Every Wish That We Put Into Motion.... (comments welcome!)

[Herding_Cats]

Jumping in here so I have a place to stash all of my progress, (hopefully not-too-much) slacking, training planning, get advice, and generally figure out this running thing.

Hi this is me!

I'm "G" (I have one of those names that makes it way too easy to find on social media, so I'm not going to share it since these boards are publicly viewable) and I live in Northern Michigan. I recently turned 37, and I guess I was bitten by the running bug last summer when my sister-in-law convinced me to sign up for a half marathon for her birthday; the promise was 13.1 miles and then donuts. As we all know, the world went topsy-turvy in 2019 and the race was switched to virtual. I now want all the medals.

I've always been a competitive/ team sport person, primarily softball and basketball. Since I turned 7 I've only not played softball for 2 summers. This peaked in my late 20s when DH and I were playing 4 nights a week and playing in a tournament most weekends from June-August. Now we just coach all of the things (soccer, basketball, baseball, and coordinate the youth baseball/softball teams) for our kids.

Making the switch to running was a big mental hurdle for me because I know I will never win a race I'm in. Ever. And running just for the sake of running was never appealing to me. Plus, I'm a pretty competitive person. I guess age (HAH!) and wisdom has mellowed me out quite a bit because I'm a lot more able to just enjoy the process now, something I'm trying to pass down to my kids. I'm also working on getting DH on-board because he's kind of a workaholic and needs a stress-outlet, PLUS he had a stent put in at age 37 due to having crappy cardio genetics, so he NEEDS to be doing cardio.

2021 will be the year of ALL THE PRs (mostly because it will be the year of all of the first races.)

 

[Herding_Cats]

What I'm working with
I generally consider myself a "fit" person just because I have 4 kids to keep up with, and we "do" a lot of things (coaching, we live in an outdoor-sports paradise, and have active hobbies) but I also recognize that I struggle with consistency and in between workout plans I am very good at doing the serious sloth.

Spoiler: All of the Beachbody programs I've done are in here.

I've been a Beachbody fan for a long time, and I actually enjoy lifting. I've done most of a round of P90x, a full round of P90x3 (and several partial rounds), most of a round of T25 (I didn't like it, but knew it was helping my cardio so I slogged through.)

In 2018 I did my SIL and I did a round of 80 Day Obsession and that was the fist time she asked my to run a half with her, which I laughed at because OMG 13 MILES NO WAY.

In 2019 I had my 4th baby, and didn't do any real workout programs.....just some walking. I did try to do Autumn's pre/post natal workouts but fell off the wagon pretty quickly.

2020: Did 21 Day Fix, A Little Obsessed, 80 Day Obsession, A Little More Obsessed, and half of LIIFT4 before I tweaked something in my finger so I couldn't hold a weight for more than about a minute. I did almost 8 weeks of the Higdon Novice 2 Half plan (I got to the 10 mile run day) when our race went virtual and pretty much fell off the wagon the next day. I credit all of my program-finishing to the fact that we had NO SUMMER BASEBALL due to covid. In a normal year I would be at the ball fields 4-5 days a week coaching at least one team, assisting with teeball (doing bench-control), or "umpiring." Not having that freed up an ENORMOUS amount of time.

2021: SIL and I started MBF right after Christmas, and have made some decisions about what we think we want to accomplish this year.

I'm generally much more motivated to workout in the winter, and it's a good thing since our winters tend to be long and not-sunny. Exercise helps prevent the anxiety/depression issues that run widely on my side of the family. I've always disliked "cardio" workout videos, which just meant that whenever I did any running it was hard and I hated how difficult it felt and therefore I was "not a runner."

I also know that my personality is to dive into something ALL THE WAY and I have a hard time following all the way through. I recognize that running is the thing that I'm diving into right now.

 

[Herding_Cats]

The plan and goals for 2021

You guys. I have a 2 page, color coded google sheet of a training plan. I have my running training plan laid out for the next 9 months and that's slightly terrifying.

