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NYC Marathon Training Week 6

July 30, 2012 · by Ari ·

My last week at CGST has come and gone, along with week 6 of marathon training, and my first skipped run… Whoops. Too many people I love that I was saying goodbye to, too much excitement with Steve coming up to visit, and maybe a little too much booze. I’ll admit it. Today is Monday, and I haven’t run since Thursday. However, I did accomplish a 5 minute plank, and ride a double surrey (with the fringe on the top) in the meantime, so I’ll say it was still a successful week. The most exciting part is probably my 10 mile time trial. Here’s how it went down.

Monday–10 mile time trial in 1:34:45. My half marathon PR is a 9:32 pace. This run averaged 9:28, and granted that’s not hugely faster, and it is shorter, I wasn’t racing. I had a huge breakthrough on this run, in fact! For the first time, I don’t know, ever, I didn’t stalk my garmin. I would check in every song or so, and look at my pace at the mile beeps, which may still sound like a lot, but my face is usually glued to that thing! This time, instead, I ran by feel, and negative split every single mile. Here, let me show you:

  1. 10:42 (mostly uphill)
  2. 9:53
  3. 9:48
  4. 9:45
  5. 9:39
  6. 9:22
  7. 9:14
  8. 9:12
  9. 8:56
  10. 8:14 (mostly downhill)
Who.Am.I.? GAHHH. I learned so much about myself, and how I often set myself up for failure on this run. Usually I go back and forth between “You can never maintain this pace! Slow down, you’re not good enough!” and “Look how slow you’re going! You suck!” It was so amazing to just run, and think “This feels good.” Now if only they could all be like that. In other good news, I felt great the whole rest of the day, and not sore, and exhausted like I had raced, so I feel at least mildly hopeful that I can average a good 20 seconds quicker than that in San Diego.

Wednesday–Track, 1-1-2-1-3-1-4-4-3-1-2-1-1-1. I think there was supposed to be an other 4 in there. Whoops. Didn’t do that one. I did, however, figure out the lap button! I didn’t have to stop and start after every interval. It was magical. If you press the lap button on your garmin when you start a new interval, it will show you your pace and distance on each lap separately. I was kind of lame and walked my easy intervals, but my hard ones went pretty well.

1min–6:29
2min–7:10
3min–7:53
4min–8:03
3min–7:57
2min–7:48<–grrr
1min–6:19<–eeee!!

I don’t care if it was only 1 minute, 6:19 makes me excited. The end.

Thursday–Recovery run. 3 miles. More crawled than ran. There was coffee at the end. That was my favorite part.

Friday–5 minute plank. That was awesome, other than being beat out by my student who set the female record for the summer at close to 7 minutes. I also had a male student do 10. Rude. I want to be a man. Except I like dressed.

Saturday–work, work, work, work, beer. That’s all.

Sunday–Owning that surrey. Steve, Tali, Camille, Xander, and I tried to set the double surrey record on the Steele/Hawthorn bridge loop. I mean, hills are hard with 5 people. It almost felt like exercise 😉

That’s all for me for now, friends. I am in Maui with Steve beginning our honeymoon (a year and a half later…), so I will be taking a real world haitus. I do have an awesome guest post coming to you soon though from my BBFF, and I will be back next week!

Filed Under: Uncategorized · Tagged: fitness, marathon training, NYCM, portland, running, surrey

NYC Marathon Training Week 5

July 24, 2012 · by Ari ·

Hi friends! Week 5 of training was a tough one, but it was great! Here’s a little about what went down.

Monday–5.21 miles, 10:21 average pace, 314 ft elevation gain. I don’t really know how to measure elevation gain or what that really means in the scheme of things. I do know that Coach Susan prescribed hills, so every time I saw a hill I yelled to my friends “HILL!!! We must run that way!” I also know that it was hard, but that could just be because I’m a wimp. Okay, it probably is because I’m a wimp, but I felt the opposite of wimpy afterwards, and I felt like my pace was decent, all things considered.

Tuesday–2.9 miles including 6 hill repeats. I warmed up at basically a crawl, found a hill closer than anticipated, so decided my .7 mile warm up was sufficient, then ran up the hill a bunch of times walk/jogging down. The hill was shorter than I think it was supposed to be. Only about a tenth of a mile, but it had 33ft of elevation gain–whatever that means–and it felt like a good challenge. I averaged about an 8:30 pace running up, and definitely got slower as I went on rather than faster. Whoops. My first time with a hill workout, so I’ll try to not positive split the next time 🙂

Thursday–11.1 miles, 10:20 average pace. This run was not bad. Really, it was actually mostly good, but after running pretty challenging workouts Sunday, Monday and Tuesday all in a row, and then just the combination of that with dancing all day, and not sleeping enough (I know, that’s a huge change, right?), and I just felt not quite 100%. It felt hard. Not impossible, just hard. Still managed to run the last mile in 8:45, though!

