One City (Half) Marathon Training Wk “4"

PLANNED MILES: 15

COMPLETED MILES: 17

First, happy Superbowl Monday . . . if you celebrate. I was celebrating with the Puppy Bowl.

RUNNING

Now, that we are less than one month away from my upcoming half marathon, I think it’s time to turn up the training. Let me take that back, I’m not planning to dial up my training for this particular half marathon. I think it’s time to start pushing myself for my general running health. While I have been doing the majority of my training runs, I will admit that I have not been putting in a full effort. Well, I’ll also take that back. This week, I did a mile-repeat workout, and I was a bit surprised with how fast I ran the mile intervals. So, I think it’s time to rip off the bandaid and start pushing myself in my training runs that are not easy runs and long runs.

INTERMITTENT FASTING Long Run Chronicles:

Since moving (back) to the area, I have been looking for a new spot for my long runs, which I still have not found. I’ll take that back, I have received great suggestions, but I’ve been too ‘lazy’ to act on those suggestions. While I have done all of my long runs at Mt. Trashmore, I think that I stick to this park because:

• It’s close to my house.

• It’s familiar.

• I’m not tired of it yet.

Regarding the third bullet: Although the park is the same, I don’t think that I’m bored with it because I can switch up my runs in the park. For instance, I can just run a bunch of big loops, or make my run a bit difficult by incorporating the big and small “mountains”. During this weekend’s long run, I alternated between running the perimeter (or near perimeter) of the park and running the perimeter with adding the big or small “mountains”.

The plan for this weekend’s run was to run 9-11 miles. Normally, when I have a range as an option, I usually go for the shortest distance. However, I was like let’s push it to the max and run 11 miles by the time I hit 7 miles. BUUUUUUT, somewhere around mile 8, I took a nasty fall and decided to end the run at 9.5 miles. No worries, I did not injure myself . . . except for my ego.

INTERMITTENT FASTING:

IF’ing is going very well. I’m now at the point where I’m getting fuller with less food. Hopefully, I will begin to see some of these beneficial effects on my wonderful bathroom scare.

TRAINING PLAN:

Goals for the week:

-Increase the intensity of my non-easy runs.

-Nightly stretching and foam rolling. I know this has been up here for a while, but I’m still not consistently doing this. I’ve changed the time of my alarms so I’ll do these earlier in the evening rather than an hour before going to sleep.

Long Run Playlist:

I think my playlist for my upcoming half marathon (errrr, I mean half marathons) is ready. Actually, I take that back because I would like to add a few Broadway musical tunes to this playlist. It seems as if taking things back is a theme for this week’s training update.

One City (Half) Marathon Training Wk “3"

PLANNED MILES: 18

COMPLETED MILES: 19

Since I switched my full marathon registration to a half marathon, things have been going pretty nicely. Running has been great this week, and with every workout (including other non-running workouts), I feel my mojo returning. FINALLY. Yup, having other interests is a great way (for me, at least) to have more focus on my running. The only problem (at least for me): sometimes I feel like I spread myself too thin, which may lead to burnout.

RUNNING

Ok, so Hell has frozen over. As some might know, I typically do weekly HIIT workouts with the November Project VB. By typically, I mean from time to time. The group meets on Wednesdays at 6:15 am for HIIT and on Fridays at 5:30 am for training runs. Hell froze over, (makes sense - we had some really low temps last week) because I made it to the Friday workout. Put it like this: it's hard for me to make the Wednesday 6:15 am workouts at Mt. Trashmore, AND I live only 15 minutes away from our workout spot.

The workout was pretty simple: run back and forth across a bridge overlooking the Va Beach Expressway – pretty much 0.5-mile repeats for a good 30 minutes.

Although I have mentioned that it was been tough for me consistently attend running clubs for multiple reasons. I will say that I enjoyed the workout because I noticed that I pushed myself to catch up to (and in some cases pass) other folks. I started at the back of the pack (on purpose) and wanted to see how many runners I could catch. Also, I wanted to make sure the terrain was fine because it was still dark at 5:30 am and I left my headlamp at home.

I really hope that I can make future Friday workouts for a few reasons:

• The training is geared toward preparing for the Shamrock Half/Full Marathon in mid-March.

• It was great to finish my workout by 7 am.

• It was nice to hang out after the workout. Unlike the Wednesday workouts, some of the November Project folks grab breakfast after the Friday workout. Although I am doing weekday 16:8 fasts, I did hang out but just had a black coffee.

