The Hard Stuff and Staycationing

Another week down, and 2 weeks 4 days to marathon Saturday!  Eeps!

Training:

This marathon season has been just so completely and totally weird.  The first part, my mind quit on me.  I’ve never had that happen so early after offseason.  I’ve been over and over this, but it’s one of the worst feelings in the world to have your body be fit and healthy and fine, and your mind is just gone.  I hope never to have to go through that again.  I’m still not all there but I’m seeing promise.

The middle was a regroup and a lesson in consistency.  I can’t say I found mad, wild, passionate run love like I did last year, but that’s probably because I spent 3 of my 4 weeks solely on the treadmill due to allergies, and had to have it more planned out because I took Zliten along for the ride.  However, I did find the reinforcement that running doesn’t have to be an event where the stars align, and that’s really what I was going for this time.

This last portion of training, my body is revolting after it’s been completely healthy for the last year.  I’ve had it checked out twice, and my chiropractor confirms that it’s nothing serious, but my hip is hurting like a bitch.  It feels the absolute BEST about 2-3 miles into a run until the end, feels great for a while after, and then after some moments to a day of inactivity, it starts feeling crappy again until I warm up for the next run.

My rehab from last Thursday to next Saturday:

• 5 miles max running per day, no more than every other day.
• Core work 3xweek to strengthen the muscles around the area
• Bike, swim, walk as much as I want

So, the schedule this week looks like this.

• Monday: core (day off cardio)
• Tuesday: 5 miles of speedwork: 6x800s around 9 min/miles, 400m recoveries
• Wednesday: 45 mins trainer ride, core
• Thursday: 4-5 miles of tempo work (between 9:30-10 min miles)
• Friday: 30 min lunch swim, core
• Saturday: HOPEFULLY 16 mile run (ready to flake on this if my hip starts feeling bad), no slower than 11:30 min/miles (also ready to compromise pace if needed).
• Sunday: 30-60 min swim/bike

I’m a little cranky about the sheer lack of mileage I can do right now, but my saving grace is that I’m doing the hard stuff.  Most of my miles feel like the END of the marathon, not the beginning.  It’s not hard to hold 11-something pace for an hour, it’s actually quite enjoyable to me.  Holding 11-something pace for 5 hours actually feels horrible by the end.  Trying to hold 9:30/mile for a little under an hour simulates that much more closely without all the accumulated fatigue.

Trainer, trainer, trainer… since I can’t run run run all the miles.

I’ve thrived on half marathons using the less-is-more type of training philosophy, and though I feel like doing a whole marathon training cycle on it is a mistake, ending with it seems to be alright.  When every run has hard parts, I won’t toe the line March 5th expecting it to feel easy.  Because it won’t.  And I still can conquer it.

Here’s how last week went:

• Monday: 55 min spin after work at home
• Tuesday: 1 mile warm up, 3×1 miles @9-9:30/mile, .25 miles between each recovery, 1 mile cooldown before work or at lunch
• Wednesday: 30 min swim at lunch
• Thursday: 1 mile warmup, 5 miles tempo pace (9:30-10 min/miles), short cooldown at lunch 30 min swim at lunch
  
• Friday: 30 min swim at lunch off
• Saturday: 20 mile run, no slower than 11:30 min/mile by the end 2 hours of cycling, both outside and trainer + 45 mins of core + 5 mile tempo
• Sunday: off (will be active that day hiking, but nothing formal) easy 25 min bike ride outside

I skipped one run due to chiro orders, and switched other stuff around but I made it work.

I’m not feeling terribly confident this week will go as planned due to my janky hip, but I’ll roll with it.  I’m past the deadline of being able to drop to the half, so 26.2 miles any which way they come is the goal!

Food

We did a trial run of a “stay-cation” and it was mildly successful.  The part that was WILDLY successful was trying out new restaurants, hitting up old favorites, and cooking awesome food for ourselves that we normally wouldn’t. I don’t think I went batshit crazy on the calories but I don’t think I was maintaining a giant deficit either.

• Track all my food and stick to my macros/calorie range (-500 w/activity)
• Weigh a few times this week
• I’m not going to specify an amount for booze but it needs to not compromise my a) calorie count b) sleep schedule (oops Thursday night) c) workouts

Two out of three ain’t bad, right?  Even though I didn’t track, I can DEFINITELY say that Sunday and Monday were probably a little more high calorie than they should have been, but life will go on.  My last weight was 187 on Friday, which probably won’t stick, but at least my pants don’t feel like they’re cutting off circulation.

Some of my favorites for the weekend:

Sunday lunch was chicken and veggie pho at my favorite pho place.  It’s one of my favorite meals out – it’s so absolutely filling for the calories and who doesn’t love chicken soup!  I avoided it for a while because I react negatively to something in the broth, but this new place is 100% no body hurts!

Sunday, we cooked our traditional Valentine’s Day meal – bacon wrapped filet and lobster on the grill, with loaded baked potatoes and sauteed brocollini.  It’s one of my favorite meals of the year.

We opened up the pretty good stuff to drink with it too.  I had been saving it for a PR but I’ve been iffy on whether I actually want champagne after races nowadays and love is a good thing to celebrate.  I figure that I’ll get myself another bottle if I really want it.

Monday, we went to lunch at a new (to us) place called Taco Flats.  The food was excellent, the vibe was laid back and fun, interesting conversations were eavesdropped, and who doesn’t love a beer with lunch on a Monday?

We put together some panchetta, peas, light alfredo sauce, rosemary parmesan, and fresh noodles to make an amazing pasta dish Tuesday night to close out the long weekend.  And, we may have grabbed some fro-yo for dessert!

This week, just the basics:

• Track 100% of my food and try to stay in range.
• Weigh at least once
• Use up leftovers this week
• Booze cannot interfere with bedtimes, calorie counts, or workouts.

It’s a pretty short week with today being my first workday, so I’m just trying to get back into the swing of eating like I’m not on vacation.

Life

Due to a few reasons, we took the weekend a little slower and less exciting than we expected.  While I’d say it’s a mild fail in terms of having a really cool staycation, sometimes you have to roll with the punches and do shit like go to two opening weekend movies and hang out on the back patio reading and drinking beer in the sunshine rather than go on an epic hiking and downtown adventures.

• Happy hour at Copper Lounge Thursday impromptu chiropractor appointment Thursday
• Eat pho with friends Saturday by ourselves Sunday since plans changed, walk drive to a movie matinee (Deadpool) and dinner out Saturday
• Go to Enchanted Rock another movie (Zoolander 2) and grill up a great dinner Sunday
• Do something touristy downtown on Monday Have a super great taco lunch and then drink beer and sit on our patio reading a book until sunset on Monday.
• Do absolutely almost NO chores starting Saturday morning until Tuesday (darn you, dishes and laundry).
• Get 8 hours of sleep (almost – oops Thursday) every night

My energy level was definitely a little lower than expected, and maybe it was a good thing.  I tend to push myself when I’m out of town to live it up to the fullest since I only have a limited time to soak up a city/culture/etc, and sometimes what I need to do on a break is chill the fuck out for a day and read a whole book.  Especially in this sort of beautiful backyard atmosphere.

My poor confused plants…it’s February…

We also got really into a stupid food truck show, and came up with a play-at-home challenge while watching Iron Chef.  Instead of eating real dinner Monday, we challenged each other to make a snack in the kitchen using something close to the secret ingredient.  Considering our kitchen was anything but well stocked, it was a test in creativity.  Some lessons learned included: flax kinda works for an egg wash, but not that well, don’t get distracted when trying to just lightly melt something in the oven, and oatmeal can get REALLY sticky in a pan without enough butter.

I also spent a lot of my mornings read/napping in bed, which is the epitome of vacation to me.  So, life is good.  We’ll plan the hiking and the other stuff another springy day when I’m feeling less like I want to curl up and sleep for a week.

Back to reality this week.  There’s not much of the week left so we’ll keep it simple.

• Gaming Thursday
• Lunch and hanging art lights on Saturday with Zliten’s parents (our Christmas present).
• 8 hours sleep every night.

I keep thinking that I should put more stuff here but I’m actually doing pretty well with my winter goals so I’ll leave it be.