace and the second half at 12:37 min/mi. I know this pace is nothing to write home about, but it still counts as a negative split. ;) Using the walk/run method, I walked 0.25 mi for each mile during the first four miles and 0.1 mi during the second four miles. The weird thing: I'm not walking because I'm tired (for the most part); I'm walking because that's the only way I can stay in the 11:46-13:12 min/mi range. Also, it's kind of weird that I had a negative (albeit by a few seconds) for the second half because I walked for about 1/2 of mile while eating my Cliff bar during mile five.

Strength Training:

not do as many strength training workout as I would have liked. However, I managed to squeeze in a few Insanity Max: 30 HIIT workouts during the week.

I wonder if I'll actually finish the 60-day workout program. ;) Well, I know that I will not finish the program in 60 days because I'm doing this program to supplement my other fitness crap. However, it would be nice to finish this program. Normally, I get about 20 -30 days into the program and move on to another program or to another injury. ;) I think this happens because some of the 30+ day BODi programs becomes a bit repetitive.

Dieting/Proper Eating:

Ugh, I kind of had a setback. Because of my erratic sleeping scheduled (mostly caused by me), I haven't really been doing my 16-hr fasts or portion control. :( Actually, I find it's easier to fast when I work onsite (Tuesdays/Thursdays) because I do not chow down as much when I'm in the office, compared to when I'm home. Also, I'm a bit better with portion control during my office days since I do not have a pantry of food at my disposal - only a variety of teas and coffee. Dropping the ball with my eating this week reminded me of this meme from I Love Being Black’s IG.

So yeah, January will be my trial month for dieting/proper eating. Actually, I am proud of upping my daily intake of fruits and veggies by drinking homemade smoothies that typically consist of spinach, carrots, celery, apples, blueberries, broccoli, tomatoes, and a scoop of yogurt. At the beginning of the week, I shread a brunch of fruits and veggies so I'll save time not having to chop crap everyday.

Goals for the week:

Same goals as last week.

-Make health appointments. I need to find an internist because I have not had a physical with full blood work in two years. Also, I need to find an optometrist and a podiatrist. One of the crappy things about moving to a new city is having to find new medical specialists.

-Update my running playlist. It seems as if Eurovision has taken over a lot of my running (and general) playlists.

-Start meal prepping.

RnR Washington DC Half: Training Wk 4

Preface

Ok! Enough of this pity party with these “road to recovery” posts. 😉 The die has been cast, and I have officially registered for Run Rock n Roll Washington D.C. Half Marathon (RnR D.C. Half).

General Updates:

Now that I've finished my brief hiatus from blogging, it's time to get back on that horse with my weekly training updates. I'm training for Rock n Roll DC Half Marathon, which is in mid March. Since I'm easing back into to writing these updates, this will be somewhat unorganized.

Training has been going just ok - not great, but not bad. Because I had to deal with my back injury from August to October, I think that I have some hesitations in pushing myself out of fear of re-injuring myself. While slow is good sometimes, I think that I might be taking things a little to slowly I'm primarily following Hal Higdon's Half Marathon Training : Novice 1 Program (link: ***), which calls for about 3-4 runs each week. Also, most of the runs are in the easy range.

To figure out my pacing for this training runs, I used Runner's World Race pace calculator for a 2:30 half marathon (link: ***). Hopefully, I'll have a time that's faster than 2:30 for this half marathon on March.

With the exception of the tempo and VO2-max runs, I have been meeting my target times. The long runs have been a bit interesting. I know these runs are supposed to be slow; however, I do not know if my current pace range (11:46-13:13 min/mi) is TOO slow for me. Even with walking about 0.15 - 0.25 miles at the beginning of each mile, I'm still running 11:45 min/mi. You know what? I'm not gonna say that this is too slow because I'm still at the 7 mile mark for my long runs. Perhaps, I'll started landing in the middle point of the long run range once I hit 9+ miles for the long runs.

Oh last weekend, the hubby and I visited my hometown (Va. Beach), and we had a chance to actually vacation. What do I mean by "vacation"? Since it's the off-season, the hotels on the Oceanfront were "dirt" cheap. Prices were around $100/night instead of the typical $300+/night rates. So instead of staying at relative's place (since I've FINALLY started renting out my mother's house), we decided to stay on the beach. BTW, if you are ever in Va Beach, I highly recommend Hyatt Place Va Beach/Oceanfront (link: ***) for a few reasons:

• It's right on the boardwalk, so you will wake up to the sunrise overlooking the Atlantic (depending if you get a room with an oceanview).

• Also, it's in a decent section of the boardwalk, so you'll be near all of the nicer restaurants and bars.

• It's pretty new (I think it opened in 2022), and the rooms are pretty modern.

• Although this was not a consideration for us, the hotel is VERY pet-friendly.

• The breakfast buffet is pretty delicious.

