Tag: mlfitness

Trainer

First of three sessions with a personal trainer after work today. It’s really cool to reframe my fitness goals from the last time I had a trainer. 

Old Me: Lose weight.

Current Me: strength train and get toned with weight loss as an added bonus.

Could you possibly wear any more accessories for your run?

roommate to me

To be fair I was wearing my ipod, garmin, hydration belt w/ 2 bottles and then came back into the house to get a visor. 

0-19 miles

Just like that after a few weeks of little to no running I banged out 19 miles this week aka week 1 of marathon training.

Thanks to the heat they were not especially pleasureable miles and I am not in the shape I was in 3 months ago, but I’m back at it and getting fitter everyday!

Marathon Training Tips

One of the coordinators at ABC2 (the Brain Cancer Charity I run for) just emailed me asking:

Would you be willing to write a “letter” of training tips from your experience training for the LA Marathon that I can share with our other runners? We do something similar to this with fundraising tips from top fundraisers, but I think it would be great to have training tips from someone who actually ran a marathon as well.  Any advice/pointers, or things will help keep people motivated.  Any things that you found worked really well, or even things that did not work well for you.  It doesn’t have to be long, maybe just a short paragraph about why you chose to run a marathon with us, how you went about figuring out your training schedule, and then you could even do a bullet point list of your tips.

I feel very honored to be writing this letter to upcoming ABC2 runners and one of my tips is going to be to join a running community (in my case YOU FABULOUS FITBLRS)  for inspiration, motivation, accountability, and TIPS 

I’d love to get some tips from YOU that I can include.

What is your marathon training or overall running tip?

All The Highs That Are Better Than A Runner’s High

I love my runners high and disagree with the list, but the first few paragraphs made me laugh. 

Via Thought Catalog

By BRIAN DONOVAN 

I am never closer to death than I am in the 25th minute of a 30 minute run. I look at the people on the treadmills around me and they actually seem happy. Dancing along in their flattering workout clothes, sweating just enough to look glistening and invigorated, it’s a sickening display. Especially when I glance at the mirror in front of me and wonder why no one has called the cops. Saggy sweatpants, a worn out t-shirt from a blood drive that I definitely never donated to, and a look on my face that says “at least when the heart attack comes, I’ll be allowed to stop moving my legs.” Seriously, every time I finish jogging, I’m shocked not to see Noah Wyle standing behind me with paddles in his hands yelling “Clear!”

But other people genuinely seem to enjoy this running nonsense. Often times they’ll do it with friends, make a little activity out of it. To me, that’s like bringing a witness with you to commit a murder. Why would I want anyone to watch the atrocity of fitness that I’m about to commit, much less a person I know and care about? I don’t want people to see me work out, I don’t even want to see it myself. I’d run in a windowless room with the lights out if I could. Solitary confinement: that’s my idea of the perfect gym. But when I’m finished, when I’m done with my daily death march, I’m happy. Both because I’m still alive, and because I’m never furthest from the next jog then the minute after I’ve finished the current one. For the next 24 hours I can be fitness free, and that makes me smile. But the happiness doesn’t last. Because the second I smile, the minute I show actually human joy, another fellow runner, one of the glistening gorgeous few, will walk up to me and say “Runner’s high, right man? It’s the best.” And then everything’s ruined.

There’s no greater exaggeration known to man than that of the runner’s high. Despite my complete hatred for the activity, I’ve been a regular runner for over 10 years. I’ve also been a regular enjoyer of highs over that same period, so I can assure you, the two have very little in common. “Oh Look, All The Treadmills Are Taken, So Now I Have An Excuse Not To Run Today High”…that totally exists. Or the “I’m So Hungover That I Think I’d Puke If I Tried To Run High”…definitely a thing. But the elation of cardio? Give me a break. Satisfaction, sure, but calling it a high is a insult to everything else that makes you totally high. So, in the hope that no jogger ever walks up to me after another workout again, here is a list of many highs that are better than a runner’s high.

  • Tom Selleck Moustache High (the little jolt you get just from seeing Selleck’s Stache)
  • Sweet, There’s Still Vodka Left in This Bottle High
  • Getting a New Release from Netflix that You Totally Expected to Wait Weeks For High
  • Marijuana, Cocaine, Heroin, Vicodin, Percocet, Alcohol, Angel Dust, PCP, Opium, Ecstasy, Acid, Shrooms and Meth High (Note that we did not include crack. Running is actually better than crack. Crack is not something humans should do.)
  • Farting in Public and Not Getting Caught High
  • Hey, That Guy’s Still Alive High (when you see an actor in a movie that you could’ve sworn was dead.)
  • Unexpected Voicemail High (when you call someone you really didn’t want to talk to and magically get their voicemail.)
  • Eating Something Off the Salad Bar at Wholefoods without Getting Caught High
  • Moving a Couch High (similar in effort to the Runner’s High, except your couch is in a new place. Tangible progress)
  • Meeting an Internet Date That Actually Looks Like Their Pictures High (Particularly potent for OKCupid users, due to rarity of occurrence)

and last but not least… 

  • Open Window High (Yes, opening a window in a stuffy room actually gets you more high that going for a run)

And of course there are many, many more. So we never have to hear about Runner’s High again, right?

RPM

RPM class yesterday was everything I hoped it would be and MORE.

I can’t get over how much I missed RPM. Other cycling classes don’t compare for me. There is a RPM culture and I love it. There was hooting and hollering from participants and lots of motivation from the instructor. AND BLACK LIGHTS!

I already feel more in tune with my body than I have in weeks. I’m stoked for my 5 mile run this afternoon.

COMMITTED

Yesterday was a a big day….

I kicked off Marine Corps Marathon training with a 3 mile run and felt great. I was able to keep a solid pace and my new shoes kept my heel happy. 

I also FINALLY joined a gym. I am back at Gold’s. I was a member of a franchised Gold’s in Auburn, but now I’m at a corporate location which means I can go to all their corporate locations in a 25 mile radius with my membership. There is a BEAUTIFUL facility 2 miles from work that offers RPM at times I can do! There are some other locations 6-8ish miles from my apartment that I can use on the weekends. It seems like the best of both worlds. The was a great rate for Mason staff that is taken out bi-weekly. I also took advantage of a promotion for 3 one-hour sessions with a trainer. I have clear fitness goals, so I’m looking to a trainer to show me some stuff that I can do throughout training and also to keep from aggravating my heel injury.

Tonight I’m going to RPM and am SUPER STOKED! I also have a volleyball league game later tonight…I’m hoping we can actually WIN a game.