NYC Marathon Training Update (Week 3)

General housekeeping: 

-The weather has not been too bad out there. 

-I have been having a slight pain near the inner right side of my hip. 

-I’m surprised that I have not missed too many training runs.

Monday:

Planned, 6mi easy

Actual, 3mi

I just was not feeling running any extra mileage. 

Tuesday:

Planned, 8X 800m (7mi total)

Actual, 6X 800 (5mi total)

I think this may have been my first speed work exercise for this round of marathon training. I know that I was supposed to do eight 800 intervals, but I totally misread my training calendar and did only six of them. Oops. I will say that it was nice to do something a little “different” rather than just running for a set distance. 

Unbeknownst to me, the pool where I swim morning laps has a decent outdoor track in the sports complex so that makes life a bit easier. 

Wednesday:

Planned, XT

Actual, 30min laps (morning) and 45min Zumba (evening) 

My Zumba workout made me realize that I have missed my weekly Wednesday Zumba class. 

Also, I am a bit sad that the summer open lap swim program is coming to a close. Where I’m a going to get my swim on?

Thursday:

Planned, 6mi easy

Actual, 2mi ~3mi hot mess 

Maybe my previous day’s workouts were too much, but I had no energy when trying to attempt this run. The original plan was to run to and around Randell’s Island, but I ran down the wrong avenue so I decided to run to and through the Bronx. Outside of running the NYC marathon, I do not think that I have ever run in the Bronx as part of my training. 

This run started off very sluggish. I thought it was because of the previous day’s workouts, but then I noticed the right side of my hip was very sensitive and sore. I just assumed that it was due to my body warming up. Rather than doing the full 6 miles, I decided to cut it short so I would not further injure myself. You know what? I just realized that I did not start Strava until a mile into the run, so I guess that I did run close to three miles. 

These sprinklers in Marcus Garvey Park were the best thing from this run. 

Friday:

Rest

Stayed home and binged watched Family Guy. Oh and made some delicious pork chops for dinner.

Saturday:

Planned, 16mi

Actual, 15.1mi 

Long run day!!!!

The plan was to start my run at 8 am, which meant that I did not get to my run until 10:45ish. It never fails with my procrastinating ass. 

Although this was my longest run (so far) in this training plan, I did have a few issues, which are numbered on the map above.

1. Started to feel a little sensitivity in my right shin.
2. Right hip sensitivity started up again. #1 and #2 more or less went away about 2/3 miles into the run. 
3. My right foot started to hurt. I stopped and took off my shoe and noticed that a blister was starting to form. Since it was not anything affecting a bone or a muscle, I decided to push on and blocked out the pain. I may have been at mile 8 when that happened. After another mile or so, I did not really notice it any longer . . . until I finished. 
4. Man! There were  SO MANY tourists out. 
5. The original plan was to run across the Brooklyn Bridge into Brooklyn and run across the Manhattan Bridge back into Manhattan. When I got to the Brooklyn Bridge, I saw that the bridge was SUPER congested with tourists.

Congested Brooklyn Bridge? That will be a Hell No for me.

6. While running over the Manhattan Bridge a small group of tourists hailed me down to take a picture. I guess that I was running THAT slowly. The poor folks thought they were on the Brooklyn Bridge, instead of the Manhattan Bridge. I felt kind of bad for them. But, did they not see the million signs that said Manhattan Bridge before getting on it? Maybe someone gave them the wrong directions.

Overall, my run was just ok. I think Strava was a little off because it said that I was running some of my miles around a 9min/mi pace rather than a 10min/mi pace. Also, I really need to start figuring out my nutrition needs for my long runs. I’m somewhere between eating too much or eating too little before starting these long runs. 

Sunday:

Planned, Rest

Actual, light XT with strength training and stretching 

Since I have been having some issues with my hip, I decided to hit up the gym to do some stretching. Oh, I checked out a New York Sports Club because I’m interested in switching gyms. I mentioned this last week’s Random Thursday post (***). More on this in another post. 

What pace do you typically run for your long runs when training for a marathon? Do you run faster than, at, or slower than marathon pace?

I normally aim for 1-1.5 minutes slower than my anticipated marathon pace. 

Plan for the upcoming week.

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Training Report

I’m a little late with this update because I have been celebrating my birthday for the past week.

I finally did a group run!!!

Over the past few months (well years), I have been saying that I wanted to get involved with a running group or club. Well, technically, I am a member of two running groups – the Front Runners of NY and Harlem Run, but I’ve never run with either. The funny thing is that Harlem Run meets in a park that is literally a 3-min walk from my apartment. Actually, it’s a 2-min walk, if the light is green. I did enjoy running with the group. However, I did not hang out for the post-run meet and greet because the hubby made dinner. It’s kind of funny because the post-run meet and greet is held at Harlem Shake – a burger/shake joint. Actually, I used to do group runs with a group that finished their runs at local bars so I cannot really judge.

Since I would like to drop 20ish pounds by October, I have been hitting the gym and watching what I eat.

Here’s goes my week of “training”

Monday (morning):

X-train

Monday (evening):

Ran 4 miles with Harlem Run. Since I was new to the group and was a little tired, I ran in the 10min/mi group, but it felt like we were running way faster than that pace. One issue I may have running with this group is that I’m not a huge fan of running after work; the group meets at 7 pm. I think going forward that I will have to change into my running clothes at work around 5:30/6 pm so I will be mentally prepared to run at 7 pm. It was kind of tough having the mental strength/desire to go home to drop off my work stuff, change, then meet the group. Technically, there is a drop off at Harlem Shake but I really do not want to leave my work stuff in an unlocked/unsupervised area.

Interestingly, our run literally took us to my office’s building. Talk about deja vu.

I was thinking that it was going to be a nice, easy run but our route had a tough hill one mile into the run.

After that hill, no one was really chatting that much. However, I did manage to talk to a few people during the beginning and end of the run. Most were nice, but there were a couple of non-social folks. Eh, can’t win them all.

Tuesday:

X-training and a shit ton of stretching

Wednesday:

A “fast” two-miler on the treadmill and 30 min of the stair climber.

I also did a Zumba class with one of my favorite instructors. I guess that it has been a few weeks since my last Zumba class. I dunno. I just was not feeling Zumba for a while. This class was kind of awesome because I liked ALL of the songs from the instructor’s playlist. I know that these types of classes are not about perfecting your dance skills. That said, why do I ALWAYS end up next to or behind the most uncoordinated person in the class?

Thursday:

I was supposed to do a loop around Central Park after picking up my contact lenses, but I went draaaankin’ instead. Speaking of contact lenses, I am so glad that I’m wearing them again for my physical activities. Although I liked wearing my glasses for the past month, I definitely prefer contacts . . . No question about it. 

I’m all about my drink coupons. You cannot beat Rise’s 2-4-1 happy hour from 3 to 9 pm.

Unfortunately, my post-drinking, bad eating habit reared its head because I ended up getting fried chicken and fries for dinner. In my weak defense, I did have a small breakfast (a Diet Coke) and I skipped lunch.

Friday

Was the first day of my staycation. The plan was to go to the beach in the morning, but the rainy weather said otherwise. I did want to hit the gym and go for a run, but I ordered Ramen and became too full to run. A few hours later, I was going to do a loop in Central Park, but I saw that my phone’s battery was at 19%. Y’all know that I cannot run without music. Maybe I should start incorporating “silent” runs when I start training for the NYC marathon.

Random Thoughts Thursday

I just love bottomless brunch specials.

Ack! I still need to register for (and run) three more races for guaranteed entry into 2020 TCS NYC Marathon.

Anyone got a good pre-marathon training plan? I think I would like to start training in July/August.

Has anyone used NYRR’s virtual marathon training plan?

:(, this time last year, I was boozing it up in Cancun.

I think that I wanna drop about 20 pounds by October. Word on the street is that I’m supposed to go to a conference that will be held in Honolulu so I would like to slim down a bit. But, I have been getting chubby . . . chubbier over the past couple of months.

Is a 20-week marathon training plan overdoing it? I think that I would become bored/annoyed training 5 months for a marathon. Hell, I can barely finish a 16-week training plan.

What are some cool summer jams?

I finally figured out why my pace times are always faster than my official times.

I’ve been telling folks this. I think these resorts are using crappy, half-assed distilled booze.

