I have not posted for a while; since the last post I ran 14 miles, took my first ice bath, ran 15 miles on the treadmill due to anticipation of Hurricane Irene, took a cold water bath since I didn’t have enough ice for a true ice bath, and today I ran 16 miles, back outside, and took another ice bath. Each of my past three runs have been a new personal distance record for me which is pretty cool, however with each run I am getting increasingly anxious about running the full distance of the marathon. The 14 mile run was great, I felt great, didn’t require more than three or so short walking breaks and only felt like I needed two gels, however I was ready to be done at the end. The 15 miler was challenging because I watched each second of the run tick by on the treadmill dashboard, that was brutal. Todays run was really challenging. As I said I was back outside and I felt as if I was running uphill the entire run. It was so humid today which I think may have played a role. Also, two days ago I ran a 10k road race in which I did push myself so I am sure that contributed to my energy level. I just felt so worn out. I need about 10 (untimed) walking breaks and constantly felt as if my energy was depleted and was craving the deliciousness that is Gu. I also passed a dead deer on the sidewalk. I tried to avoid it, and actually hopped off the curb into the street, but what I did see didn’t look like a deer hit by a car, it was way to far from the road and not bloody. I wonder how it died. I thought a lot about that on the run. Special. Back the run report. I was really hard, and there was no way I could have run ten more miles or one more mile. I am trying to chalk it up to a bad run and not indicative of my ability to run a marathon in two months. In preparation for my next long run I am going to eat more carbs the night before to boost energy and hope for a less humid day. Fingers crossed.
As I continue on the path of marathon training I am beginning to realize that while the physical aspect of this journey is tiring, the mental effort may actually be greater. I am not sure if it is just me but I have a propensity to ruminate and over think planning my training run, and cross training activities, especially during these busy summer weeks and weekends, and it is wearing me down. I have always been a list maker and have dutifully kept a paper planner for the last 16 or so years of my life, so creating a training plan and recording workouts is a task I can really get into. In fact, in 2010 I accidentally recorded all of my workouts for the entire year, I wasn’t training for anything or monitoring any particular aspect of fitness, I just happened to write every single workout in my calendar. Being a busy grad student will do that to you I guess. Grad school will actually make you crazy in general and make you constantly questi
Oh boy, 12 miles was challenging. My last long run was about two weeks ago- if you will recall it was 10 miles completed on the treadmill relatively effortlessly as far as long run go. I took a “step-back” week last week during my vacation and ran 4 miles instead of a long run. I thought I would return home refreshed and ready to run, but that was not the case. I had trouble sleeping and really had to drag myself through a five miles on the treadmill and a spin class. I decided to do my twelve mile long run before wok on Friday since I have a full weekend. The weather here has been beautiful so I decided to complete my run outside, this was the first one outside since my eight mile long run. The twelve miles started off well. I used my 72 oz camel back for the first time and it worked out perfectly. I didn’t bounce much and was overall quite comfortable. At six miles I gave myself permission to stop at 10 or 11 miles because I was feeling tired, however when I got to ten I decided to push it and I am glad I did, it was quite an accomplishment in my mind. It is the longest training run I have ever completed and I think it is pretty cool that I nearly completed a half marathon before work and still was able to attend a concert in the evening. The sense of accomplishment is worth the more than two hours of exertion.
