I swear, I am an all around better person in life when I am training for something.
We are two weeks into my "off season" and I already feel like I am slipping in blogging, keeping in touch with friends, etc. as I am off of a schedule. That being said, I am allowing myself some slack as it is the "off season" and I am still "recovering" from the race. I mean, in reality, I feel fine and I have felt fine since a few days after the marathon. But I've heard that it takes your body longer to recover than you think and it also is good to give yourself some mental relaxation too.
I do know myself well enough at this point to know that I need to have things in the future to prepare for and to work towards in order to keep myself in shape. I also don't have a real "goal" race until February so I want to allow myself a little leeway to decompress before getting back into a rigid workout routine.
Right now on my agenda I have 3 half marathons between now and February, with only one being a race that I will consider a "goal" race for me. The other two will be things to do with friends and reasons to eat/drink that weekend and keep myself running before that! I am excited to do a few races just for fun since I had such a good time when I ran San Francisco with my friend Allie this past March.
I honestly just don't know if I should ever try and top what I did two weeks ago in Chicago. I wish I could freeze time and hold that race as my top race forever. Can I just retire as a runner now? Or a marathoner? I want to run more marathons, but I don't know that I could ever beat that time!! I feel like everything in the world came together for me perfectly on that day. I had a flat course, I had friends I saw all throughout the course evenly up until the very end, I had perfect weather, I had arguably the most fans that a race could have, and so much more to keep me going. I have been thinking about marathons for next year and New York City Marathon is a strong possibility, but I also know that is a tough course and probably achieving that same time or faster would be a way stretch! Can 3:58 be my marathon time forever?
And then I remember that no matter what it is my marathon time. Nobody can take that away even if I never run a race in that time ever again. Pain is temporary people. Internet race results are forever.
Anyways, over the past week I got back into a routine of running and meeting up with my friends in the morning for a week of 3-5-3.5 mile runs Tuesday through Thursday.
Along with some yoga on Monday night, and a few new classes I tried out at the gym as well. I did a barre class at my regular gym (so not an "official" barre class at a studio) on Thursday, an "ab blast" class on Friday, and a circuit training workout on Saturday followed by a 12-mile bike ride. I also apparently didn't take many pictures except for when I was wearing my Chicago Marathon shirt, woohoo!
The bike ride on Saturday was just a bit longer than the ride I did the weekend before but different because I rode on the street and over some major hills. I tried to get myself to think back when I was first starting out with running. I didn't concern myself with pace whatsoever. It was all about being consistent and getting comfortable and getting myself out there. I am sure I was dreadfully slow and I stopped myself a number of times to just take deep breaths while on the bike - which was more about anxiety than the toughness of the ride. Riding my bike through traffic on major roads scares the CRAP out of me. Especially since I am clipping in to my bike.
Before I went out on my ride on Saturday I fell off the bike when I was still in the parking lot of my apartment complex when I was trying to clip in. It was embarrassing and I also skinned my knee and elbow. I still rode and ended up going further and having a better ride than I initially imagined, so I was really happy with it. My plan in this "off season" is to continue to challenge myself, be consistent while the weather still allows it, and get more comfortable!
With all that I did do, I also skipped a few workouts. I skipped a Tuesday evening workout to go to an event at the Civil and Human Rights Museum.
I skipped my swim on Friday morning after staying up later than planned on Thursday and cut my workout in the evening short so that I could get home and be on time for my evening plans.
I skipped my run on Sunday to spend the morning cheering on my friends as they did their OWN run. WHICH, was amazingly fun and I am becoming a pretty awesome cheerer if I say so myself. At this race, we had a surprise guest cheerer in the form of my friend Shayla, in town from law school, who joined another friend and I, surprised some of our crew by being with us along the course to cheer. Which, along with my signs, made for some of the most amazingly memorable moments in race cheering history. Seeing Janet see Shayla on the course was so much fun. And the hysterical police officer trying to direct traffic right by us, made for an incredibly memorable morning.
It was an awesome, awesome weekend and I didn't allow myself to stress about missing my workouts that I had planned throughout the past week. I had a lot of fun, I am relaxing a bit, and I managed to eat healthy throughout the week until the weekend came and all hell broke loose (cheese, nachos, beer, cheese, cheese pizza, and chocolate....) But before that I was pretty happy with my ability to eat well. I am going to try again this week and continue to give myself a little bit of permission to be more relaxed in the off season! I read somewhere that you get the amount of "days off" that your race was. So for a full marathon of 26 miles, on October 11, that means I get until Friday, November 6th to still be on break!