• Also, the boardwalk is a great place to run, and you'll have King Neptune cheering you on. ;)

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Now, we are back to reality and dealing with snow that has hit the northern part of the mid-Atlantic region. Since I hate running in the snow, most of my runs this week have been treadmill-based. While I hate running in the snow, it sure does look pretty.

Strength Training:

While I have been consistent with strength training, I'm not really sure what I should be doing in the gym. Similar to my concerns about my back in regards to running, I have similar concerns with weight lifting. That said, because of my back situation, I have been focusing on lower body exercises that I normally ignored in the past, e.g., single-leg deadlifts, cable leg extensions, abductor/adductor machines, back raises, and weighted back extensions, etc. The book below might be right up my alley.

In a previous post, I low key complained about the "riff raffness" of my local Planet Fitness. However, I received an amazing Christmas gift because another local Planet Fitness opened up a couple of weeks ago, and it's more or less the same distance from my apt as the crappy one.

So this is great because I have a nice Planet Fitness near work and a nicer one near home. In other words, I have no excuse for not hitting the gym.

Racing:

Except for the Rock n Roll DC Half Marathon, I don't have anything on my race calendar for the upcoming months. BUT, that will change soon (hopefully). Recently, I learned about Run Washington (link: ***), which has a collection of local races in the DMV area.

Although the races do not look as robust as the one from New York Road Runners (NYRR), something is better than nothing. In fact, I'm eyeing a couple of races in February.

• Kemp Mill (C)hills 5K/10K (Silver Spring, MD)

• 2024 Falling for You 5k, 10k, & Half (Potomac, MD)

• (maaaaybe) Cupid’s Undie Run (Washington DC)

Since I used to be a member of Front Runners NYC, I might be interested in doing a run or two with Front Runners DC (oh, I'm sorry . . . DC Front Runners).

2024 km in 2024:

Ok so I'm going to try to run 2024 km in 2023. Last year's goal (2023 km in 2023) was a big fail due to my back injury. Well, let me keep it real. I probably wasn't going to make 2023 km even without the injury.

At least, I'll have 366 days instead of the normal 365 days to complete this task in 2024. ;)

Dieting/Proper Eating:

I'm back on my intermittent fasting plan. Starting this week, I will begin my full 16-hr fasts. While intermittent fasting has been going well, I need to start focusing on proper eating and portion control because I would like to lose at least 20 pounds by the end of April.

Goals for the week:

-Make health appointments. I need to find an internist because I have not had a physical with full blood work in two years. Also, I need to find an optometrist and a podiatrist. One of the crappy things about moving to a new city is having to find new medical specialists.

-Update my running playlist. It seems as if Eurovision has taken over a lot of my running (and general) playlists.

-Start meal prepping.

"Quick" Review of 2023

Winding down 2023

I guess I'm a bit late for this wrap up, but I'll keep it brief. On IG, I normally post a brief year in review. Like I said on IG, 2023 was more of a crockpot year because things were kind of slow and steady - not saying that's a bad thing.

Let's start with the highlights

January: Hubby and I saw Cirque du Soleil's Corteo. Going into the show I wasn't really expecting much because I've never been interested in the Cirque du Soleil brand. I gotta say that I REALLY enjoyed the show because of the dancing, the fun, and all of the AMAZING acrobatics. Maybe it's an age thing for me. In my 20s, I would not have been caught dead at a Cirque du Soleil show, but now in my 40s, I'm down with it.

February: One City Half Marathon (Newport News, VA). I remember registering for the full marathon, but I couldn't (or didn't) run it for whatever reason.

March: Shamrock (half) Marathon (Va. Beach, VA). While my half marathon time was not amazing, I thought this was a wonderfully organized race. If you are ever thinking about running a race in the southeastern part of VA (i.e., Hampton Roads/Tidewater), I highly recommend running a J&A Racing event. They do a great job putting on a race, AND they have amazing post-race parties.

April: Yearly (or near yearly) trip to Spain to visit the hubby's family and friends. During this trip, we visited Bilbao, which is a city in the Basque region of northern Spain. This day trip was my first (and hopefully not last) trip to Bilbao. I have to say that I was really surprised (in a good way) with the amount of cultural and culinary diversity in Bilbao. To be frank, I think that I saw more diversity in this city compared to typical cities that one thinks of when talking about Spain, e.g. Madrid and Barcelona.

May: Eurovision in Washington DC. Since we were not traveling to the UK to see Eurovision 2023, the hubby and I decided to do a weekend trip to DC to attend a Eurovision party. We ended up going to one viewing event, but the bar's A/V system was a hot mess, so we ended up watching it at another bar. Funny thing: Originally, this was just supposed to be a Eurovision trip to DC, but I got a new job in Maryland around this time. So Eurovision in DC became Eurovision in DC and apartment hunting in the DC metro area. We probably should have spent less time "Eurovision'ing" and more time apartment searching. Fortunately, the day after Eurovision, we found two places that somewhat fit our needs.

