Marine Corps Marathon: Training Week 8

Overview:

Looks like the die has been cast, and I’m officially registered for this year’s Marine Corps Marathon. I will admit that hitting the ‘register’ button was an impromptu decision that took place around 1 or 2 am. Although I knew nothing about this marathon at the time of registering, many folks have said that I should give it a shot.

Since I alway complain about the temperatures while training for fall marathons during the summer, this meme is perfect for me.

Training:

The previous week’s plan:

• Monday: 3mi easy

• Tuesday: X-train or rest

• Wednesday: 6mi ladders

• Thursday: 3mi easy

• Friday: X-train or rest

• Saturday: Rest bc I couldn’t get it together to do the run

• Sunday: 13mi long run

UGGGGGHHHHH! So when it rain, it pours. This week was ‘interesting’ because I had a flare up from a herniated disc in my lower back (an old injury). The pain was so bad that I had to spend most of Tuesday on the floor and in the ER.

You know you are a running when you are more concerned about when you can get back to your training during/after an injury.

What happened? Quick answer, I have no idea.

On Tuesday morning, I was doing my morning routine and shortly after taking my morning poop (yes, I managed to clean myself before the flare up), I experienced an intense pain in my lower back after pulling up my PJs. Since this is an old injury, I knew EXACTLY what was happening. For about 30 minutes, I could not pull myself from the floor and had to drag myself to our 2nd bedroom. When I have these flare ups, it’s EXTREMELY painful for me to completely stand up. Actually, it’s EXTREMELY painful for me to even partially stand up. After being in agonizing pain for about 45 minutes, we decided that it might be in my best interest to go to the ER. The annoying thing with this injury: the pain is so intense that any thought of moving is so paralyzing (no pun intended).

The “funny” thing: My flare up happened minutes after posting my training plan for the week on IG.

Normally, seven or eight weeks into marathon training, I start hating marathon training. This time around, I was so happy when the non-emergency ambulette service arrived, but it quickly became a bit of a disaster. Maybe disaster is too strong of a word.

• They left the wheelchair in the ambulette. Um if you received a call that someone cannot walk on their own, shouldn’t you meet the person with a wheelchair or a stretcher?

• I have to admit that I did not really trust them to move me from my office chair that I was sitting in to their wheelchair. I do not think they understood that ANY pressure, even my own weight, on my lower back would cause excruciating pain. Fortunately, I have a big booty so I managed to slide myself from my office chair to the wheelchair. Actually, the hubby did most of the work while the ambulette workers watched . . . at least they pushed the wheelchair.

• The folks dropped us off at the WRONG entrance of the hospital, so the hubby had to wheel me through the hospital’s laberingh to get to the ER.

The ER aspect of the trip was pretty straightforward. I will say that this experience was a bit more efficient than the ER visit associated with my last flare up seven years ago. For my last ER trip, I was admitted around 9 am and wasn’t discharged with a prescription until about 2 am. This time, I was admitted around 8:30 am and was released around 4 pm. This was wonderful, because I was discharged early enough to get my prescription filled at a pharmacy… and get lunch/early dinner. This was very important because I knew from a previous flare up that my back pain is the most intense 1st thing in the morning, so having the Rx for the muscle relaxants was very important.

The Road to Recovery:

Since I have experienced this before, I kind of know what is ahead of me. While I have not had a major flare up since 2016, I have had very minor ones over the past few years. The funny thing with this injury, I’m somewhat fine once I start moving around; however, mornings are rough especially pulling myself out of bed for the first time. Fortunately for me, the ER gave me a walking cane, which tremendously has assisted me with getting out of bed or getting up from a sofa or chair.

On Friday, I was so happy because it was the first time that I could get out of bed without using the cane. As of today (Sunday), there still is some moderate pain, but I can walk around…slowly and do some minor things around the house. I still have to mentally focus and have a game plan when getting up from a sitting or lying position. Oh, I still have to prepare/brace myself right before sneezing.

So what caused this flare up?:

To be honest, I really don’t know, but I have few theories.

• The previous evening, I did a 8 mile run on a treadmill in my apartment building gym, and the treadmill is kind of raggedy (like most of the equipment in the gym). On a couple of occasions, I noticed that the treadmill’s belt was slipping while I was running. Perhaps, I landed wrong a few times during my treadmill run.

• After my treadmill run, I might have stretched too intensely during my post-run yoga session.