ZUMBA TIME:

I had a very interesting Zumba experience last week. Since Friday’s Zumba class left me a bit sore for my long run a couple of weeks ago, I decided to attend Wednesday’s class. Also, I made sure to get there very early so I could secure a spot closer to the front of the class. Right before Wednesday’s class a woman jokingly said that I took her spot. Then we had a brief conversation that went something like this:

• Lady: I was joking about you taking my spot. It is really nice to see men in the class, and I wish more men would attend.

• Me: It’s a great workout. I like it because I tend to burn more calories than a regular 45-minute workout.

• Lady: That’s the reason I like Zumba. . . Oh, I see that you are married. I hope your wife does not mind you attending a class with a bunch of sexy women.

• Me: Eh, my husband is cool with it.

• Lady {probably trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t offend me}.

• Lady: Oh, Oh, OH! THAT’S GREAT

LONG RUN CHRONICLES:

So I kinda skipped this weekend’s long run. No, I’m not in another funk. Like most on the east coast, we had VERY cold weather over the weekend – more so on Saturday than Sunday. Instead of running on Saturday, I decided to do Shaun T’s Insanity Max and a 2.5ish mile walk indoors. When I woke up on Sunday to run, I noticed that my legs were a bit sore from the previous day’s Insanity Max (ie HIIT) workout. Rather than pushing through the pain, I decided to take a day off from running and streamed a yoga workout on Beachbody on Demand.

INTERMITTENT FASTING:

I think this is going well because I am at the point where I don’t need to eat as much to become full. Also, I’ve noticed that I’m not in starvation by the end of the 16hr fast even after completing a morning workout in the fasted state. In March, I think I’m going to try to do 1-2 18-hr fasts during the week.

TRAINING PLAN:

Goals for the week:

-Keep on keeping on.

-Nightly stretching and foam rolling.

-Update my Spotify running playlists.

Long Run Playlist:

This isn’t a playlist per se, but this song has been on a constant repeat for most of the week. There’s just something about the way Karmento sings this song, Quiero y Duelo (Longing and Pain/Grief), that makes you really feel the song. From my understanding, the song is about a young girl who wants to set out and explore the world. While her parents are fearful, they let her go out but tell her that she always can return home. Where I am in life (even my running life) this line really has significant meaning for me. Y distinguir, en mitad del quiero y duelo si se ha parado el velero o navega en calma. (To distinguish, in the middle of/between longing and pain/grief) if the boat has stopped or is calmly sailing

One City (Half) Marathon Training Wk “2”

PLANNED MILES: 18

COMPLETED MILES: 19

Since I switched my full marathon registration to a half marathon, things have been going pretty nicely. For instance, when waking up in the morning I’m like: Let’s go and kill this run instead of Ugh, I gotta run today.

RUNNING/SPINNING:

While it was easier getting out to run, I will admit that my running workouts have not been super intense. Like some folks have said, perhaps doing something other than running will help me find my motivation for running. Taking that advice, I decided to take another crack at spinning.

After one of my lower back issues many years ago, I really got into spinning as an alternative to running. I was pleasantly surprised that I found my old pair of biking shoes. I had no clue that: 1. I still had them and 2. they made it in the NYC to Va Beach move. While I haven’t attended a spin class since moving to the area, the rec center has a couple of spin bikes. For my ‘spin routine’, I did intervals of 3 minutes of seated flats and alternating 30 seconds of seated climbs and standing climbs. It felt kind of nice working out my legs in a different format compared to running. Since I was sore the day after my first spin workout, there definitely are some weak muscles in my legs that I should focus on . . . at some point.

ZUMBA TIME:

Ok, so something weird happened this week. One night, I had a dream about Zumba, and I’m not sure why. Maybe the melatonin caused it.

BTW, these gummies are DELICIOUS. I almost wanted to eat about 5-6 of them at once. Ok, back to Zumba. I found a Zumba class at the local rec center and had a BLAST. Man, the folks here take Zumba very seriously. The Friday class started at 5:30 pm, so I figured that I would go to the rec center around 4:30 pm to stream one of my Beachbody on Demand yoga workouts before the Zumba class. That plan was a ‘hell to the no’ because folks were already lined up for the Zumba class when I arrived at 4:45. From my understanding, the first 35 people are allowed into the class. I think that I was number 21 or 22 in the line. In my head, I was like no one is going to attend at 5:30 pm Zumba class on a Friday . . . I guess that I was wrong.

The class was nice; however, I think that I’m going to try and get a spot closer to the front so I can see the instructor and her moves. While everyone else in the class knows the moves, I prefer to follow the instructor over my fellow classmates.

