Happy start again Monday

It's been dark over here for awhile, and for good reason. I wasn't in a great place in the early part of the year, and it took some semi-major changes to start feeling like a person again. I won't go into details quite yet, so I'll just say that I'm feeling 500x better than I have in about a year.

Part of what brings me happiness (and happy hormones) is working out. I'm not in any kind of killer shape at the moment, and when I do work out, I haven't been pushing myself as hard as I know I should. I tend to perform the best when my training is planned to the minute, vs. just hopping on a treadmill and hoping for the best. So today I tried this:

via fitsugar

I was able to eek out an extra half mile in the same amount of time compared to last week when I was freestyling my run. The time also seemed to go by waaaaay faster because I was focused on reaching the next interval only a minute or two away, instead of thinking "29 minutes left... 28 minutes left.." and so on.

I wrapped up with some light upper body strength training, again courtesy of a 10 minute video vs. a Morgan freestyle. A healthy breakfast and coffee later (AND back to the blog!!) and I feel like I'm off to a good start for the week.

Goal tonight: do another mini-sweat session, and then mediate. More on that later ;)

Adapting to change

It's crazy how just one day of clean eating can make a difference in how you feel the next morning.

steak+salad=steaksalad

So the good news this week is that my husband started his new job, which just so happens to be about 10 minutes away from office. This means that I have my carpool buddy back, and my time and rage on the road has been dramatically reduced.

The bad news is that I'm not sure how to stay motivated to get to the gym. I had signed up in January with the gym across the street from my office, and was driving down at 6am almost daily to beat traffic and work out. The mornings were tough, but once I was there, my only two choices were to work out or start working. Easy.

Fortunately the membership is valid at other location, and there happens to be another location about 10 minutes from. That means that I could get to the gym at 6am, work out until 7am, then be home in time to have breakfast and enjoy a bit of my morning. Or I could just stay home that entire time in my comfy house. See how that works? I know myself very well by now.. oh well. I'll keep thinking that through.

In the meantime, this morning I did get in a short run on the treadmill, and then tried out a short bodyweight workout via the PopSugar Fitness App on my iPad. I always feel like such a dork when I do videos, but this one was actually really good, and the app has a pretty decent sized library of workouts I'm looking forward to trying. It's definitely no Crossfit class (which I miss dearly), but I think this will be a great way to keep up a bit of strength training during this gym limbo.

Happy Wednesday friends!

Just run

This is my I-finished-my-ten-mile-run-despite-it-being-freezing-ass-cold-and-my-phone/GPS/music-player-dying-two-miles-in-face:

You get this since I couldn't take any run pictures

It was cold today. Balmy compared to most parts of the country, but it was mid-30s and I'm a baby and I just wasn't having it. I knew I had this run to do, my first real "long run" in my marathon training, and by about 1PM I had run out of ways to procrastinate. So I put on my shorts, trudged to my treadmill, started to plod, and within two minutes asked myself WTF I was doing on a treadmill when it there was daylight and the roads were dry. I have a hate-hate relationship with the treadmill in my house, and I knew I'd maybe get three miles in, max, before calling it a day. On went my running tights, long-sleeves, and gloves, and out the door I went. 

Feeling good, rocking out to Pandora, RunKeeper app politely letting me know my distance and pace every five minutes, and then... nothing. My phone is also a baby about the cold, and decided to feign illness and shut down. You guys, I actually thought about going home. I was already feeling naked without my GPS watch and heart rate monitor, and to have no idea how fast I was going, when I was supposed to turn around, and no Ellie Goulding to distract me, was not motivating.

But for some reason I kept going - I figured I'd just turn around when I got bored and hopefully I'd make it to six or seven miles. I'd run the route probably 100 times before, so I vaguely knew the distance from my house to certain checkpoints. 

Surprisingly though (for me) I just kept running. I listened to the pat-pat-pat of my shoes on the pavement, the wind rustling through the trees, I noted how my body was feeling, how my pace changed when I shortened my stride. I raced against oblivious joggers and challenged myself to run to random objects in the distance. 

Once I felt like I had made it at least four miles, I turned around and ran home, listening, looking, racing, thinking, mentally singing my latest favorite Ellie-song in my head. 

Got home, chugged some water and stretched my hips, then plotted my route in GoogleMaps to check the distance. I turned around right at 5.2 miles, putting my total at 10.4! 

So, lesson for me and for you, is that sometimes you just need to run, and you don't actually *need* much to do it. I had become so dependent on music and monitors and trackers over the years that I had forgot to just enjoy running and the places it takes me. I'm not saying that I'll chuck the music and GPS on every run from now on, but I will make a point to just run every once in a while. 

Weekend Wrap-Up

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I started using MyFitnessPal last week to help myself be more mindful about the foods that I put in my body and the training that I do to reach my fitness goals. It hasn't been a perfect week. In fact, I could have done WITHOUT a lot less and WITH a lot more working out.

What I can say however, is that logging everything that I eat and drink does have me thinking harder about the food choices that I make. Logging all of the bad things that I ate just a couple hours ago while rooting the Seahawks on during the Super Bowl was painful, but seeing everything on the screen has kept me from heading back in the kitchen to polish off those peanut M&Ms.

For me, it isn't just enough to log everything for the day and start fresh tomorrow. A practice that I've started after I'm "done" for the day is to look back and make a few notes about what I should have done differently. Today, I could have done without that second bottle of beer and the peanut M&Ms during the game, and I wouldn't have felt at all deprived.

My goal for February is to log my meals every day and reflect on my choices in this way daily, to establish the good habits that someday won't depend on tracking and checking things off on my smartphone.

By this time next month, I expect to be feeling, looking, and running better.

Tried something new

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So this one time I used to be a belly dancer. Like a PRO-fessional.

Remember that?

No, me either apparently.

Somehow got coerced into my first Zumba class. I was awful. Ok, maybe for a beginner, I was ok. But awful in the grand scheme of things. I avoided the mirror as much as possible.

But I was sweating buckets, so it must be challenging me in some why that running doesn't.

So even though what I was doing was definitely not dancing, or Zumba-ing, I suppose I'll be back next week.

Behold, the power of running

Before workout, for 90 minutes while stuck in traffic:

Very realistic dramatic reenactment

Five minutes into workout:

Weeeeeeeeeeee!

More often than not, I actually do a mental "weeeeeee!" shortly after I start a run and I've warmed up. Even hours later when I'm in the office and dealing with the stresses of the day, the things that might normally ruin my day are only minor annoyances.

If anyone were to ask me why I run, my answer wouldn't be for my physical health or looking good. True, staying in shape is a big plus, but the real reason is that it helps me deal with my day. When my commute eats up 90 minutes of my morning, or I have so many to-dos that I'm going a mile a minute, or last minute changes have me scrambling to fix something - running helps me take things in stride so that I can come home and enjoy a relaxing night with my husband.

I believe that runner's high is a real thing, and that everyone can benefit from a daily run. Or jog. Or cycle. Or power walk. Doesn't matter what it is, as long as it gets you moving and gives you those happy feelings.

Train fast, race fast

Last year I worked with a triathlon coach in an effort to move beyond my "I just want to finish the race" goals. One of the first and most important things he taught me is that in order to race fast, I needed to train fast. What followed were a series of running workouts that had me sprinting so hard on the treadmill that I was afraid I would fall off. I grew to loathe Tempo Tuesdays. But he was right - after a few months of training fast I PR'd my half marathon finish time by nearly 45 minutes.

I'm training solo this year, but plan to apply much of what I learned to my workouts. The marathon is still over 5 months away, so right now my focus is on easing back into a running schedule and increasing my mileage. And making training fun. Tempo Tuesdays are still on the schedule, but now they look a little something like this:

I love doing Pandora intervals because it involves little to no thinking, and it's easy to scale at any running level. As my running fitness improves, I'll continue to do this workout by increasing the speed of each interval and the duration of my run by a little bit every week. This is one I usually recommend to beginners because you can alternate walking and jogging to start. 

Let's run a marathon

I have never been the kind of person who can work out just for the fun of it. Even though I know it's sooo good for you and healthy and all that good stuff, I will never train consistently without a little pressure.

For the last five years, triathlon has been my thing. I went from walking my first sprint triathlon in 2008 to conquering my first Ironman in 2011. I continued to do half Ironman distance races the following year and this past summer. I fully intend to do another Ironman someday soon, and even qualify for and  race at the world championships in Kona. But right now, I'm burnt out. The training schedule, metrics watching, workout juggling, and my inability to become a decent swimmer has taken it's toll. I crashed on my bike two races in a row at the end of the season. True, rain was a factor, but I also took it as a sign that I needed a breather. After 6 months of 8-13 hour training weeks, I mentally and physically came to a dead stop after the season ended. 

Now I'm getting squishy.

So it's time to switch gears! I've signed up for my first marathon, the Seattle Rock 'n Roll Marathon, which takes place in June. I'm looking forward to a different kind of challenge and a training schedule that will keep me fit in LESS than 10 hours a week. 

The race is now 24 weeks away, and I'm half a week in. This is what my weeks will look like.

Sunday - Rest

Monday - Cross Train

Tuesday - Tempo Run

Wednesday - Cross Train

Thursday -  Fartlek Run

Friday - Rest & Stretch

Saturday - LSD Run

My cross train days will likely involve a spin on my bike and strength training. And in case you're wondering, the LSD run isn't as fun as it sounds - it stands for long, slow distance. 

I'm excited to get into the training and am looking forward to my progress in 5, 10, and 20 weeks. It was frustrating to feel out of shape during my run this weekend, but I'm reminding myself that I'm just getting started.

Progress reports to come!