June: The "big" move from Va Beach, VA to Silver Spring, MD. Geez! in one year, we had two major moves: New York, NY -> Va Beach, VA and Va Beach, VA -> Silver Spring, Maryland. I did not plan on doing this, but my new job's work schedule made it a bit impossible to do a VA <-> MD commute. While the position is hybrid, my onsite days are Tuesdays and Thursday, which would require staying in Maryland three to four days a week. Although we are both enjoying living in the DC metro, I will admit that it has been tough on me. The job and apt (for the most part are fine), but I do not really know people in the area, and it has been a bit hard to meet people. Let me take that back, I know OF people (e.g., former high school and college classmates), but I don't really know them to say Hey X, lets grab a drink next week. One of my goals for 2024 is to reestablish old relations and get involved with a couple of organizations in an attempt to meet new people.

July: Hubby's birthday month. I'm posting this because with the move and getting settled into our new place, I really did not celebrate my birthday, which is in June. Sooooo, I kind of celebrated my birthday with the hubby's by having a really expensive dinner. Random trivia. Our birthdays are separated by one month and one day. After posting, I realize these pictures are not from the really expensive restaurant but from a Spanish restaurant where we had brunch. I was too lazy to change the pictures. ;)

August: This is where the year took a freaking nose dive. While I was on track (for the most part) in training for the Marine Corps Marathon (October), I had a flare up of a herniated disc in my lower back. This injury took me out of everything for about 2.5 months. For most of August and early September, I had major issues with pain associated with sitting, standing, and/or walking. During this time, I remember debating during the early mornings if I wanted to deal with the pain of getting out of bed to use the bathroom or just pissing the bed. Although things are better for the most part, I have been VERY dedicated to stretching 2-4 times a day. The next step is to get my weight under control . . . more on that in a future post.

September: Eh, nothing really worth mentioning because I couldn't do much of anything due to my back injury. At least walking with a cane, prevented me from touching random surfaces with my fingers. ;)

October: I managed to make it to my first yelp Elite (MD Burbs) event. It was great for two reasons. 1. I met a few new folks. 2. It was one of my 1st social event since the back injury.

November: Lol. A friend told me that she saw me in the New York Times article about the benefits of walking vs running. Funny thing, the article was published in November 2023, BUT it's an old picture. After going through the photos on my phone (and based on the color of my shoes), this picture must have been taken in 2018 or 2019 when I was living in NYC.

December: TROPICAL CHRISTMAS in Cancún, Mexico. A few interesting things:

• We survived our first (and hopefully last) Spirit Air experience. Here's the thing, Spirit Air was the only airline with direct flights from the DC metro area to Cancún that were not crazy expensive . . . I'm talking about $500+ in addition to the all-inclusive package, which included the resort stay and airfare. Also, I thought it would be dumb to have a layover for a travel time of 3.5 hours. Again, I was really surprised that there were not more direct flights since we live in a major city and were traveling to a popular destination. All in all, we had a decent experience on Spirit Air, but maybe we were lucky...very lucky. I have to admit that I was very nervous because I (like most) have seen those Spirit Air customers vs employees or customers vs customers fights on social media. Also, word on the street says that Spirit Air is known for canceling (or rather delaying) flights for days. Fortunately, we did not experience either of those situations.

• Tropical Christmas wasn't really all that tropical because the region had an abnormal cold spell. We're talking about temps in the 70s F with rain. Although the weather was not optimal, we did enjoy ourselves and managed to spend a few minutes in the sun. Hey, I even came in third place for the resort's flags of the world contest. I probably would have won if I didn't screw up Aruba's and Mauritius' flags.

• We did a nice catamaran excursion that included snorkeling, a trip to Isla de Mujers, and (of course) drinking. The excursion was nice for the most part, BUT I did not enjoy the captain's 10-15 minute lecture about tipping. Here's the thing, the excursion was about $120 USD with an additional $20 USD marina docking fee. Not to be rude, I'm not buying that $20 USD marina docking fee because I don't understand why that fee could not have been included in the price of excursion. You mean to tell me that EVERYONE has to pay this docking fee, when we are on ONE boat. Our catamaran had about 30 people on it, so the city/county/state/country receives about $600 USD from this boating company on a daily basis. Keep in mind that there are SEVERAL tour companies that operate out of this port. Ok, back to the tiping. The captain kept telling us that they do a lot of work to organize these tours for us. Yes, that is true, BUT the tourists have paid for this service. I understand that this probably more of an issue of the company not paying their employees enough money. I just didn't like the lecture. ALSO, a lot of the crew had pretty nasty attitudes. You're NOT gonna lecture me about gratuity while having a fucked up attitude because you have to do YOUR job. To be honest, I did not notice any of the tourist being rude and condescending towards the ship's crew. If tipping is such an issue, then these companies should add a gratuity fee to the excursion price. Lord knows they add a fee for everything else.