This marathon season has been just so completely and totally weird.\u00a0 The first part, my mind quit on me.\u00a0 I’ve never had that happen so early after offseason.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I hope never to have to go through that again.\u00a0 I’m still not all there but I’m seeing promise.<\/p>\n
The middle was a regroup and a lesson in consistency.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n This last portion of training, my body is revolting after it’s been completely healthy for the last year.\u00a0 I’ve had it checked out twice, and my chiropractor confirms that it’s nothing serious, but my hip is hurting like a bitch.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n My rehab from last Thursday to next Saturday:<\/p>\n So, the schedule this week looks like this.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 Most of my miles feel like the END of the marathon, not the beginning.\u00a0 It’s not hard to hold 11-something pace for an hour, it’s actually quite enjoyable to me.\u00a0 Holding 11-something pace for 5 hours actually feels horrible by the end.\u00a0 Trying to hold 9:30\/mile for a little under an hour simulates that much more closely without all the accumulated fatigue.<\/p>\n Trainer, trainer, trainer… since I can’t run run run all the miles.<\/em><\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 When every run has hard parts, I won’t toe the line March 5th expecting it to feel easy.\u00a0 Because it won’t.\u00a0 And I still can conquer it.<\/p>\n Here’s how last week went:<\/p>\n I skipped one run due to chiro orders, and switched other stuff around but I made it work.<\/p>\n I’m not feeling terribly confident this week will go as planned due to my janky hip, but I’ll roll with it.\u00a0 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!<\/p>\n Food<\/strong><\/p>\n We did a trial run of a “stay-cation” and it was mildly successful.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n Two out of three ain’t bad, right?\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n Some of my favorites for the weekend:<\/p>\n Sunday lunch was chicken and veggie pho at my favorite pho place.\u00a0 It’s one of my favorite meals out – it’s so absolutely filling for the calories and who doesn’t love chicken soup!\u00a0 I avoided it for a while because I react negatively to something in the broth, but this new place is 100% no body hurts!<\/p>\n Sunday, we cooked our traditional Valentine’s Day meal – bacon wrapped filet and lobster on the grill, with loaded baked potatoes and sauteed brocollini.\u00a0 It’s one of my favorite meals of the year.<\/p>\n We opened up the pretty good stuff to drink with it too.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I figure that I’ll get myself another bottle if I really want it.<\/p>\n Monday, we went to lunch at a new (to us) place called Taco Flats.\u00a0 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?<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 And, we may have grabbed some fro-yo for dessert!<\/p>\n This week, just the basics:<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Life<\/strong><\/p>\n Due to a few reasons, we took the weekend a little slower and less exciting than we expected.\u00a0 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. My energy level was definitely a little lower than expected, and maybe it was a good thing.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Especially in this sort of beautiful backyard atmosphere.<\/p>\n![\"Feb17-7\"](\"http:\/\/adjustedreality.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Feb17-7.jpg\")
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Thursday: 1 mile warmup, 5 miles tempo pace (9:30-10 min\/miles), short cooldown at lunch <\/del>30 min swim at lunch
\n<\/del><\/strong><\/li>\n30 min swim at lunch<\/del> off<\/strong><\/li>\n20 mile run, no slower than 11:30 min\/mile by the end<\/del> 2 hours of cycling, both outside and trainer + 45 mins of core + 5 mile tempo<\/strong><\/li>\noff (will be active that day hiking, but nothing formal)<\/del> easy 25 min bike ride outside<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
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Happy hour at Copper Lounge Thursday<\/del> impromptu chiropractor appointment Thursday<\/li>\nwith friends Saturday<\/del> by ourselves Sunday since plans changed, walk<\/del> drive to a movie matinee (Deadpool) and dinner out<\/del> Saturday<\/li>\nEnchanted Rock<\/del> another movie (Zoolander 2) and grill up a great dinner Sunday<\/li>\nDo something touristy downtown on Monday<\/del> Have a super great taco lunch and then drink beer and sit on our patio reading a book until sunset on Monday.<\/li>\nabsolutely<\/del> almost NO chores starting Saturday morning until Tuesday (darn you, dishes and laundry).<\/li>\n