Weekly Therapy: 51 weeks left in my 30s

May 21, 2016 - Mel

the week:
I had two full days of training at work, so my week just FLEW by!

And, YAY! I got a new bike — 600+ miles of Iowa trails, here we come! We also signed up for our first group trail fun ride in June — the BACooN Ride (where BACON meets the Raccoon River Trail) — so I am fully outfitted and ready to explore.

weekend:
We live in a front license plate state, so I need to take my car in this morning to get my front plate mounted. The dealership is also charging us an OUTRAGEOUS amount of money to update the maps on my GPS (like, holy shit, they’re sticking in an SD card WHY CAN’T A SATELLITE DO THIS). All I’m saying is that it sure as shit better locate my house when it’s uploaded.

ANYWAYS.

Otherwise, we have a pretty laid back weekend. Last night we got to hang out with our neighbors for a bit because it was SUCH a beautiful night. I’m pretty jazzed about the weather report in general this weekend, and we’ll probably go for a bike ride.

seven things, seven days:
1. My workplace has a corporate library, which we can reserve from a great selection of business-themed and popular book titles. And they deliver it right to my desk!
2. Everything is SO GREEN right now, including the farm crops around us. Daily, I just feel so happy with where I live.
3. I finished Leah Remini’s Troublemaker — it was a really engaging story, with all the gossipy celebrity juice you’d expect from someone who attended Tom Cruise’s wedding. I’m obsessed with the Scientology survival stories, and it’s a pretty incredible read from someone who went into the church so young.
4. Man, I just had another awful online shopping experience with a furniture company that I love and have shopped with for over a decade (AND have their dumb store credit card). Needless to say, I have to now find another living room side table somewhere else. #grumpy
5. Oh, HEY! Roller derby article in Shape magazine: How Roller Derby Helped Me Finally See Myself As An Athlete
6. The unhealthy truth behind “wellness” and “clean eating” {via Vice}
7. Spinning: You’re doing it wrong {via Indoor Cycling Association}

Gasparilla Challenge: Training Week #1

December 7, 2015 - Mel

The training for my Gasparilla races started this week! I signed up for the Michelob Ultra Challenge, which consists of 30+ miles over two days in Tampa, Florida in February — a 15K and 5K on Saturday of race weekend and then on Sunday, a Half Marathon and 8K. I’ve obviously never trained for a race quite like this, and the swag is supposed to be ridiculous. My focus is on the half marathon, for which I’m adapting the Novice 2 Hal Higdon training schedule. An aside: I strongly dislike the Higdon app and keep a paper with my dates tacked to the wall like total old school. Anyone else feel the same way?

Because I do plenty of cardio and cross-training (and that will increase exponentially with derby practices), I’m cutting out the extraneous mid-week 3 mile run. I’m focusing on three runs per week — with one long run, a weekly regular 3-mile run and one additional mid-week run that spans from 2-3 miles throughout the 12-week program, and at least two cross-training sessions.

Week #1 of this plan calls for three 3-mile runs and one 4-mile run, with one day of cross and two rest days. I personally like two-a-days with another rest day, which is another way that I’ve adapted my training schedule. It worked well for my previous half and full marathon training plans. I haven’t decided yet if I intend to PR this race or not… but I still have a little bit of time to figure that out.

MONDAY: An hour of spinning at the Y. (Walked to work)

TUESDAY: REST DAY (Walked to/from work)

WEDNESDAY: 3 miles with run//yoga//run club (just less than 10-minute pace), followed by a hard, sweaty 75 minutes of hot flow yoga. While I didn’t have any abnormally-long coughing fits, I found myself struggling to move with my breath. We did a bunch of hip openers and core work which felt amazing. My legs, though, felt super sloggy during the run. Meh. (I also walked to work today.)

THURSDAY: REST DAY (Walked to/from work)

FRIDAY: REST DAY (Walked home from work)

SATURDAY: 4.02 miles – holy moly, my legs felt so fast today. I had my first sub-8 mile! I followed my run up with 3 sets of 60-second planks (and a very long, steamy shower).

SUNDAY: Stairs workout at The Cathedral of Learning, my first off-skates workout with my NEW TEAM, The Allegheny Avengers! I should say my new old team, as I was one of the home team’s inaugural members two seasons ago — but I got drafted back on this week now that I’m officially-official back playing roller derby. We did 10 minutes of interval climbs and then a 10-minute body weight circuit (crunches, planks, lunges, squats and push-ups). I hoped to run a couple miles after this workout, but my legs were toast!

This upcoming training week will be tough to schedule around all these holiday parties during the week, but my goal is for two runs and two other workouts.

TOTAL RUNS: 2
TOTAL MILES: 7.02

Training Week 11: Niagara Falls International Marathon

August 24, 2015 - Mel

MONDAY: Finally got back to spinning class this week (on what is my usual rest day). I knew that I would have more than enough rest days this week. And I just really wanted to start the week off right.

TUESDAY: Went to the Chelsea Collective store preview party. See my post here!

WEDNESDAY: run//yoga club with another 3.01 miles (time: 29:54) and 75 minutes of hot, sweaty yoga. Still a little adapted because of my finger, but I definitely felt stronger than last week.

