Random Thursday

Question edition.

I’m thinking of a quick summer getaway, where should I go? Unfortunately, the hubby can’t leave the US. Maybe another Philly trip? T

Which NYRR races should I register for? I still need to register for 5 more races.

Why can’t I bring myself to run with one of my running groups?

How/when did I gain so much weight? 😉 A couple of my suits are kind of tight.

(Not a question) I’m really excited to run my first race since March. It feels like it has been such a long time since the NYC Half.

Is this summer going to be super hot?

I’m becoming bored with gin, what should be my new go to liquor? Tequila?

Where have I been? Trail running is kinda fun.

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United NYC Half Marathon Training Week 6

Planned mileage: 21.5 (+40min tempo)

Completed mileage: 11 miles

Looks like I was pretty far away from my goal. 

From last week’s update, I mentioned that I was having some back issues with a couple of my training run. Thus, I decided to dial it back a little bit lot to recover. Also, work was quite intense this week. The program that I direct will soon start accepting applications for next year’s cohort so there’s a lot of planning that I have to do. Also, the spring semester has started for the course that I teach. My procrastinating ass had to get all the crap ready for the course (lectures, syllabi, rosters, etc.). Basically, I finished all of that stuff at 11:00 pm on Saturday night for a Sunday class. Lol, at an email that I received from a student a few days before the class. 

I don’t see your course on blackboard. If you can look into that problem that would be great.

I do not know if I should be impressed by the student’s initiative to reach out before our first class or annoyed by the student’s presumption that I would use Blackboard for my course. 

Ok, let’s get into this thing. 

Oh, one more thing: there’s like 1.5 months left until the UnitedNYCHalf. I really need to decide if I’m going to do this thing or not. Well, I guess it is up to my body. 

I made a couple of changes from my previous week:

1. Obviously, I did not run as much. 
2. I decided to skip some of my near-daily stretches, especially glute extensions. 
3. Since I have a full-time desk job (and probably slouch way too much), I started doing quick stretches every 60 – 90 minutes in my office.

Hopefully, these changes were not made in vain. 

Monday:

Planned: 50min X-train

Completed: Rest

Tuesday:

Planned: 4.5mi

Completed: 4.5mi, stretching, strength training

This was a very tough one, and I felt quite defeated afterward. I did this run on a treadmill and had to walk multiple times. I pretty much had to walk every 0.5 miles. 

I even adjusted Crunch Fitness-FiDi’s motivation wall. 

Wednesday:

Planned: Interval 8X400m

Completed: Not a damn thing

There was way too much work that I had to complete between Monday and Tuesday so there was no way that I could fit in this run. 

Thursday:

Planned: 3mi

Completed: A few sprints

I had planned to combine Wednesday’s and Thursday’s run by doing the interval workout and following it with the 3-mile run. Once again work got in the way. No, wait. TV AND work got in the way. While working on some stuff for work, I stayed up watching Ken Burns’ documentary about the Vietnam War. 

Around 8pm, I decided to put on my running clothes and do the intervals (at the minimal) before finishing work. Everything went wrong with this run. 

1. It was super windy and cold along the Hudson River, and I really needed another layer.
2. Both my phone and Apple Watch died, so I could not really keep track of my times for the intervals. Lately, I’ve been noticing that my iPhone has been dying a lot. 
3. I packed the dumb tights that always seem to fall down when I run. After the third or fourth interval, I became so annoyed with constantly pulling up my tights while running. At that point, I pretty was over it. One, two, three strikes, and I was out. 

Thursday, Friday, Saturday:

Planned: 3m, Rest, and 9mi

Completed: Nothing. 

In my defense, I did plan to do some weight training on Friday. But I decided to go hang out with a friend in Hell’s Kitchen, which actually became a little bit of a shitshow. However, what is a Friday night in NYC without some fuckshit?

Rise bar was not playing around with its drink prep on Friday night.

Sunday:

Planned: 3mi

Completed: 6.2mi

Although my long run for this week was supposed to be 9mi, I thought that it would be better to do the 6.2mi instead. Since I have been having back issues and did not want to risk fucking it up more, I did a very easy run on the treadmill. I pretty much alternated between a very, very slow mile and a very slow mile. It did feel nice to finally complete a planned run. 

Well, that’s my ho-hum week of “training”. 

Goals for the week:

• Let’s complete a full week of planned training activities. 
• A few posts ago, I mentioned that I joined a couple of running clubs. I really want to try to do a run with Harlem Runs on either Monday or Wednesday. Fingers crossed. 

Have y’all seen either (or both) documentary about the Fyre Festival? I’m sorry, but how do we live in a country where someone can defraud folks multiple times and only receive six years in prison? Whereas, we have folks serving DECADES for minor drug offenses. Hell, the Billy creep was defrauding people while he was out on bail for his OTHER CHARGES of fraud. Don’t most people try NOT to commit crimes while on bail?

Did you like the Netflix or Hulu version more?

 

Be Prepared . . . for Marathon Training

A quick note about my title. I’m not going to lie, Scar from Lion King is one of my favorite Disney villains of all time (maybe even favorite character). Maybe it’s because I have a boy crush on Jeremy Irons’ voice. So of course, “Be Prepared” was one of my favorite songs from this movie. A little quick bit of trivia, there are two separate voices for Scar in this song, because Jeremy blew out his voice.

Ok, the first step of marathon  training is making a plan. As I mentioned in a previous post, I have decided to use Hal Hidgon’s Novice 2 training plan (***) as the backbone for this year’s TCS NYC Marathon. Only 151 days away!! Basically, I will follow the plan’s distances and running days (4 runs per week), but I will incorporate my own tempo, pace, recovery and interval runs.

Since I pretty much live by Google calendar for work, I created a NYC Marathon calendar and scheduled all 80 or so runs.

Concerns:

Intermittent Fasting (IF): How does one incorporate this eating plan into long distance running? Should one run in a fasted state? I do not think IF will be too much of a problem for my long runs, because I normally do not fast during the weekend.

When to run: The million dollar question for me. Lets keep it real, I am not a morning person, but I have to get to work by 9:30ish. I think that I will have to do my runs after work. A possible option (if I is not too damn hot) is to incorporate a run toward the end of the work day or incorporate a run on my commute home. My job is near the Hudson River, and there are nice shaded paths along the river.

 

Plus, I will have to see how to incorporate running during the hot ass NYC summer.

We’ll see how this plays out.

General advice from the plan:

Each topic had a paragraph of info, so I’m quoting the aspects that meant the most to me.

Long runs: You can skip an occasional workout, or juggle the schedule depending on other commitments, but do not cheat on the long runs.

Run slow: [their] long runs anywhere from 30 to 90 seconds or more per mile slower than their marathon pace.

Walking: It’s best to walk when you want to, not when your (fatigued) body forces you too.

Strength training: For gym rats, continue to work out, but you might want to cut back on the weights as the long run mileage moves into the double digits.

Midweek training: How fast is “comfortably easy?” That might vary from day to day.

Race pace: duh

Rest: Coaches also will tell you that you can’t run hard unless you are well rested.

Any tips or tricks that you have used to become a better marathoner?

Random Thoughts

-It is tough getting back into running after a looooooong hiatus.

-I’m not a fan of sharing my Google calendar with others at work. Just because I have free block of time doesn’t mean that I am not doing anything, have time to meet or want to meet.

-I have been enjoying watching old episodes of The Addams Family.

-I really need to get my teeth cleaned and to “buy” a new tooth.

-Also, I need to buy a lint brush/roller.

-After the México vacation, I’m going to try to quit smoking.

-What was I thinking making this mess?

-I’m still addicted to the Citizen crime tracking app.

Where the hell did they get loose pipes?

-I have been loving this podcast.

-I really need to figure out my career strategy with this job.

-Running along the Hudson River is so nice.

Random Question:What’s you favorite running app and why?

Weight Annoyance

Random rant

Goddamnit, I am gaining weight and I’m getting quite frustrated. I was bordering on the “obese” zone in regards to my BMI. It is well known that one should not rely on BMI for tracking your fitness, I use it to gauge my (lack of) progress. Except for last weekend’s trip to Philly, I thought that I have been doing better with limiting my food (and liquor/beer/wine) intake. Before we get into the whole muscle weighs more than fat thing, my % of body fat has increased too.

I still have a somewhat muscular frame, but the filling in between the frame is increasing. . . FAST. It’s getting to the point where I am not happy with what I see in the mirror – no one likes that.

Issues that I need to rectify.

1. Late night eating. So the BF is a snorer and a loud one at that (I never noticed the snoring before we moved in together). When I wake up at 2/3/4 am from the snoring, I often will have some carbs or a small helping of leftovers. Sometimes, I have noticed that I wake up full, which is not supposed to be the case.
2. Figuring out how/what to eat at work. I pack a small lunch for work and have two protein shakes during the day. By the end of the work day, I am in complete starvation mode.
3. Modify my exercise routine. I admit that I have not be as active because of my back issue and the cold weather. However, I think my back is well enough to start running and doing more intense cardio again. I’m going to try a run in Central Park tomorrow and see how it goes. Plus, I want to incorporate more HIIT exercises in my weightlifting workouts.
4. Green tea extract. One of the trainers at the gym mentioned taking this to increase my metabolism. I have not read up on the benefits of green tea extract, but it is worth a shot (or pill).

How do you deal with weight loss or fitness failures?

Concerned

This may be a bit of a rant post.

Marathon Prep:

I’m getting a little worried about the upcoming TCS NYC Marathon, which is in 46 days. I have recovered from my injury and I am ready to get out there and run. Today, was going to be my “first” day back on the running job, so last night I prepared all of my crap for my early run this morning. Unfortunately, I did go to sleep around 2 AM – a little later than I had expected to, but I really needed to do laundry. I set my alarm for 6 AM, so why did I wake up at 5 AM? I do not know if I was excited to start running again, so it made my body want to wake earlier. Before big races, my body sometimes is too excited and I wake up way too early or I have trouble sleeping. It’s kind of the same affect when your parents make you sleep on Christmas Eve. Random thought: In the States, we should just do what many folks in Europe do and open Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve.

Now, I’m looking at my schedule for the upcoming few weeks and it seems so jammed packed without marathon training. I do not know why this marathon training cycle has been so hard this time around. In previous training cycles, injuries usually were my only issue.

A few of things have come to my mind

• I will admit that my current job has taken a lot out of my training. There is some other stuff going on, but I do not really want to put that out there at this moment. You never know who reads these things.
• With previous half- or full-marathons, I do not think that I was seriously dating anyone, so I obviously had more time to do things for myself.
• For my previous job, I could run to work (3-8 miles depending on my route), so it was easier to get my weekday runs out of the way without having to wake up super early. Plus, I rented a locker at a Crunch gym that was in the general direction of my job, so I did not have go out of my way.

I guess that I have been a little lucky with previous half- and full-marathons. I will say that I have been spoiled during my 15-year tenure in New York City. For example, I did not had to search for an apartment until 2 years ago. I have always had housing through my employer when I was a graduate student and a postdoc.

Diet:

For the last few weeks, I have been noticing that I have been eating way too much crap. Well, way too much for me, because we know that I can grub. Ok, I enjoy eating; it’s of the main reasons why I wanted to live in NYC. I do know if I have been slightly depressed, lazy, or a piggish. Also, I have noticed that my appetite has been insatiable over the past few weeks. I will have dinner and be hungry within 30-60 minutes.

Example 1:  The other night I had chicken over rice (BTW, the sh*t was delicious).

I did not eat all of it, because I split some of it with the bf (although he said that he was not hungry). Looking at this picture, I could go for chicken over rice for lunch but I will be strong.

Yeah, within 50 mins, I  ate damn near an entire bag of chips.

I really need to be like Brutha Shaquille Sunflower (any “Martin” fans?) and “Get right and see the light!!”

Rant over

Defer or not?

Ok. I have gotten the official go ahead to continue running. Here’s the question, there are only 50 days remaining until the NYC marathon. Let’s subtract 1.5 weeks for a very basic tapering regime. That brings us to 40 days. So far my longest run has been 15 miles.

Is it still possible to train for this thing coming off of an injury? Or would it be better to defer to next year’s marathon?