Random Thoughts Thursday

• Surprisingly, I am enjoying this streak run thing. But I just have to make sure that I stretch on a daily basis. 
• It’s summer kickoff, which means I gotta plan a couple of beach days. Just in case you did not know, I HATE visiting the beach on the weekends . . . way too many folks. I like to take a personal day for my “mental-health” beach days and visit during the work week. I like to relax at the beach and hearing loud-ass reggaeton for 4-5hrs do NOT relax me. 
• I only like loud-ass reggaeton in Zumba class. 
• Speaking of Zumba, cheers to me getting the last spot in Saturday’s Zumba class. 
• A post-run picture from my first run in 80F weather. I’m no not ready for summer running. 

  • 

    Maybe I can get some windshield wipers for my eyeglasses.

 

I wonder if I can store a pack of smokes in my socks too.?

• Last week, I was so jealous of all of the graduates, especially the Ph.D’s. Maybe, I’ll become a dean of something so I can wear my “wizard’s” outfit every year.

  • 

    My hooding ceremony.

• I kind of nervous about how long I’ll be out of running commission after my toe/foot surgery.
• Lookie here, “Funkytown” by Lipps Inc. was the number one song on the day of my birth – June 25, 1980.
• Ugh, I’ve been using Canva (a graphic design program) to make program booklets. Ummm why the hell is there no option to use super/subscripts? So annoyed.

Monday Training Update

Although I am not actually training for anything, I guess that I can provide some updates of what I have been up to. 

I tried to do a 7-day running streak. Unfortunately, I only ran 5 days in a row, rather than the full seven days. 😦 I did not run the two last days because I had to work late a couple of times this week and I could not wake up early. It’s the thought that counts, right?

I will say that I actually enjoyed these easy runs (~3 miles). It was quite nice just to run (or in my case, jog) just for the sake of getting out there. Plus, the weather has been lovely over the past few days. Also, it was helpful that I did not use a GPS tracker on these runs. Well, I used Strava,  but I did not really pay attention to any pacing information. As a side note: a few weeks ago, I cracked the screen of my Apple Watch, and it does not work very well. I’m on the fence between purchasing another one or not. Maybe I’ll get another one when I start actually training for stuff and running races. I think my first race of the season is this Sunday (or is it on Saturday?).

Going forward for the near future, I think that I’m going to alternate between weeks of 3 runs/week and doing 7-day streaks. We’ll see how this will play out. 

Over the past week, I have been hitting the gym and I even attended my first Zumba class in God knows how long. Why do I manage to stand behind the most struggling dancer in the entire class? It never fails.

        

It was nice to see my old “acquaintances” and my old hater fans in Zumba. 😉

Oh, wait. Since today is/was the Boston Marathon, I saw this article ( *** ) from the Washington Post about cheating in marathons in my Facebook feed. I still do not understand why people feel the need to cheat to gain entrance in this marathon. I guess that running the Boston Marathon is an honor, but how is it an honor if you cheated to get in? And, is it really THAT big of a deal?

NYC Marathon Training Update II

Total Distance Ran/Planned: 14.6 mi/14.0 mi

Reflections from the week

-This is not really a reflection, but more of a eureka moment. As most know, I use my

Image from PCmag.com

Apple Watch as a sports watch. It was really annoying me that I could not use the watch to do interval/segment runs. As I recently learned, it’s really simple to use this feature. While the workout app is open, you just double tap on the watch and it will generate a new segment. Folks probably knew this, but I did not.

-Something is going on with my iPhone or a combination of my iPhone and Apple watch. The phone seems to be burning through it’s battery. I think it has something to do with the double logging of workouts.

During my 6mi run, the phone used about 51% of battery juice.

Monday:

3 mile run (easy)

This three mile easy run was done on a treadmill, because my shorts did not have pockets. Although this was an easy run, I did 400m intervals at marathon pace at the end of each mile.

Zumba

Actually, I cannot complain too much about this Zumba class, because my annoyance level was pretty low.

Wednesday:

Yasso 800m intervals.

This time around, I really want to incorporate more interval training for NYC 2018 marathon. I think this is really important, because I have not done much running during my off months. Well . . . I have not done much of anything during my off months. I really need to get up to speed  . . . no pun.

For this workout I did 6X 800 m intervals withthe goal of completing each interval in 4 minutes. Each interval was followed by a 400 m cool down. This is when knowing how to segment my runs with the Apple Watch would have come in handy. Anyway, I think that I pretty much either did better than or met the goal for five out of the six intervals. Since I did this run in Central Park, I had the opportunity (whether I wanted to or not) to incorporate some small hills in for this workout.

Zumba (impromptu):

After my run, I returned to the Crunch fitness to stretch. While I stretching, a woman from my Monday Zumba class was hanging out in the studio. She asked me if I had planned to attend this Zumba class. I really had no intention of doing this, because I really wanted to go home after stretching. But, I guess that my body still was pumping endorphins, so I was like F*ck let’s do another Zumba class this week. Hell, I’m going to Cancun in less than a week, so any extra workout may make me look less like a beached whale. Actually, that workout probably was negated by the activities from the  following day.

I have to say that I may skip my normal Monday Zumba class, and become a regular for Wednesday’s class. A couple of reasons for this:

• The class is smaller. So, there is none of that saving spots for five of your friends bullshit.
• Since the class is smaller, one can Zumba “bigger”, because there are not 85 million MF’s in your face.
• The instructor’s playlist was pretty on point. He actually had some “old” Latin songs from the 90’s that I enjoyed. I get kind of annoyed when a Zumba instructor only plays reggaeton for the entire class. I mean there are other types of latin music . . . just saying.
• The instructor playlist was continuous, meaning that there were not too many gaps in between songs.

Thursday:

Rest . . . it was supposed to be 3 miles easy.

I read my training calendar wrong and thought that I had a rest day. I met a couple of friends downtown at Rise Bar ( *** ) and had SEVERAL glasses of wine.. Hey it’s pride month in NYC. Actually, I had several glasses of wine, a couple of froses, a couple of frozen cosmos (they tasted gross), and a couple of gin & sodas (my start) at Rise Bar.  I must have been insane, because I was drinking white wine, which I never do . . . unless there is no red wine available, with the exception of malbec.

Why so many drinks?!!! Rise bar has 2-4-1 happy hour from 4 PM to 9 PM. And plus, . . .

Sunday:

5 mile run (long)/ did 6 miles

I don’t know but I was really feeling it, so I added an extra mile to this “long” run. Might as well do this while I’m at the lower distances. According to my training plans, I’m supposed to be doing these long runs 30-60 seconds slower than my marathon pace, 9:09 min/mi. I actually had to fight myself to run slower that what I was doing. Hell, I ran the second half faster than the first. Then, again the first three miles was very hilly.

During the last mile, I even threw in a few fartleks. I guess this will not be too much of an issue once I hit the double digits for my long runs.

This song is perfect for a cool down to any exercise.

After completing my run, I treated myself to breakfast, because I get to eat breakfast only once or twice week, since I’ve been intermittent fasting.

Ok I was annoyed with my breakfast for a couple of reasons.

• The dish was too damn expensive 13 bucks. I was going to get an omelette, but a simple ham omelette was like 20 bucks!!!!
• Also, when I order eggs over easy, I want to be the one who breaks the yolk. Stop flipping the eggs so damn hard.

I guess that is it for me.

Goal(s) for the week. 

• Have enough dedication to run while vacationing in Cancun.

 

Training Update I

Woo Hoo! Marathon training for November 2018 has begun. I do not know how many woo hoo’s that I will be saying once I really get think to middle of my training plan. Overall, this week (since I’m at the lower miles) has gone pretty well, and I cannot complain too much.

Total Distance Ran/Planned: 15.5 mi/14mi

The extra 1.5 miles are due to general warm ups and cool downs.

Reflections from the week

• It’s tough starting something from scratch.
• Although I enjoyed living (and running) in Brooklyn, I’ve really missed Manhattan during my 3 year hiatus.
• Even though this was the first week of training, I think that it was a good idea putting my runs on my work and personal google calendars. Since my job is more or less dictated by Google calendar, I’m constantly reminded of the runs that I need to completed for the day and the week.

Monday:

3 mile run (easy)

Zumba

I need some Apple Watch help. I do not understand why the watch doesn’t/won’t/can’t record my heart rate during my zumba classes.

Wednesday:

3.2 mile Run (easy)

I really missed running along the West Side Highway. I cannot wait until, I get into my longer distances, so I can revisit the spectacular views along this path.

Thursday:

3.0 mile run (too “fast”)

I do not know where the extra energy came from, but I ran this way to fast . . . according to my training plan.

Saturday

Goal(s) for this week.

• Take a new class at the gym. I really have not be utilizing my Crunch gym membership over the past couple of weeks.
• Develop one aspect of eating cleaner. Actually, I should make this a goal the week after next, since I will be on vacation next week. What’s the point of starting something if you will be on vacation?