Now for the recovery- Running on the road is so much harder on my body than running on the treadmill. I am more sore and can just feel that my body pounded on the cement for a long while. I also have sore shoulders which comes with longer runs. I need to increase strength training and yoga. That should help with soreness. Now for 14 next week…
Today marked my 5th long run of marathon training. This one was again on the treadmill since I refuse to get up early to avoid the heat. It is funny to think that 6 miles was considered my long run a month ago since that pretty much flew by today. I think that means I should have developed a much stronger running base prior to training. It also means I have made a ton of progress in the past few weeks which at this point is a much better place to spend my mental energy. Today’s run did not go quite as smoothly as I would have like. I went to the Melting Pot last night and the cheese did something to my stomach. I had a slight stomach ache last night and the discomfort decided to return this morning as I left for the gym. I decided to run anyway since I had committed to run today. I definitely felt a little slower or at least less peppy than last week, however my pace for the first 5.75 miles was maybe a touch faster. However, I did have to visit the bathroom at that point. It was a quick, easy, and effective trip. I then finished the remaining mileage successfully. My stomach was not totally settled but it didn’t interfere much with the rest of my day. I did feel particularly tired today, though I attributed that too a lot of time in the heat yesterday while sitting at the pool and walking a mile to and a mile back from dinner. I also swam for about 25 minutes yesterday completing 500 meters. That was a new workout for me, so despite being quick likely wore me out in a new way. But overall, today’s run was a success. Next week is a step back week and I am ready for it. My longest run will be around 5 or 6 miles. It should be great.
Since it is marathon-training season in blog-land, I have been reading a lot of posts on the insatiable (or at least increased) that accompanies longer training runs. I officially started my training in July and have definitely noticed a change in my energy levels and hunger.
At the same time I started training, in an effort to lose a few pounds, I also reinitiated food journaling and have been eating between 1800-2000 calories a day compared to the 2500-3000 calories I must have been eating previously (umm that is a lot, and embarrassing). This has been successful, I have lost five pounds this month, which is awesome, compared to the last 12-13 months when I have gained or maintained.
But back to hunger, in the past month I have definitely been hungrier than in previous months. I attribute most of this to my change in diet, compared to my increase in mileage, but the hunger is definitely there. For example last night, after work and no gym (rest day), I came home starving. I had already eaten about 1200 calories during the day, but I needed food. My fiancé and I decided to make a frozen pizza for dinner because we were feeling lazy. While the pizza was baking I ate kettle corn, I couldn’t wait. Then after inhaling half a pizza (540 calories) we were both still hungry. So (this is also embarrassing, get ready…) we walked across the street to the mall to get samples in the food court. I learned three things from this outing- 1. I am glad I found my fiancé, because who else would do this? 2. Five random bites of orange chicken and sesame chicken can work wonders on hunger 3. A brief break after eating half a pizza to let the pizza “soak in” also works wonders, I was no longer dying of hunger when I got to the mall. While at the mall I also got a small little dessert thing at Starbucks. So incase you were wondering daily total of calories yesterday was on the high side at 2280.
Ok, again, back to the point of the post:
What I have noticed more than anything is a decrease in energy. For example, now when I come home from the gym in the evening instead of wanting to sit on the couch and watch TV, I need to lay on the couch and whine to my fiancé about how exhausted I am. I need to find a way to fix this because there are three more months of training ahead and I don’t think anyone is enjoyed my new behavior. Maybe I need to eat more? Sleep more? Incorporate another rest day? I am thinking about all of those options. My problem is I am really all or nothing. I am in the all phase right now where I feel I don’t even deserve to shower if I haven’t gone to the gym. I need to get over that, quickly. I will let you know how it goes.
Today’s long run was completed on the treadmill due to the heat. I didn’t really want to get up at 5a.m. to beat the heat, and as I stated in a previous post, I don’t want to die.
Back to the run. It actually went really well. The time passed really quickly, and I was able, for the first time ever, listen to pod casts for a bit of the run. Usually I run with just music, concentrating on a story is difficult for me. But I decided to try it out anyway and realized that the slower pace of the long run worked with story telling. I am not so sure how well it will work when I run outside but it was a nice diversion for today. More good news: no knee pain! I wonder if this was due to running on a consistently even surface as opposed to the road/trail last week. It could also be due to the icing and self massage I did last week. I am still going to ice and massage this evening since that seemed to be a good remedy and why not go for some prevention, ya know? So that is it for now. TTYL
In 105*-feels like 125*-weather my ice packed iPod remained ice packed for eight hours. Amazing.
Obviously it is really hot out. Really, that is fine, it is hot every summer. So let us move past the “I could fry an egg on the sidewalk!!!!!” and the news reports that just won’t end about the heat. Is it just me or do people freak out when it snows in the winter and when it’s hot each year. It has happened before, right? I think I remember being hot last summer, maybe even being hot enough to drink some extra fluids and put an ice pack on the back of neck, and I think I remember being hot the summer before that, too.
Instead, I would like to talk about some new and real concerns. Concerns related to marathon training or just exercising in general. I have already resigned to running my number of runs, including long runs, inside on the treadmill. That’s fine, I don’t want to die. I even expected to have to run inside a few times, because you know, I am training for a marathon in the middle of summer. However, the newness of my particular concern came into play as I was packing my bag for the gym this morning, my bag that will be sitting in my car eight or nine hours, in the hot hot heat. I began to get concerned when I realized that my iPod touch will be hanging out in my car all day before it is enlisted to entertain me during my run this evening, and I am not sure it can handle such high temperatures. One might suggest that I simply bring my iPod into my cool air-conditioned work for the day. Unfortunatly, my work (a crazy crazy max security psych hospital) includes iPods on it’s list of contraband. Ugh. This morning I was explaining my dilemma to my fiancé when he suggested I keep my iPod on ice for the day. Brilliant! I put my extra insulated lunch bag and extra ice packs to use today to keep my iPod cooler, or reduce the amount of time it spent heated, before my workout. Now this is the type of story that needs to be on the news. Or not, because it gets hot every summer.
As I reported in my last post, on Sunday I completed my long run of 8 miles. During the run my body felt good/tired/as expected when you run longer than you have in three months. After the run most of me felt really great except for my left knee. I iced my knee on and off and took some Advil, and generally took it easy for the rest of the day.
On Monday, I did an easy 20 minutes on a stationary bike and took a ninety-minute yoga class. I could feel the tiredness of my body during the yoga class, as well as continued knee discomfort. More ice, no more Advil. I did some googling and believe that my knee issue is really an IT band issue, so I focused on foam rolling, and ready about ways to strengthen my hip muscles in order to prevent further pain and injury.
Tuesday I ran 2.5 miles, with a five minute warm up and then one minute of sprinting, one minute of recovery for the remaining two miles. My knee felt good while running. I also took an hour strength training class, during which my knee also felt ok. When I went home I. Was. Exhausted.
I decided to take Wednesday off from any exercise, however as I drove past the gym on my way home from work a lot of guilt set in. I felt like I needed to be there in order to increase my strength and stamina for my marathon. This is where my worry comes in. There is so much I want to do during my four months of training. This includes three runs per week, one spin class, one strength class, and one yoga class. I feel like the cross training and strength pieces are important to prevent injury so I don’t want to loose those. But I also need time to rest. I need to focus on making at least one rest day, even two, a priority, with out feeling guilty. As this knee issue is teaching me too much too fast is not a good thing and is going to get in the way of my enjoyment and performance during important workouts. I don’t want to spend the five days after a long run recovering from the run while pushing myself through hard workouts. I need to take advantage of rest days and maybe even get a massage. Yes, that sounds like a good plan.
Third long run of marathon training done and done!
So I finally ran outside which was a really good decision for a lot of reasons. It was way less boring and seeing other runners was quite motivating. I think one guy tried to give m a high five which was awkward but friendly. But back to the meat of the run. I drove about ten minutes in order to run around a lake that is 1.85 miles around. I packed my camel back but at the last minute decided to leave it in my car and just stop when I needed it. There was also one water fountain that I used each lap around the lake. After four miles I stopped at my car for a serving of Shot Blocks and ice water which was quite necessary. Both of those things are life savers. I was hot and tired through out the run, I won’t lie, but I was so glad to take advantage of the local trails and fresh air. When I got home I was dizzy and re-hydrated with chocolate coconut water. Delish. Coconut water will be my reward for long runs for the rest of training.
Among other things, I refueled with a mini brie round from Trader Joes and an apple. The mini brie was amazing. Great for portion control and for a lady with a fiancé who does not like brie. Tonight we are heading to P.F. Changs for more refueling. Yum.