Saturday–4 miles. 10:56 average pace. I have a secret. A surprise of sorts. Are you ready? It’s shocking, and ground breaking. Recovery, actual recovery, is AWESOME!!!!! Running slow is FUN! You get to look around, and not feel like you’re gonna die, and people watch! Plus, it’s a really nice mental break to not let a number that flashes on your watch dictate how you feel about your run. I use my recovery runs to recover more often. You’re welcome for the brilliance. Stay tuned for more ground breaking discoveries.

Sunday–Actual rest. Lovely, as usual. I have never appreciated rest days as much as I have this summer!

 

Spoiler: Week 6 is off to an AMAZING start! Can’t wait to share it with you at the end!

Filed Under: Uncategorized · Tagged: fitness, marathon training, NYCM, running

NYC Marathon Training Week 4

July 17, 2012 · by Ari ·

Wait, that was week 4 already? I totally typed week 3, then realized that was wrong. Oy! Last week was really great. I felt really motivated, and I felt like my pace was starting to pick up a bit. I had the fastest long run I’ve had in a long time (ever?), and made a comeback to double digit runs after almost 2 months away. Success. Also, I raced and PRed. Here’s how it went down.

Monday: 4 miles. 9:36 average pace that felt easy, and awesome. One of those “I love life, I want to run forever and ever!!!!” type of runs.

Wednesday: 3.1 miles. 9:43 average pace. My body was tired. My mind was tired. My Legs were tired. My abs here are always tired. Abs 3-4x a day is simultaneously the best and worst part of my job. Anyway, I was doing too much the beginning of last week on too little sleep. Wasn’t taking excellent care of myself, and Wednesday I felt pretty much like crap, but running helped a little, and I forced myself to sleep that night for…

Thursday: 10.25 miles. 10:13 average pace. Negative splits. Last mile (okay, it WAS downhill, but I’m still excited!) in 8:31. Serious runners high. Also, great friends got my through. They’re awesome. Best way to train for a marathon? Make all of your friends run with you at all times. Also, people get all happy and get their own runners high and are super appreciative, and make you feel motivational or something. It’s cool. I like it.

Saturday: Actual rest. Holla.

Sunday: Be The One Run. Here’s my recap 🙂

Week 4 of training = success. Still riding the excited train.

Fundraising: My fundraising page is still sitting at $600. I haven’t been able to do as much work in that department here in Portland, but please don’t hesitate to check out my for sale page, or click over to make a donation. 🙂

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized · Tagged: be the one run, chances for children, friends, marathon training, running

NYC Marathon Training Week 3

July 9, 2012 · by Ari ·

This last week of training felt really great! I feel like I’m finally getting back to myself, and my body is adjusting to the amount of energy I need to be up here. Sweet. After my time trial, Coach Susan sent me my suggested training/racing paces:

LR 10:10-11:10
Marathon 10:00
1/2 M 9:10
10k 8:40
5k 8:20
Mile 7:30
LT 8:40-9:10
400 @mile-5k 1:54-2:05
800 @5-10k 4:10-4:18
1200 @5-10k 6:12-6:27

I’ll have to ask her what LT means, because I just realized I don’t know that one. Some of these paces seem sliiiiightly ambitious. Not the training ones, but the racing ones. An 8:20 5K??? What??? Maybe that just means I’m faster than I think I am 🙂 Here’s how my training went last week.

Monday: 4 mile run. 10:06 average pace. The beginning felt hard. Well the beginning of every single run here feels hard because they all start uphill. But the rest of it felt pretty good.

Tuesday: Dance dance dance dance. All day long.

Wednesday: 10×1 min intervals. 2 mile warm up that I practically crawled through, then 10×1 min intervals with 1 min resting intervals. I tried to find the track I found the previous week, but got confused, so we ended up at a park that was pretty hilly. Not super ideal for speed training, but it all evened itself out. Averaged 7:17 on working intervals (with the last one around 6:45–I know it’s just a minute, but yikes!), then did a slow jog for .3 miles back to camp for my cool down. It’s funny, 1 min sounds like such a small amount of time, but half way through each interval, I felt like I was dying, but in the best way possible!

Thursday: 4 mile recovery run. Tired legs. 10:24 average pace.

Friday: Rest-ish. I mostly stretch with my classes on Fridays, so I just took a nice walk in the morning, and was able to keep the rest of the day pretty chill.

Saturday: 6 mile run. This run felt AWESOME! I just wanted to keep going, and going, and going! Ran with great friends–did I mention that I’ve only done 1 run solo since I got here? I’m so grateful! I will run alone, but I almost always prefer the company, and it’s nice to feel like I am able to inspire other people to run. Averaged 10:19 pace, and ended feeling great.