Actually, going forward, I’m going to try to attend the Wednesday class instead of the Friday one. I had to sit out my Saturday long run because my legs were super sore from the previous day. I figure if I do the Wednesday class, that will give my legs a few days to recover before long run Saturdays.

LONG RUN CHRONICLES:

Although I could not do my long run on Saturday (due to my post-Zumba soreness), I did manage to get my run in on Sunday. Like most of my long runs, I pretty much ran a bunch of loops in Mt. Trashmore State Park. In the near future, I need to find another spot for my long runs.

Actually, it was a perfect day for a run. While my plan was to run 7.5 miles, I really had to fight myself not to run any further. To be honest, I cannot remember the last time that I wanted to run a longer distance than what was in my training plan.

INTERMITTENT FASTING:

Last week was my first week of fasting for 16hrs on a daily basis (not counting the weekends). Since returning to intermittent fasting, I have been gradually increasing my fasting window – 10hr, 12hr, 14hr, and now 16hr. LOL. Due to an unexpected long-ass meeting on Friday, I actually ended up fasting for 17.5 hrs instead of 16hrs. I wonder if this means that there will be 18hr fasts in the near future.

Eh, let’s stick to 16hr fasts for at least 4 weeks before moving up to 18hr fasts because I was super angry and cranky because of the 17.5hr fast on Friday. Now, that I’m at the 16hr mark I hope that I’ll start becoming full with less food. At least that’s what happened with I first started intermittent fasting back in 2017.

TRAINING PLAN:

Goals for the week:

-Keep on keeping on.

-Nightly stretching and foam rolling.

-Update my Spotify running playlists.

-Random: Buy more underwear.

Long Run Playlist:

One City (Half) Marathon Training Wk 1

PLANNED MILES: Who cares

COMPLETED MILES: I dunno

Like Missy Elliot once said (sometimes) you gotta flip and reverse it.

In last week’s “training” update, I mentioned that I was having a lot of trouble finding my WHY in regard to training for the One City Marathon.

I have to give a shout-out to my readers who provided some great advice about losing and (more important) rebuilding one’s motivation for running and taking much-needed breaks from running when life hits you hard. In terms of my decision to run or defer, most folks recommended going the deferral route. From that advice, I decided to take the best of both worlds. Instead of running the full marathon, I’ve decided to change my registration from the full to the half marathon for the following reasons:

will still have a running goal for the spring:

I can be pretty hard on myself whenever I cancel half or full marathons for reasons other than injury. Changing my registration option will still give me something to look forward to in March. Hey, running something (13.1 miles) is better than running nothing.

Low-hanging fruit:

Having worked in Higher Education with a focus on DEI for the past five years, I kind of have grown to hate this term, but I think it’s fitting here. Although my training motivation for the full marathon has been kind of low, I have been doing “longish” weekend runs ranging from 8 to 12 miles. Ok, I haven’t done a long run in two weeks, but the distance is still there . . . somewhere. Since I’m already (more or less) at the half marathon distance, I can use this month and a half to focus a bit more on speedwork and strength training. Oh, I’m gonna add really getting on with a nutrition plan. Part of my reduced motivation has occurred because I have gained some weight over the past few months. Simply put, this weight gain does not make me feel like a runner.

It was cheap:

Changing my registration was only 20 bucks. I would have preferred a freebie since I’m going from a higher distance to a lower distance, but I think those days are long gone.

Concluding thoughts:

Even after changing my registration option and writing about it, it feels like a HUGE weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. While I’m not a huge fan of quitting (one of the reasons why grad school became a hot mess for me), I guess sometimes you have to take a few steps back to move forward.

One other thing. In these parts, the Shamrock Marathon and Half Marathon are super popular. I wonder if it would be crazy to register for the Shamrock (technically Anthem) Half Marathon which is a couple of weeks after the One City (Half) Marathon? Would running two half marathons in one month count as running one full marathon?

TRAINING PLAN:

Goals for the week:

-Simple, start running!

-Come up with a 1.5-month training plan for my upcoming half marathon.

-Up my intermittent and nutrition game. For the last couple of weeks, I have been fasting for 14hrs, I guess I crank it up a little and start my 16hr fasts.

-Find a race to volunteer for. I loved this suggestion that was made by one of my readers. I will admit volunteering to hand out bibs for one NYC Marathon made me that much more excited to run it the following year.

-Update my Spotify running playlists.

Long Run Playlist: