Half Marathon Training: Week 7

This week ended up being a recovery week. For the first half of the week, I was too exhausted to do much. Then I got busy with work and life, and exercise slipped through the cracks. I think a week off to recover is a good thing, but I'm feeling a little behind since the half marathon is only about 5 weeks away. If I don't get any 6+ mile runs in soon, I might opt for the 10K distance instead because I know I can easily run that distance. If I do a 10K, I can try to run for a good time, whereas running a half marathon will be just to see if I can finish.

Monday Matt, Lauren, and I met up with Mike and Annie at the climbing wall. Lauren and I haven't been getting fatigued after one run at each route, so we've started doing each route twice in a row. It's more time efficient that way since switching who belays between each climb is a rate-limiting step. We spent ~2 hours at the wall.

Tuesday I was too sore and exhausted from the past week so I skipped my Tuesday run. Why is climbing making me more sore the more I do it?

Wednesday I had a long day at work so I really didn't feel like running, but I promised Michelle that I would run today. I felt great as soon as I got going. We ran to Game Farm Rd and I kept a pace of 11'19" minutes per mile for the 4.12 mile run.

Thursday/Friday Rest.

Saturday I woke up on Saturday morning in Queens, ready for a weekend of sight-seeing, eating, and drinking in New York City with friends. Unfortunately, I was the only one who wanted to be awake at 8 a.m., so I went for what was supposed to be a "short" and "slow" run. I ended up keeping a 10'38" minutes per mile pace as I ran 4.58 miles up and down the Union Turnpike. I didn't see a single other runner, which is quite different than when I run anywhere in Ithaca. Everyone was still asleep when I got back, and I managed to shower and get ready before anyone else got out of bed. Apparently my definition of vacation differs from other people's (no surprise there).

Sunday Rest.

Half Marathon Training: Week 7
Week of 3/1/10 red=incomplete; green=completed

stretch & strengthen

4.5 run

3 m run or cross

4.5 m run + strength

rest

50 min cross

7 m run

Half Marathon Training: Week 6

Whew, this was one exhausting week. Luckily my body is getting stronger and can tolerate quite a bit of abuse. At least I'm going to NYC next weekend so I'll have a few days off to recover.

Monday I finally understand why my friends like climbing so much. It's physically and mentally challenging, and climbers are an awesome and friendly group of people. Mike, Matt, Lauren, and I were at the wall for 2.5+ hours. Mike is a great motivator: I was exhausted (4 consecutive nights of not being able to sleep made me grumpy), but he convinced me to do route after route.

Tuesday For the first time, climbing left me incredibly sore. I can usually feel it in my legs (oddly enough) but this time I hurt everywhere. Regardless, Michelle and I went for an afternoon run through the Plantations. I kept a 10'30" minute pace for the 4.5 mile run.

Wednesday Some acquaintances who boulder on Monday nights asked if I could show them how to belay, so today we went to the wall. It'll be nice to have more people to belay me, but I think I'll lay off teaching until I've had more experience climbing. Teaching others to belay is lot of responsibility (and teaching 3 at once is too much!). I bouldered a bit while we were there... I think I'm maybe kinda sorta starting to get the appeal.

Thursday SNOW!! Too much snow for running, so I stuck with the bike trainer today. I did ~20 minutes while watching an episode of '30 Rock.'

Friday EVEN MORE SNOW!! It took me an hour of shoveling to get from my front door to the street and another 20 minutes to begin to unearth my car. And then there was a snowball fight, snowman building, hiking downtown for a concert, another snowball fight, and unearthing another car so I could get a ride back home. That totally counts as cross training, right?

Saturday My back and core muscles are screaming from all that shoveling yesterday. Nonetheless, I still managed to go skiing at Hammond Hill with Matt, Sarah, and Jaroslav.

Sunday My pride is going to kill me. I stayed out way too late but I was still to stubborn too cancel on my morning run with Michelle. I managed to do 5.05 miles at an 11'49" minutes per mile pace. Afterward, I went to a bike workshop that was sponsored by BikeIt!, where I learned to change a flat tire, patch flats, and adjust my brakes.

Week of 2/22/10 red=incomplete; green=completed

stretch & strengthen

4 m run

2 m run or cross

4 m run + strength

rest

40 min cross

7 m run

Embracing winter

We had our first big snow storm of the winter, which was also the most snow we've received in the 2.5 years I've lived in my current house.

My house is *really* far from the street. This is the first time I've ever had to shovel my front walkway.


We snuck out of work early for some snowman building and snowball fights and then went to happy hour.


Even more skiing. The snow was incredibly sticky so it was more like hiking, but it was still really good exercise and an excellent way to get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather.

Dear iPod: I missed you, thanks for coming home

This makes me smile. Losing my iPod ended up being a far less expensive mistake than it could have been. After pondering all my replacement options, I came to the conclusion that I have the perfect setup. Before I got my Nike+, I had considered getting a Garmin Forerunner GPS or an iPhone which both do much more than just recording mileage. I've come to the realization that I don't need anything fancy. I want good battery life, a hard drive that can tolerate being dropped and sweated on, and a small size that doesn't interfere with my running.

Half Marathon Training: Week 5

I've been more conscientious about food this week, and it's definitely paying off. My meal sizes are bigger and I'm no longer hungry after every meal. I think the biggest difference is that I've started cooking with oil again. I had gotten into the habit of only using cooking spray to temper the pan. It turns out a tablespoon or two of oil makes things taste a lot better and makes the meal feel more substantial.

Monday Still not tired of climbing. Our little group added one -- Shamoni -- and merged with Mike and Arend, who were also at the climbing wall. It was fun climbing with people with more experience. They knew the wall a lot better than we do and convinced us to try the climbing routes instead of just scrambling to get to the top. We stayed for almost 3 hours.

Tuesday Michelle and I went for a run through the Plantations. She wasn't feeling well and turned around, so I did most of it on my own. It was peaceful running by myself for the first time in weeks, and I maintained a pace of 10'31" minutes per mile for the 4.5 mile run.

Wednesday I'm pressed for time this week (and every week lately) so I went to Teagle for a quick run. I did a 2.0 mile treadmill run at a pace of 10'54" minutes per mile and then did some "pull-ups" and crunches.

Thursday Hopped on the bike trainer for 40 minutes. My reward for squeezing in a ride was getting to watch an episode of "Bones" while biking.

Friday Rest.

Saturday I did 2.0 miles on the treadmill at 12'15" minutes per mile, took a break and did sit ups, then did 2.0 more miles at a pace of 12'02" minutes per mile. Running 4 miles through the Plantations is no problem, but running that amount on a treadmill is unbearably tedious.

Sunday Bummer. I dropped my iPod while running, so I turned around early to retrace my steps. Google maps combined with my watch tell me I did ~3 miles in ~36 minutes. I feel so lost without my Nike+...

Half Marathon Training: Week 5
Week of 2/15/10 red=incomplete; green=completed

stretch & strengthen

4 m run

2 m run or cross

4 m run + strength

rest

40 min cross

6 m run

Counting calories

It amazes me sometimes how much learning I have to do when it comes to staying fit and healthy. I have been ravenous lately which has led to constant snacking between meals. It finally occurred to me that I have been very active since the new year and haven't accounted for that with my meal sizes. Some rough estimates from the internet tell me that:

• A lightly active person of my age, sex and stature (28 years, female, 5'2", 110 pounds) needs 1650 calories a day to maintain a constant weight.
• A moderately active person of my stature needs 1900 calories a day to a maintain constant weight.
• A very active person of my stature needs 2150 calories a day to maintain a constant weight.

That's roughly an increase of 200 calories in intake per 30 minutes of exercise. That coincides nicely with my Nike+ run history, which shows that I burn between 300 and 500 calories per run.

I was curious how this matched with my calorie intake so I decided to calculate how many calories I eat in a normal day. During the week, I eat:

• 300-400 calories for breakfast (cereal)
• 500-600 calories for lunch (pasta)
• 600-800 calories for dinner (a burrito)
• 75 calories for an occasional dessert (half an ice cream sandwich)

which gives me a total of 1475-1875 calories a day. Some very simple math explains why I'm suddenly hungry all the time. Let's see if increasing the size of my lunch and dinner fixes the snacking problem.

Half Marathon Training: Week 4

Apparently my frequent blog posts help motivate at least one person to go to the gym. I'm still going to have a single blog entry per week, but I'll try to update it throughout the week.

Monday I'm really starting to get into climbing. I think my upper body muscles are improving which makes the activity a lot more enjoyable. Lauren, Matt R, and I spent two hours at the climbing wall after work, and I hope to make it part of our Monday routines.

Tuesday Rest. I got 3 hours of sleep on Monday night and decided it would be dangerous to try running on that little sleep. Boo insomnia.

Wednesday Missed salsa class because I was catching up on labwork since Tuesday was a bust on all fronts. I did manage to do 25 minutes on my bike trainer, a little bit of weight lifting and abdominal exercises.

Thursday I went for an evening run with Michelle. We did a loop on the East Hill Rec Trail to Game Farm Rd for a total of 4.12 miles at a pace of 11'10" minutes per mile. My left ankle has been bothering me for the last few runs, so it's time to start stretching again. The highlight of this run was catching the sunset from Game Farm Rd. Between the clear blue sky and the fields of fresh snow, it was spectacular.

Friday Rest.

Saturday It's time for some creative bookkeeping. Michelle, Brian, Shamoni, a few of Michelle's friends, and I went skiing at Yellow Barn. We spent 2.5+ hours on the trails, which I'll consider equivalent to a 3.5 mile run. Our 'Dance Therapy' party was later that evening, and 3+ hours of dancing is going to count as my 40 minutes of cross training. It was a long, long day but I'm glad I squeezed everything in.

Michelle makes a snow angel.


Dancing in the DJ booth.

Sunday Rest. My legs were sore from the abuse they received the day before. I cleaned, cooked, spent the day with the people who keep me sane, and remembered that there is more to life than exercise.

Half Marathon Training: Week 4
Week of 2/8/10 red=incomplete; green=completed

stretch & strengthen

3.5 m run

2 m run or cross

3.5 m run + strength

rest

40 min cross

5 m run