• I might have worked too hard during my HIIT workout on Sunday afternoon.

What’s next?

I have no idea where this leaves me for my Marine Corps Marathon training plan. I probably will have to skip training for a couple of weeks (at least). I will say that the pain associated with my lower back is decreasing more and more with each passing day, which is a good thing. Hopefully, I can start going for “long” walks this week and come up with some next steps regarding my training at the end of this week.

This flare up has signaled that I really need to get my health/wellness/fitness life together, which I have neglected during the pandemic. The plan was to get my life back on track after the pandemic; however, I did experience a bit of a crisis over switching careers as a 40 year old person. Although I do not know what my exact plan is just yet, I do have a couple of ASAP to-do list items.

• Find a local internist and get a FULL physical.

• Return to my daily and nightly stretching

• Developing better eating habits.

Goals for the week:

-Get back to a basic level of walking.

-Iron out a plan to get my health back on track.

TRAINING PLAN:

Running playlist:

Marine Corps Marathon: Training Week 7

Overview:

Looks like the die has been cast, and I’m officially registered for this year’s Marine Corps Marathon. I will admit that hitting the ‘register’ button was an impromptu decision that took place around 1 or 2 am. Although I knew nothing about this marathon at the time of registering, many folks have said that I should give it a shot.

Since I alway complain about the temperatures while training for fall marathons during the summer, this meme is perfect for me.

Training:

The previous week’s plan:

• Monday: 3mi easy

• Tuesday: X-train or rest

• Wednesday: 6mi ladders

• Thursday: 3mi easy

• Friday: X-train or rest

• Saturday: Rest bc I couldn’t get it together to do the run

• Sunday: 13mi long run

One cool thing about running in this is seeing so many ‘wild’ animals. I routinely see deer, rabbits, and chipmunks during my runs – something that I rarely saw in in NYC.

I think that I should invest in one of these alarms. Actually, maybe I could get my iPhone to play a sound clip of a vomiting dog as the alarm.

Normally, seven or eight weeks into marathon training, I start hating marathon training. This time around, I’ve noticed that I’m looking forward to certain workouts especially speed workouts and long runs (for the most point). This week’s speed workout called for ladders, which are “fun”. This week’s ladders were 400 m (VO2 max pace) -> 800 m (tempo run pace) -> 1600 m (marathon pace) -> 1600 m -> 800 m -> 400 m. I dunno, there’s something about a speed workout that makes me feel quite accomplished.

Although I’m sticking to my plan (and completing the majority of my training runs), I think the plan is a bit too easy (at times). Ok, I take that back, it’s not too easy. Having run about 8 or 9 marathons, I know that I can (and should) do more. That said, I have to keep reminding myself that I’m starting from scratch.

LONG RUN CHRONICLES:

I’ve had it! I’m done trying to use my long runs as a way to explore my new area. I’m realizing that combining technology with a long run frustrates the hell out of me. For this week’s 13 mile long run, I found a nice little route on Strava that would give me a tour of the Silver Spring/Wheaton/Glenmont area. Long story short, I ran about 10 out of the planned 13 miles. You can see below that I did not close the loop.

Issue 1: Strava’s map did not let me zoom in far enough to see certain street names. Unfortunately, I had to rely on the the little blue tracker dot, which would take a few minutes to update - probably due to a weak signal in the area. On multiple occasions, I did not know if I made the correct turn until a few meters after making the turn. Some might know that backtracking is one of my biggest annoyances while running.

Issue 2: Since I’m still somewhat unfamiliar with the area, I had to constantly check the app to make sure that I was on the correct route. Over time, this became mentally draining and lowered my motivation. One aspect that I like about long runs is not having to check my watch of phone a bunch of times. Since I constantly had to check app’s map to figure out where was or where I was going, I’m frequently reminded about how slow I’m running slow or how many miles are remaining. This isn’t a bad thing at the beginning of a run, but about midway, I’m over it (especially when it’s hot).

Issue 3: At some point during the run, I was like something isn’t right especially once I saw this sign.

When I started the route, I was running in the opposite direction of the route’s outline. Around Mile 9, I noticed that I was running in the correct direction of the route. So I was like how the hell did this happen? One possibility: When my new running shorts become wet with sweat, they start “controlling” my phone. So, I think my shorts selected a different route while I was running, which I started following the second route instead of my original route. When I realized this happened, I was beyond pissed off and became extra annoyed because it was getting hotter. Since I was near a bus stop, I took the bus back to the park’s parking lot. The sad thing: At that point, I just had to run along the bus route to return to my starting point. But, like I said earlier, I was over it. Also, there was no shade on that street.