Cross Training:

Complete MBF (one week to go!)
Start and complete MBFA (3 weeks)
Something to fill the 3 weeks between MBFA and starting Higdon again
Something to do during the early/low mileage weeks of Higdon?



"Races" I'm currently registered for:

-WonderWoman Virtual 10k (I was supposed to do this before Halloween but life got crazy and I completely stopped running)

-Princess Virtual 5k (to be run on-site the weekend it was supposed to happen)

-Princess Virtual Fairytale Challenge (considering double-dipping with the north mitten half by doing an extremely easy 10k the day before the half)

-StarWars Virtual 5k (working this into my half training)

-North Mitten Half Marathon-May 30th (with my SIL, got DH to sign up for the 10k!)

-Sleeping Bear Half Marathon-October 2nd? (SIL and I are considering upgrading this to the full...I think it's more ME considering than her at this point)

-WDW Marathon 2022??? this would be 13 weeks after Sleeping Bear, and at this point I'm unsure if I would want to commit the money to a distance I may hate/be realistically unable to complete without being swept. But it would be "for my birthday" and that's an exciting thing to think about right now when it's winter and everything is shut down.


GOALS FOR 2021

MENTAL CHALLENGE GOALS
1.) Actually run a race.
2.) Complete my virtual Fairy Tale Challenge (doing the runs on back-to-back days as intended)
3.) Complete my training plan(s) and not quit 8 or 10 weeks in like I usually do.
4.) REMEMBER THAT IT'S OK TO HAVE TIME FOR JUST ME,TO DO SOMETHING FOR MYSELF

RUNNING-SPECIFIC GOALS
1.) get my half marathon pace under 11min.
2.) sub 60-min 10k
3.) Full Marathon?

BODY GOALS
1.) Lose about 10 pounds- I have my annual physical on Tuesday and I know she'll mention it
2.) Do enough self-care to hopefully stay injury-free
3.) Actually get the PT I need to take care of some lingering post-partum stuff

 

[Herding_Cats]

Also stashing this here so I have an easy place to find it.

With paces I dug up from our July 2020 conversation:

View attachment 547540
View attachment 547541

 

[jmasgat]

You are very ambitious! I got a little tired reading about your workouts. Good luck with your training---remember not to burn yourself out or beat yourself out when the inevitable setback happens.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Congrats on starting a journal! You've got this!

-WDW Marathon 2022??? this would be 13 weeks after Sleeping Bear, and at this point I'm unsure if I would want to commit the money to a distance I may hate/be realistically unable to complete without being swept.

Outside of an injury, I believe with 100% confidence you can finish the WDW Marathon 2022 without being anywhere close to being swept. You are likely to finish the race hours before the race course closes.

 

[C.beara]

Wow! I’m looking forward to reading along, you’ve got some amazing goals lined up!

 

[Herding_Cats]

Week of Jan 4th (oh look! I'm already behind!)

-Completed MBF week 2. Had fasting bloodwork on Friday, and then had to get groceries, and all of the running around obliterated baby's normal nap routine. I missed my workout this day, but doubled up on Sunday to stay "on schedule." Since these workouts are around 30min, this is easy to do.
-Already seeing a lot of progress in the weights I'm able to use. I'm being very careful about how hard I push the weights though, since the week I originally started the program I thought I had backed off enough, and then literally could not walk up (well UP was possible, DOWN was the problem) the stairs for 3 days.
-I'm considering adding in 1-2 miles on the treadmill next week when I start MBFA. The workouts look like they're around 5-10min longer than what I'm doing right now, so adding1-2 miles should put me at around the hour mark for workouts.

Committed to the containers for 21 Day Fix eating. I'm going with calorie bracket A, but also not beating myself up if I have an "extra" yellow since I'm almost into bracket B, and still nursing the baby. As it stands, it's a LOT less carbs than I would normally eat if left to my own devices. I typically have a huge cortisol response when I start working out, so I'm not banking on actually losing any weight for at least another 2-4 weeks. I did let myself have a "cheat day" on my birthday, when we had mexican food and margaritas from a local place. I hope they keep doing the take-out margs this summer because they are SO GOOD and that restaurant is always packed.