I did get to the gym after work today and run the 6 miles that I had planned for Sunday. I do have half marathon coming up in a few weeks that I want to be able to finish!! Muscle memory is a thing, right?
Happy Monday guys!
We are two weeks into my "off season" and I already feel like I am slipping in blogging, keeping in touch with friends, etc. as I am off of a schedule. That being said, I am allowing myself some slack as it is the "off season" and I am still "recovering" from the race. I mean, in reality, I feel fine and I have felt fine since a few days after the marathon. But I've heard that it takes your body longer to recover than you think and it also is good to give yourself some mental relaxation too.
I do know myself well enough at this point to know that I need to have things in the future to prepare for and to work towards in order to keep myself in shape. I also don't have a real "goal" race until February so I want to allow myself a little leeway to decompress before getting back into a rigid workout routine.
Right now on my agenda I have 3 half marathons between now and February, with only one being a race that I will consider a "goal" race for me. The other two will be things to do with friends and reasons to eat/drink that weekend and keep myself running before that! I am excited to do a few races just for fun since I had such a good time when I ran San Francisco with my friend Allie this past March.
I honestly just don't know if I should ever try and top what I did two weeks ago in Chicago. I wish I could freeze time and hold that race as my top race forever. Can I just retire as a runner now? Or a marathoner? I want to run more marathons, but I don't know that I could ever beat that time!! I feel like everything in the world came together for me perfectly on that day. I had a flat course, I had friends I saw all throughout the course evenly up until the very end, I had perfect weather, I had arguably the most fans that a race could have, and so much more to keep me going. I have been thinking about marathons for next year and New York City Marathon is a strong possibility, but I also know that is a tough course and probably achieving that same time or faster would be a way stretch! Can 3:58 be my marathon time forever?
And then I remember that no matter what it is my marathon time. Nobody can take that away even if I never run a race in that time ever again. Pain is temporary people. Internet race results are forever.
Anyways, over the past week I got back into a routine of running and meeting up with my friends in the morning for a week of 3-5-3.5 mile runs Tuesday through Thursday.
Along with some yoga on Monday night, and a few new classes I tried out at the gym as well. I did a barre class at my regular gym (so not an "official" barre class at a studio) on Thursday, an "ab blast" class on Friday, and a circuit training workout on Saturday followed by a 12-mile bike ride. I also apparently didn't take many pictures except for when I was wearing my Chicago Marathon shirt, woohoo!
The bike ride on Saturday was just a bit longer than the ride I did the weekend before but different because I rode on the street and over some major hills. I tried to get myself to think back when I was first starting out with running. I didn't concern myself with pace whatsoever. It was all about being consistent and getting comfortable and getting myself out there. I am sure I was dreadfully slow and I stopped myself a number of times to just take deep breaths while on the bike - which was more about anxiety than the toughness of the ride. Riding my bike through traffic on major roads scares the CRAP out of me. Especially since I am clipping in to my bike.
Before I went out on my ride on Saturday I fell off the bike when I was still in the parking lot of my apartment complex when I was trying to clip in. It was embarrassing and I also skinned my knee and elbow. I still rode and ended up going further and having a better ride than I initially imagined, so I was really happy with it. My plan in this "off season" is to continue to challenge myself, be consistent while the weather still allows it, and get more comfortable!
With all that I did do, I also skipped a few workouts. I skipped a Tuesday evening workout to go to an event at the Civil and Human Rights Museum.
I skipped my swim on Friday morning after staying up later than planned on Thursday and cut my workout in the evening short so that I could get home and be on time for my evening plans.
I skipped my run on Sunday to spend the morning cheering on my friends as they did their OWN run. WHICH, was amazingly fun and I am becoming a pretty awesome cheerer if I say so myself. At this race, we had a surprise guest cheerer in the form of my friend Shayla, in town from law school, who joined another friend and I, surprised some of our crew by being with us along the course to cheer. Which, along with my signs, made for some of the most amazingly memorable moments in race cheering history. Seeing Janet see Shayla on the course was so much fun. And the hysterical police officer trying to direct traffic right by us, made for an incredibly memorable morning.
Cheering at the run alone wouldn't have caused any problems, but from there I went to the Patriots MeetUp to watch the Pats play the Jets and from there I went to a book club meeting and with all that excitement... well... the 6-mile run I had planned just didn't happen.
I did get to the gym after work today and run the 6 miles that I had planned for Sunday. I do have half marathon coming up in a few weeks that I want to be able to finish!! Muscle memory is a thing, right?
Happy Monday guys!
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