Sunday: Rest. Lovely.

You know, I was a little concerned about being about to keep up with my training while away from my team, and with such an intense schedule, but it’s really been great. If anything, having so many people that I am living with that know my goals is pushing me to never skip a run. For the first time in my entire life, I feel like a leader as far as running goes, and it is the most incredible feeling. I never imagined someone would tell me that I inspired them to run. It seems almost unreal, but I am beyond happy. I am feeling really solid about the training process right now, and if anything, I feel eager for MORE! Coach Susan told me that I could skip out on my recovery runs since I am so active here, but I don’t want to skip out on anything! I am going to ride the motivation wave for as long as it lasts!

What did you do last week?? Tell me about your workouts/training/awesomeness!

Filed Under: Uncategorized · Tagged: fitness, marathon training, NYCM, running

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

June 18, 2012 · by Ari ·

Hello from Ashland, OR! Tons of exciting things happening right now! Yesterday, I left Phoenix for the next 7 weeks. I’m on a little bit of a vacation for the next few days visiting my friend Mandie, then teaching/directing/choreographing in Portland, then off to Maui for my (late) honeymoon. Whew. Can you imagine packing for that many things at once? It was a little ridiculous. Even Clementine thought so.

“Mom. I think you’re forgetting something. If you don’t pack me, who will run circles around your neck and nibble on your nose all summer? Huhhhh???”

It’s definitely going to be a challenge to be away from Steve for the next 6 weeks. Before I left, he took me on the best date ever. This guy. He is amazing. It started out with my first trip ever to the baking supply store!

Then dinner at Bandera.

They have the bessssst cornbread!

Yummmmm.

Baking store and bread? Clearly, he know the way to my heart. 😉

I arrived in Ashland late last night, and pretty much went straight to bed. I can’t stay with Mandie because she has a cat, but she put me up in a super cute hotel down town! It kind of reminds me of a fancier hostel. There’s a shared bathroom, but private rooms, and the rooms are super cute and homey looking.

I woke up bright and early this morning. Of course. Why would my body ever possibly let me sleep in? Actually, it wasn’t bad, though. I looked at my phone, and it read 52 degrees, and I looked outside and saw clouds, and felt a beautiful breeze. I couldn’t wait to get outside, get my workout in, and explore the city! Today is the first official day of my marathon training. I had high hopes that my body would be like “OMG marathon training!! ALL BETTER!! Run all you want, Ari!” You can call me silly, but I prefer idealistic 😉

The truth is, running still hurts. Almost immediately. But it’s okay. I had surgery less than 2 weeks ago, and as much as I would love to wear a cape and stuff, I’m not super woman. The good news is it’s so early that this won’t set me back, and the mileage is really low, so I can walk my training plan until I’m back to normal. I actually forgot how great walking can be! I walked around downtown Ashland before finding Lithia Park that Mandie had mentioned to me when we drove in last night.

This park was absolutely gorgeous!! I really wished I had brought my camera with me, and not just my phone. I will definitely have to go back before I leave. I did manage to capture a bit of it on the android, though.

This beautiful creek runs all the way through the park, and there are tons of benches, and places to sit, as well as little paths down to the water. If I lived here, I would be here every day. The road started off paved, then turned into a trail.

I just kept walking, and let myself kind of get lost in there. I had been so excited to get out this morning, I hadn’t even thought to grab my ipod, and I ended up being really glad to be out there without it, and just be with nature. I saw lots of other walkers, a few runners (jealous face), and even some people doing yoga! Everyone was super friendly. In fact, I am kind of obsessed with this town. If I never make it back to Phoenix, you know why…

I have this thing for water. Maybe it’s because I grew up in the desert.

And the coolest part? I saw DEER!!!!!

I was walking by, and I heard rustling. The next thing I knew I was 3 feet away from these deer, staring them in the face. They weren’t the least bit frightened of me. How cool!!! Speaking of, I don’t know if I ever mentioned the time Nicole and I went on a driving adventure in Tempe, and saw a zebra in someone’s back yard?

Not quite as cool as the deer, but definitely interesting, haha. Can you imagine owning a zebra? Anyway, now I’m sitting at Starbucks enjoying some hot coffee.

Ohhh, how I’ve missed you. Grande bold coffee, 2 pumps sf mocha, 1 pump sf caramel, steamed soy.

Also, I have some really exciting news! A couple of weeks ago, I finally did something that I’ve wanted to do for quite some time, and I applied to be a FitFluential ambassador. I never thought in a million years that I would be accepted, but last night I received an email inviting me to join the team, and I am BEYOND thrilled!!! What an amazing opportunity to be a part of a community I value so highly with other bloggers that I admire. I am a lucky gal!

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized · Tagged: ashland, bandera, clementine, fitfluential, friends, marathon training, restaurants, starbucks, steve, travel

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