My Amazon wishlist tells me that the New Balance 1080s that I've been eyeing for 6 months are getting clearanced out because they just released this year's model. My current shoes are 880s. Google tells me that they are both neutral shoes, with the 1080 being more "cushion-y" and having a 2mm smaller drop (I think?) Depending on how the timing works out this morning I might stop at the local running store and see if they have them in stock and hope that they also have them on sale or will price match. Having a 2nd pair of shoes is a good idea, right?

 

[Herding_Cats]

I'm starting to feel like I want to add in some running with my other workouts. Gosh it's weird to think that I'm wanting to run?! Who am I?? Trying to decide on mileage or duration. Probably going to start with intervals or just really brisk walking (15m/m pace.) I know I need to do something before I just jump in with 3 miles the first week of March.

Had my physical yesterday, my Dr said I'm super healthy and kept asking me "are you sure you're from the family you say you are?" because I have thus-far managed to avoid all of the usually-genetically-linked stuff that runs on both sides (cholesterol issues, anxiety/depression issues, weight issues, etc.) She said nothing about my weight, although there is something in the coding about it on my appointment summary LOL.

She faxed a referral for me for PT, and seemed extremely positive that it would really benefit me, but did mention that she was pretty sure they did NOT accept my insurance. The good news is that next month they WILL be accepting my insurance. The bad news is that they are booked up until MARCH 22. I'm on the cancellation call list, but still. That's 10 weeks. I knew they're a super busy practice, but I was thinking more like 4-5 weeks out.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Weekly recap:

MBF Week 3
-Monday: Lower Body
-Tuesday: Core Circuit
-Wednesday: Upper Body + 1 mile on the treadmill
-Thursday: Core Circuit + 2 miles on the treadmill....did my easy/recovery interval pacing, which is supposed to be 80/30 but i bumped up to 90/30 because it's just easier to keep track of on the treadmill timer, at around 13:30min/mi
-Friday: off--went to the chiropractor and hopefully my arms stop tingling when i do overhead lifts or stretches
-Saturday: Full Body and Power Ignite (making up for skipping Friday) and snow tubing for DS2's birthday.
-Sunday (tomorrow): Recovery/Mobility

My original plan was to go from MBF directly into MBFA but I'm not sure if I want to do that at this point. I really like that there's music built into the workouts to help with pacing the lifting movements. However. There's a lot of "jump rope" type movements, which makes the workouts feel more like cardio than lifting. The workouts in MBFA are about 5-10 min longer which still keeps them all under 40min, but I don't enjoy the "zoom meeting" style of these workouts as much as 21DF or 80DO for example because it's really hard to see the modifier and there are a lot less form cues than I like. I've done enough of these things at this point to be able to figure a modifier out, but the visual style isn't my favorite.

I'm trying to decide if I want to just gut it out because "it's only 3 weeks" or switch to something else like LittleObsessed or even 21DF. I think I want to avoid LIIFT4 at this point because I really still need to work on building my strength back up before I go for the "max out" style that program encourages.

I have 4.5 weeks until SIL and I (hopefully) head to WDW for 4 days, and then 2 weeks once we get back and I start training for the half in May. I KNOW I willl get bored do LittleObsessed for essentially 6 weeks. Maybe I'll just see how I feel on Monday, and just pick something. I definitely need the structure of a program to complete or I'll just skip days.

I've also missed out on TWO used spin bikes this week on FB marketplace. I'm always the 2nd person to message them. I don't *need* one at this point, but knowing that they're really hard to find right now, I'm trying to stay on top of checking for one.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Remind me to not jokingly mention "hey, it's only like $40/month to just finance a new bike" because DH pulled the trigger on a schwinn ic4 this morning. I'm hoping it doesn't actually take the full 4 weeks for it to get shipped, but even if it does, he's not going to have time to really use it until mid-march because BASKETBALL FINALLY STARTED THIS WEEKEND. he seems excited about it, which is good, so hopefully he will actually USE the thing.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Midway through week 1 of MBFA and I'm glad I decided to just go for it. It's definitely a lot more challenging, but in a doable way, so that's nice. Yesterday (a circuit core day) one of the moves was a reverse lunge and then 2 alternating plyo lunges and I was actually able to DO THEM. Plyo ANTYING (especially lunges) are seriously my kryptonite, so to be able to do them was such an affirmation of just pushing through and knowing that I *CAN* do the stuff even when my brain tells me it's too hard. I also feel like that stemmed from all the miles I was putting in last summer....knowing that I had the fitness base to be able to go out and run 9 miles translated into knowing I had the fitness base to at least decide to ATTEMPT plyo moves.