THURSDAY: Anticipated getting a post-work run in, but there was an office party that went longer into the workday. Meanwhile, I skipped drinking at the party so I could run, but then I was too tired by the time I got home at 7pm PLUS I still had to pack for my weekend trip. At least I got another day’s worth of walking in for my commute.

FRIDAY: Drove to Cleveland, and there was no time for anything but singing alone in the car. Hashtag, thanks Pitbull Sirius channel.

SATURDAY: I really didn’t want to run the day before the race. I did a 5K the day before Pittsburgh, and well… I didn’t want to do that again.

SUNDAY: Half Marathon Day! Read my recap here. 13.1 miles at an average 10:37 pace. This run felt great, and as I wrote in my recap, was 33 seconds faster than my Pittsburgh time. I only walked at two water spots (just long enough to drink and eat some beans). I probably could have even done the first few miles a little faster but I had a really great pace group. This feels good though and makes all this mileage madness worth it. A few seconds is progress, and interesting to see where I can make even more.

My breakfast was a little different than for my usual long runs too, which is interesting to note. No eggs (stupid room service).

Total runs: 2
Total miles: 16.11 miles
Total training miles: 120.54 miles

By the end of next week (and in next Monday’s post), I can officially say that I have run the furthest that I ever have, with a 14-mile long run on the schedule for my weekend. Here’s hoping for some crisp Fall-like weather, eh?

Accountability Week: Post-half marathon workouts

May 25, 2015 - Mel

Since I’m not currently training for anything (at least for a couple more weeks), and posting my workout weeks helps keep my motivation in check, this is my accountability week(s) post. I’m currently starting to look at training programs for running the full in October, with about 18-20 weeks of training, so I welcome any references! I’m familiar with Higdon’s model, but I’d like to know what else is out there. Update to my race schedule: I now have another half on the schedule in August (The Rock Hall half in Cleveland) and I’m running the Akron relay in September with some friends.

The week directly post-half marathon I DID NOTHING (in the form of exercise). It was kind of glorious, and it left me a good span of time to focus on finishing out my winter semester. My recovery from running the half was pretty seamless into my regular life; I was able to walk to work the next day (and the next!), with very little soreness. Must be that post-race chocolate milk!

My intention last week was to get a couple runs in to shake everything out, return to CrossFit workouts, and do some YOGA.

Week May 11-17:

MONDAY: Rest Day, duh. While I generally don’t like working out on Mondays (I don’t know, I’m grumpy or something), my friend returned to spinning class on Monday evenings at the Y, so I’ll start that up again once a week starting next week.

TUESDAY: CrossFit. Naturally, we started off with a 500m run warm-up, and I was happy about all the mobility work. The WOD was a quickie 3RFT for stair climbs (3 stories), snatches, and box jumps. I stayed easy today, with only the bar, since I haven’t been going regularly.

WEDNESDAY: Run//yoga club at Urban Elements. We had a small group today, so we held a pretty quick pace (for me) of 9:30/mi for 4 miles. First run back, and it pushed me a bit, but I was able to keep up. And maybe I should stop running at 10:30/mi so much. Following up the run was a 75-minute yoga session, where we did a lot of Warrior work. It was intense! And we have a new instructor, but I loved how she taught for different skill levels. I’m hyper-mobile, so she also suggested some great adaptations for me to enhance my practice and how to stretch my hamstrings.

THURSDAY: Rest.

FRIDAY: Rest. Wine.

SATURDAY: Did another CrossFit session that was book-ended by running TO the box and then back home. In the rain, no less. We did a couple sprints before the WOD and a 500m run, then it was Elizabeth. I’m still hanging out in the Bronze category, so it was 55# for me and three miserable rounds of push-ups at 15-12-9. For time: 6:21 minutes.

SUNDAY: Another day of rest

Week May 18-24:

This was another week where I had a lot of motivation going into the week, yet quickly lost it because of stressing out about school work. I need to learn that taking a break to do something active will help alleviate that feeling, but I get SO blind-sided by the onslaught.

MONDAY: My return to spinning! This session reminded me why I love spinning so much — it’s such a great, low impact workout (I barely sweat, but that doesn’t mean I’m not trying) that hits you with that good soreness a day later.

TUESDAY: Rest day.

WEDNESDAY: Lunchtime yoga started today, courtesy of work. We get some wellness “points” that contribute to a program that gives us some money back for our health premiums by participating. Plus, I get away from my desk for an hour a week. This session was a great restorative and slow practice, and she actually went well over an hour (oops). I enjoyed every minute of it.

After work, I had a hair appointment near home, which I planned to run to. I took a long route through the Point, which was a nice 1.90 miles to add to the log this week.

THURSDAY: STRESS DAY. Because let’s be honest, while I wasn’t necessarily working out, my body and mind were not at rest. BLARGH.

FRIDAY: This was a rest day.

SATURDAY: Does cleaning my patio count? Because I feel like it was a workout.

SUNDAY: My return to golfing! Oh man, I am still terrible, but I had one really great drive out of 9 holes of play. Now, how can I do that all the time?

It was absolutely wonderful to be out in the sun, and as I mentioned before, my boyfriend is super relaxed when playing so I really had fun despite my annoyances of not being able to get much lift on the ball. It felt like vacation in a way; we had lunch outside at the club and then hung out at the pool for a couple hours.

How is everyone else doing in their “off season”? Have you planned your next races?