Going forward for long runs, I just gonna build off of my Forest Glen to the Washington Monument 10-mile route. I pretty much have to make 1-2 turns and run in a straight line to the tall, pointy building.

For instance, if I have a 15 mile run, I can do one or two things:

• Run 7.5 in one direction and 7.5 miles back to return to my starting point.

• Run the 10 mile route, run an additional 5 miles in Washington DC, and take the metro back to Silver Spring, MD. Since DC somewhat is built on a grid and most of of the streets are lettered and numbered, it’s pretty much impossible to get lost.

Strength Training:

Last week, I mentioned that I joined my local rec center. So, um, yeah, no, I think that I’ll just have to bite the bullet and get a REAL gym membership. My local rec center gym is pretty close, I have a couple of “minor” issues:

• the weight room was pretty small, and I’ve seen larger weight rooms in hotels.

• the hours are kind of weird. In my history of “rec center’ing”, I don’t think I’ve visited a rec center that didn’t open before 7 am. The hours of operation for the one nearest to us are from 9 am to 8 pm.

Goals for the week:

-Starting riding my bicycle from work to sneak in an extra cardio workout.

-Return to nightly stretching.

-Register for a few races. Someone on Twitter (or was it Facebook) clued me in to Run Washington, which has a collection of races in DC, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV).

TRAINING PLAN:

Running playlist:

Marine Corps Marathon: Training Weeks 5 + 6

Overview:

Looks like the die has been cast, and I’m officially registered for this year’s Marine Corps Marathon. I will admit that hitting the ‘register’ button was an impromptu decision that took place around 1 or 2 am. Although I knew nothing about this marathon at the time of registering, many folks have said that I should give it a shot.

Since I alway complain about the temperatures while training for fall marathons during the summer, this meme is perfect for me.

Training:

The previous week’s plan:

• Monday: 3 mi easy

• Tuesday: X-train or rest

• Wednesday: 5 mi tempo

• Thursday: 3 mi easy

• Friday: X-train or rest

• Saturday: 12 mi long run

• Sunday: rest

Here’s the thing, I’m not in denial about climate change, but sometimes, I think the weather is overhyped by news outlets for clicks and views. Ok, I’ll admit that this weekend was pretty hot, but I didn’t notice the EXTREME temps that the news have been mentioning over the past few days. Eh, then again, anything over 85 F is hot as hell and “extreme” in my book.

Hot ass weather aside, I think I’m getting into the groove of training for October’s Marine Corps Marathon. This probably is the first time in a very long time that I have been completing my training runs on a consistent basis. However, I think this has a bit to do with the type of marathon training plan that I’m doing.

As the pic above shows, I’m doing Hal Higdon’s Marathon Training: Novice 1, which is not as intense as some of his more advanced training plans. Hey, sometimes I have to take a few step back to move forward. With the exception of the one speed workout per week, the other 3-4 training runs are easy runs.

LONG RUN CHRONICLES:

Because of the intense heat (and my fear of heat stroke), I decided to do this week’s 12 mile long run on a treadmill.

Fortunately, my apt building has a few treadmills, which my neighbors have not stolen . . . yet. In a previous post, I mentioned that someone (some folks) stole most of the dumbbells from the apt building’s gym.

Ok, back to the long run. Folks who are in the know probably know that I HATE running more than 5 miles on a treadmill. Faced with the alternative of running in 90+F temps, the treadmill was an appropriate decision. I did have a little help from Evita while running.

I’ve realized that my treadmill long runs go well when I listen to musicals that I know by heart. This way, I can pretend I’m watching the musical (or in this case, the movie) while running. Since Evita is a military-themed musical, the marching cadence of many of the songs really kept me going. Perhaps, I should add a couple songs from Evita to my main marathon playlist. In particular, Peron’s Latest Flame

“It’s no crime for officers to as they please as long as they’re discreet and keep clear of disease. We ignore, we disregard. But once they allow a bit on the side to move to the center where she’s not qualified, we are forced to mark his card.”

Ok enough about Evita, back to the long run. While treadmill running can be long and boring, there are a few benefits.

• You don’t have to run in the oppressive heat.