I ordered a hydration vest off Amazon today (from the recommendations in the running thread) because it was only $60. Technically I "should have" ordered a size smaller, but it was $110 for that one so I'm hoping I can just really cinch it down, and if not: free returns.

I have some annoying achiness in my left foot today (probably from my shoes I'm wearing for my lifting workouts) that I also had last year when I started running, before I got good shoes. Different shoes for THAT will take priority over a 2nd pair of running shoes unless we get another $1400 in stimulus. That being stated, I'm not going to run today, and instead will be icing my foot since that helped quite a bit last year.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Weekly wrap up (because tomorrow is going to be jam-packed)

Monday: lower body
Tuesday: core circuit
Wednesday: upper body
Thursday: off (the baby has started waking up at 5:30 every morning and I’m only getting around 6 hours per night and it’s exhausting me)
Friday: core circuit
Saturday: full body
Sunday (tomorrow): power ignite and maybe the stretch video

I ordered new cross training shoes on Friday because my feet are killing me and it’s working it’s way up into my ankle/calf/shin area. Fingers crossed they help. They should be here on Monday. If they resolve the achiness I’ll start running next week, if not I’ll put it off until I wrap up mbfa (2 weeks before princess weekend, when sil and I are doing the 5k.). I’m lifting heavier in everything compared to similar moves from the first 3 weeks, so that’s nice to see on the tracker sheets. I could probably go a little heavier on a new things but I also want to be able to walk the next day. Grip strength is definitely needing a lot of improvement, but is also better than when I started.

I’ve started purging and organizing the basement so we have a place ready to go when the spinbike gets here (it’s supposed to ship within the next 3 weeks.) Someone in a different group just got their shipping notice at 2.5 weeks after order when Schwinn said 4-6 weeks, so fingers crossed I get one next week. Dh may need it here sooner than later as the state health department just pushed back the start of basketball games AGAIN, and our state high school sports association had previously said if that happened they were cancelling the season. I have 2 really disappointed kids and a very annoyed husband/coach.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Monday: lower body
Tuesday: core circuit
Wednesday: off
Thursday: upper body AND core circuit (HOLY SIDE SIT-THROUGHS BATMAN!)
Friday: full body
Saturday (tomorrow): power ignite
Sunday: stretch

Wrapping up week 2 of MBFA. ONE WEEK LEFT! Enjoying these workouts still (surprisingly?!) and there's enough going on on the screen with the zoom meet-style video that the few times the baby has woken up from her nap earlier than anticipated, she was distracted enough by me and the screen to not scream while I did that last 15min of a workout.

I had a big Amazon order fail. My new shoes for cross training were way too big, and so was the hydration vest. Thank goodness for free returns. The "good" news is that my feet and legs have magically stopped bothering me this week, so maybe I'll take the money I was going to spend on the shoes and put it toward the correct size vest. And since my feet have stopped bothering me, I'm going to start running next week while I wrap up MBFA. Kind of having a mini mental freak-out that SIL and I are planning on doing our princess 5k in 3 weeks and I haven't really done any running in months and months. That's kind of kicked my brain into pulling all of the details together for starting my half training when we get back from our trip.

And now for phase 1 of the-big-training-plan-of-2021-this-is-how-i'm-coping-with-covid-shutdown-fatigue. AKA the half marathon [and cross]training plan.

I'm planning on doing the lifting portion of liift4 in addition to my running, and by starting that on the weekend, I will be more likely to be able to get all of the workouts in since the older kids (or DH if he's not working) will be home do handle baby-sitting if I can't fit the longer runs AND the lifting into nap time. This also gives me Mondays and Fridays off completely, so I'll have options for days to run errands, do the grocery shopping, etc. and not have to figure out how to finagle the baby missing nap time and still completing workouts/runs. I'll probably have to try to schedule PT into those 2 days when that starts. Leg day falls on "pace" run Wednesdays, and then I have 2 days off from lifting (which includes one complete rest day) before my weekly long run, which seems like it would work out well. We will see. "Cross" sundays will more than likely be spin bike.

Last year my 3 mile runs were taking right around 40min at my easy A/B pace, so during the weekdays my total workout time shouldn't exceed 90min/day until I start hitting that 5 mile mark, which also happens to be when I should be done with liift4.

I'll probably start deciding in early April what to do for lifting in May and beyond. We usually coach one of the middle school baseball teams (who knows if we will have a season?) and coordinate the youth summer baseball/softball league for our township (which has been 3-4 baseball teams and 0 softball teams the last 3 years.) We usually also coach at least one of those teams since our older kids play, so May and June tend to get really, really busy for us. Plus that's when DH will probably want to start camping and I'm NOT taking my weights or bands with us on those weekends.

I am absolutely open to tweaks, changes, or suggestions about this calendar. I like to get all of the "thinking and figuring" for stuff done ahead of time so that when I start the program I don't have to wonder and second guess myself.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Seems like a reasonable plan to me. See how you feel with lifting four times per week or whether the time commitment becomes too much. It's certainly a lot to put on your plate in total.

 

[Herding_Cats]

MBFA complete. Did all of the workouts on their assigned days this week (didn't skip a day and double up to compensate) which is something I don't think I've managed for the past few.

Monday: lower body + a 20min "low impact" spin workout....computer said 6 miles. spinning is definitely different.
Tuesday: core circuit
Wednesday: upper body + 2 miles
Thursday: core circuit + 1.5 miles
Friday: full body + 2 miles
Saturday: power ignite
Sunday: stretch + a spin workout (30min)

I've enjoyed these workouts, but I'm ready for something different. I feel like my attention span for her training style is waning. I prefer more form cues, especially with the compound moves, and the fact that many of the moves are different every week. I'm going to circle back to "A Little Obsessed" for the next week and a half and get more consistent with the running. SIL and I leave for WDW on the 18th for our "momcation" and will be running our princess 5k at one of the resorts while we are there. She's quite a bit faster than I am, so I don't want to be slowing her down too much.

I'm doing all of my running at my EA/EB pace or recovery pace from last year's pace chart. My HR is higher than I'd like it to be, but I know my workouts have been more lift-y and less cardio-y, so I think it'll get straightened out in a couple of weeks. According to my fitbit and my garmin I'm skirting that upper edge of my "cardio zone" and occasionally jumping into '"peak" zone; I can definitely feel the difference in effort when this happens and have been trying to back off the pace when that happens. The stubborn side of my just wants to push through since my mileage is low right now. I'm trying to be patient with myself, but the running feels really yucky right now. Last year I feel like it took my a good 30min before things would start to "click" and I was basically slogging through the first couple of miles, and right now I'm stopping around the time things would start to feel "good." Le sigh.

On the other hand, I'm REALLY thankful for my treadmill because we got about a foot to a foot and a half of snow since Friday night, and it's supposed to be in the single digits for about a week. I don't like the cold, and if I were someone who was dependent on outdoor running I would not be doing ANY right now.

OH! And I did end up getting the NB1080s because my fantasy football winnings were a lot more than I was anticipating. They're pretty. They have felt pretty good so far, I'm just trying to figure out how tightly to lace them as the laces seem really stretchy.

Seems like a reasonable plan to me. See how you feel with lifting four times per week or whether the time commitment becomes too much. It's certainly a lot to put on your plate in total.

For sure. As a SAH parent, I kind of feel like the time commitment "excuse" is a bit thin since I don't have to figure out how to fit any of my workouts in with work hours and family time, but I know that my time and schedule are full in other ways, so I try not to put that expectation on myself.

 

[Herding_Cats]

T-minus 4 days until we leave for Princess Weekend! I had spent vouchers on the airfare from the covid-cancelled May trip DH and I were supposed to go on, so SIL and I decided to NOT cancel our mom-cation.

My goal this week was to add mileage so that I could somewhat keep up with my SIL, and then I was able to go to both of my older boys' basketball games this weekend. That means I spent a total of almost 6 hours sitting on bleachers on Friday night and Saturday morning, and my back is NOT happy with me about it. If things loosen up today I might try to do my "long run" but otherwise it's likely that I'll just hop on the bike for an hour or so.

What I DID manage to get done this week (doing "A Little Obsessed" workouts....wow do I appreciate all of the form cues now that I'm getting them in these videos):

Monday: Total Body Core + 5k on the treadmill (to see where I was at compared to SIL since she ran 5k on Sunday)
Tuesday: off
Wednesday: Booty + 2 miles
Thursday: AAA (HOLY HAMSTRINGS!)
Friday: 2 miles (this was a half day of school, and I had a bunch of extra driving around to do getting kids off the bus, back to school for the game bus, driving an hour to get to the game, etc.)
Saturday: off
Sunday: 4 miles, had to change shoes at mile 3 because my new 1080s were rubbing by my arch....might need to pull the trigger on non-Hanes socks finally.

It's blowing my mind that NEXT WEEK I start my "prep" weeks for the higdon plan.

 

[Herding_Cats]

FEB 15-21

This week turned more into "get the house/kids/suitcase ready for mom to be gone for 4 days" and workouts didn't happen (which I knew would happen, so I didn't have anything in the calendar.)

Monday-Wednesday: approximately 481 loads of laundry, all of the tidying up
Thursday: after an hour delay in snowy Chicago, we spent about 2 hours at the pool at Jambo House, dinner at Sanaa
Friday: more pool (SUNBURN!), lunch at Blast in DS, drinks from Homecomin', dinner at Morimoto
Saturday: Lunch at Homecomin' (blueberry mimosas!!), dolewhip, skyliner tour, dinner at CBR
Sunday: 5k around Bay Lake, plane ride home, 2 hours of the baby screaming at me in the car

Princess Weekend was pretty awesome, minus a small anxiety attack on Thursday night when we were having dinner at Sanaa. I'm chalking it up to being completely exhausted from a big lack of sleep leading up to Thursday (and waking up at 3am Thursday morning when I didn't need to wake up until 530 for our flight) and being away from the baby for the first time. Our server was amazing. We ended up walking almost 8 miles each day that we were gone, and ran our 5k around CBR/Riviera on Sunday morning. According to my garmin, we ran it in 37:40, with a 12:05min/mi pace, which is over a full minute faster than my easy training pace. My SIL is WAY faster than me, so it was nice to have that little push from her. Also, running in a mask sucks. SIL is fully on-board with doing the higdon plan with me, and is going to also try to do the liift4 stuff.

DH (who I am sort-of dragging into running, and got to sign up for a May 10k back in January) went and got fitted for shoes while I was gone and ended up with NB1080s which is hilarious to me as it's the same shoe I just got. "They're SO COMFORTABLE," he says.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Theoretically speaking, would it be "OK" or completely not a good idea to run a full on 10/2 and then run the full during marathon weekend?

 

[DopeyBadger]

Theoretically speaking, would it be "OK" or completely not a good idea to run a full on 10/2 and then run the full during marathon weekend?

It's definitely doable. In 2014, I did a 11/9 then Dopey. In 2015/2016/2017, I did a 10/2 then Dopey. All with the expressed intent of giving PR level efforts. I think 12 weeks is about the bare minimum between PR level marathon efforts. But string too many of those 12 week between marathons and you're likely to stunt your ability to get better over the long term. Lots of racing and little training. Better to limit PR level marathon efforts to 2-3 times per year. It's all about what you want out of the experience though.