Yoga Pants Life

Time is flying by so quickly! I feel like I hit ‘publish’ and the next week passes by before I can write another blog post. Luckily, my blog isn’t that riveting, so it’s not like anyone is missing much with my sporadic posting schedule.

I believe I left off midway through week 3. Week 3 was the week I had to work really hard to get my confidence back, thanks to my parade of injuries. While there’s never an ideal time to be injured, it’s difficult when it happens in the beginning because you are still building your base and if you can’t hack week 3, how are you going to deal with week 14, when your mileage is more than double? At least my short runs were all on-point in week 3 and that really helped.

My goal for my week 3 long run was 7-8 miles and I’m happy to report that I hit 7.3. It was a bit rough and I was a bit under-trained since I missed the week 2 long run, but I pushed through and got it done with fairly minimal issues. My knee started bothering me at mile 4, but I went slow and tried to run on asphalt as much as possible to keep my knee going. It wasn’t a fast run, but I finished and that’s all that mattered to me at the time. The runner’s high afterwards was awesome and I practically twerked my way home. Seriously, I was ready to throw down during the car ride home, like a Jersey Shore kid throws down at Karma on summer night! (Man I miss watching the Jersey Shore. I don’t care what anyone says – it was quality television!) 

The next day the ‘runger’ kicked in and I felt like I could eat everything in sight. I don’t really remember how I felt when I trained for my last marathon, but I don’t remember the hunger hitting in full force until much later in my training cycle. I’m not too worried about it, but I am trying to lose some weight (about 20 pounds or so) and I need to be careful about what I eat. I’m not dieting or restricting, but I’m reaching for sweets and snacks much more than I am for fruit and veggies and that’s not good.  There’s nothing wrong with desert or a few less-than-healthy snacks, but I think I’m going a little overboard and I find myself saying ‘but I run!!!!’ each time I stuff another s’more-based product into my mouth (I will do unspeakable things for s’mores…I’ve always enjoyed s’mores, but the s’more cravings are out of control this year. I had no idea I was such a whore for s’mores!)

I have really mixed feelings about week 4. I started the week off exhausted. I had a two week period where I was sleeping 4-5 hours a night. It’s not so bad for a few nights, but I can’t hack it longer than that before I start losing my mind. I was tired, cranky and not thinking clearly at all by the second week of sucky sleep….which made work and life fairly difficult. I tried everything – over the counter and prescription sleeping pills, putting all electronics away early, taking medications in the morning instead of at night, running in the blazing mid-day sun –anything to wear me out. Nothing worked and I was nearing my wits end (I actually started sobbing one morning. Like, heaping sobs in between me saying ‘I just want to sleep!’ …it was a tad tragic.) However, I finally started sleeping better midway through the week and I’m hoping I’m over the worst of it.

As far as running goes, my short runs this week were solid. I increased my short runs to 4 miles and  I could tell that things were finally starting to click and get easier and I could feel myself getting faster. I did three short runs during the week and finished my long run Friday. While my run was 10 miles and I got through it, it was shitty, shitty run and it really had me questioning why I’m doing this. I’m honestly not sure how I’m going to double that run and add another 6 miles on marathon day. I wanted to quit and put the marathon on hold for a few more years until I could get my shit together…but I already bought plane tickets and started telling people I was running a marathon. In other words, it’s too late to back out now.

I spent most of the run hungry, cursing my right knee, thirsty, trying not to think about how hot I was and also trying not to think about the impending arrival of shark week (don’t make me urban dictionary it for you) and the fact that it felt like someone was stabbing my insides with a butter knife. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of the post run endorphin high (which, unfortunately, never came) and the promise of a peanut butter smoothie after my run. It was a mentally and emotionally draining run.

I’m not sure if part of the problem is the fact that I’m doing my long run on Friday after work instead of early on a weekend morning (like most people do.) I originally decided to shoot for Friday evenings so that I could get my run out of the way and have the rest of my weekend to rest and recover and, you know, have a tiny bit of a life (and, yes, staying in bed and watching HGTV is what I would call ‘having a life,’ thanks for asking!) It also leaves plenty of cushion in case I fail on Friday and actually need to do it Saturday or Sunday morning.

Also, anyone who knows me even a tiny bit will tell you that I am NOT a morning person. I hate mornings. Mornings can suck it. Don’t bother talking to me before 10 am, as you will likely just get stink-eye. So yeah, waking up early to run? Not my first choice. As it is, I have to wake up early and drive the long commute to work five days a week. The last thing I want to do is wake up early on a weekend and drive to my long run spot…but I think that’s what I’m going to have to do, because fueling properly over the course of the day is difficult and my stomach is a delicate flower…having a days worth of stuff bouncing around is unpleasant…but I also learned the hard way this week that under-eating and attempting to supplement my long run with GU gel and Gatorade is REALLY unpleasant. I’ll spare the details, but let’s just say that I spent the vast majority of my Friday night post-run in the bathroom. Craptastic as it was (heh) I was more relieved that I was at home and it was after the run. I can’t imagine what I would have done in the middle of my run.

So, yeah, not really sure what to do about the rest of my long runs. The good news is that my long run next week drops back to 8 miles, which, after a shitty 10 miler, seems super reasonable and almost easy. I literally did a happy dance when I opened my planner and saw that I only had to run 8 miles instead of the 12 I thought was on the schedule. I have to look again, but I’m pretty sure week 6 will be back up to 10 before shooting up to 12 and beyond.

I’ll probably write a few more posts today, since it’s the 4th of July and I have the day off work. I want to write about starting week 5, as well as reflect back on the first month of training. Eventually I’d like to write more about other things, but for now I just want to document the training process as much as possible (which, I realize is a total snooze-fest for anyone but me.) I’m now less than 100 days out and have 14 weeks until marathon day. I have a feeling this is going to be a bumpy ride…but I hope it has a happy ending and that it will all be worth it.