• You can set the pace and get a better idea of how to maintain a certain pace.

• You don’t have to motivate yourself as much to start the run.

ETC:

For X-training, I think that I’m gonna restart Insanity Max: 30 and do another round of 3 Week Yoga Retreat.

Since i would like to incorporate more weight training, I decided to get a rec center and library cards. The rec center and library are in the same building complex so I knocked out two birds with one stone.

I have to admit that I was somewhat disappointed by the nearest rec center because:

• the weight room was pretty small. I’ve seen larger weight rooms in hotels.

• the hours are kind of weird. In my history of “rec center’ing”, I don’t think I’ve visited a rec center that didn’t open before 7 am. The hours of operation for the one nearest to us are from 9 am to 8 pm.

Hey, I cannot complain too much because the rec center in Montgomery County is free until the end of September.

Goals for the week:

-Buy a new pair of running shoes. I promise that I’m going to get a new pair this week. 😉

-Get a tune up for my bicycle. Once I figure out the the bicycle storage/parking situation at work, I think that I’ll start riding my bicycle from work. While using public transportation from work to home is pretty simple (two buses), it’s actually faster (according Apple Maps) to ride a bicycle home. Also, riding a bicycle would give me a chance to ‘senak’ in additional cardio workouts.

-Register for a few races. Someone on Twitter (or was it Facebook) clued me in to Run Washington, which has a collection of races in DC, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV).

TRAINING PLAN:

Running playlist:

Marine Corps Marathon: Training Week 4

Overview:

Looks like the die has been cast, and I’m officially registered for this year’s Marine Corps Marathon. I will admit that hitting the ‘register’ button was an impromptu decision that took place around 1 or 2 am. Although I knew nothing about this marathon at the time of registering, many folks have said that I should give it a shot.

Since I alway complain about the temperatures while training for fall marathons during the summer, this meme is perfect for me.

Training:

The previous week’s plan:

• Monday: 3 mi easy

• Tuesday: X-train or rest

• Wednesday: 4mi tempo

• Thursday: 3mi easy

• Friday: X-train or rest

• Saturday: 10 mi long run

• Sunday: rest

While I did not complete all of all my training miles, I think this week was successful overall. While I prefer to run first thing in the morning, I have been playing around with running in the evenings. I figured that I should try to do some evening runs with low distances just in case I have to do an evening run due to work commitments. For instance, I have to attend 8am meetings during my in-office days, which doesn’t leave much room to do a morning run and leave the apt by 7:30am.

LONG RUN CHRONICLES:

Woo hoo! I’ve finally hit double digits for my long runs. I don’t know why, but there is something about hitting double digits for a long run that makes training for a marathon really real.

For this 10 mile long run, I decided to do something a little special so I ran from a metro station in Forest Glen, Maryland to the Washington Monument in DC.

I have to say that I really enjoyed this route because it didn’t have a million and five turns. Once I arrived to DC, I pretty much had to follow 15th/16th streets until reaching the monument. Also, it was impossible to get lost because all I had to do was run towards a huge pointy building. 😉

Overall, the run was nice and I stayed in my 12:04 – 13:32 min/mi range (even with walking 0.1 – 0.15 after completing a mile) according my training plan. Sometime in August, I’m gonna visit my long run pace range because I think it might be too slow for me. I say this because even with walking I’m still at the faster pace (around 12 min) of the range.

I did have some “fun” spelling out my initials with street signs since I had to make my way through an alphabet soup in DC.

The other nice thing about this route, I can do a round trip for my 20-mile run on Sept. 23rd or 24th. Since the elevation from Montgomery County to DC was mostly downhill. However, running back (for the 20 mile run) might be a little challenging.

ETC:

For X-training, I think that I’m gonna restart Insanity Max: 30 and do another round of 3 Week Yoga Retreat.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that this probably is my 3rd or 4th time restarting Insanity. But, they do say if at first you don’t succeed, try again.

Oh, I did learn that Montgomery Country has provided residents with free rec center access until Labor Day, and I think there is a rec center about a mile from us. Perhaps, I can get my weight training fix at one of these rec centers.

Goals for the week:

-Buy a new pair of running shoes.

-It’s kind of funny because shoes was a topic on the running podcast that I listen to.

-Look up some running orgs in the area.

-Register for a half marathon or two during my training plan.

TRAINING PLAN:

Running playlist: