Yoga Pants Life

Three days, you guys. Three days. In less than 72 hours I will be crossing the starting line of another half marathon. The reality is setting in and I honestly have NO clue how this is actually going to go.

I’ve been ‘training’ for this race since February and I was pretty consistent, up until late March/early April. Even then, it was mostly my long runs that dropped off. I have a few excuses as to why, but it doesn’t really matter at this point. All I know is that I need to figure out how to stay consistent, even when life is really busy (but, since I’m here I may as well share – I worked a lot of overtime this winter. Work was a madhouse and OT is rarely offered. I couldn’t say ‘no.’) 

While I dropped the ball, I managed to salvage my long runs the last two weeks and got in a respectable 8.5 miles last week, and 8.25 the week before. I also did 5, 6, and 7 mile long runs earlier in the training cycle. Most of my evening/short runs have been in the 3.5-4.5 mile range and while I’ve had a few weeks of minimal running, I’ve had many 4 day weeks in there too.

While it can be dangerous to under-train (I’ve run more than one half marathon on no training. Of course, I ended up injured and unable to run for a few months afterwards 0/10, would not recommend) I feel ok with my level of training. Sure, I won’t be flying across the finish line, but I’ll be shocked if I don’t finish.

I should also note that I need to respect the distance more, because while I can fake my way through a half, it’s still a lot of trauma on the body and something that should not be taken lightly (as I have so many times in the past.) 

Again, I have no idea what to expect, but I suspect my C+/B- training effort, coupled with the extra weight I’m carrying will probably get me a 2:45-3:00 hour finish time. Not my best, but far from my worst. If I’m really lucky and all the stars align on race day (weather, stomach, knee, sleep, fuel and hydration) I might even pull off 2:30 (but am not holding my breath on that one.) My short runs are getting a lot faster, but I still have trouble sustaining the faster paces on longer runs.

Regardless of how Saturday goes, I have another half in 3.5 weeks, and that’s the one I’m really focused on. I may even use this Saturday as a slower training run (it’s a super hilly course, so it would be wise to go easy) and aim for something better in San Diego.

Ready or not, come June, it’s time to start Chicago Marathon Training. While I’m not as prepared for my spring halfs as I would like to be, I’m super happy that I’ll be going into Chicago training with a pretty solid base and I have no doubt I can jump right in. October feels so far away, yet I know it will be here in the blink of an eye. I need to figure out a way to hold myself accountable.

I’m excited and nervous at the same time. I’ve done the half distance over a dozen times and 26.2 three times, so I know it’s possible to finish. But I also know how grueling it can be too, and that makes me nervous.

I think the two things I need to focus on the most right now are weight loss and staying consistent, even when ‘life’ happens and running is the last thing on my to-do list. Getting faster is up there too, but I think I’ll naturally get faster if I get weight off and stop skipping runs. I’m not in any kind of position to be thinking about a BQ or even a sub-4, so hard-core speed training doesn’t seem worth it yet.

As far as weight loss, I have no idea what to do. Weight loss has never been easy for me and I tend to be a very, VERY slow loser. When I lost nearly 50 pounds between 2010 and 2012, my average loss was 0.25 pounds per week. It was brutal at the time, but looking back, losing slowly probably allowed me to easily maintain for as long as I did. I maintained the loss up until the end of 2015, when my weight shot back up nearly 25 pounds. I’ve been bouncing between the same 12 pounds for a few years now and it’s frustrating to say the least. I’m about 5-8 pounds from a ‘healthy’ BMI and about 30 from where I want to be.

I suspect a lot of the weight struggle has to do with age (I’m pushing 40, after all.) A lot of what I relied on in my teens and 20s to lose weight is no longer enough (cutting back on beer and fries was great at 21, not so much at 37.) I should probably go all old-school blog style and post my every meal, but I can barely muster up the energy to post quarterly, much less daily, haha (side note: I really miss the blog days of yore.) I also am at a point where I can no longer outrun a shitty diet (it worked in my late 20s, but not now.) 

So, I was going to post a few pics from my training, but they aren’t coming through on my phone right now and I’m too tired to figure it out. But hey – nobody reads this anyway, so it really doesn’t matter.

Until next time, y’all!