Week Thirteen: The Sweetest Taste

Week of September 2, 2013:

Monday: LONG WALK!  2 hours 36 minutes total.

Tuesday: Short evening walk, 23 minutes.

Wednesday: Off

Thursday: Evening run.  41 minutes total, with 30 minutes of running.

Friday: Short evening walk, 34 minutes.

Saturday: Bike ride to HEB for groceries

Sunday: LONG WALK!  3 hours.  Details below.

Total minutes walked/ran this week: 434.  Estimated miles: 30!  WHOA!

Today’s post is a three-parter story.  First of all, I watched No Impact Man after reading about it on Chrissy’s blog (thanks, friend!).  I really enjoyed the movie—it was a quirky, fun story about a family that embarks on a mission to reduce their environmental impact to zero (hence the title).  What I really loved about the movie is the personal growth that one of the family members experienced—and she was the family member who went along with the project to support her husband, not because it was her idea.  This person, Michelle, gives up A LOT to make the project happen: shopping, coffee(!!!do not like!!!), her television shows, even electricity and a normal refrigerator.  There’s a scene in the movie where she’s at work, and she shows us her new secret vice.

Are you ready for it?  It’s iced water.  Iced water!

The backstory is that by the time that scene rolls around, the family has given up electricity in their apartment, so there’s no ice at home.  No burning dinosaurs to cool water into a delightfully frozen state.

I too love a chilly glass of water.  But I love it more than anything on this planet during my long walks for marathon training—it is by far the highlight of those work-outs.  On Monday, when I power-walked my way to Target, I stopped by the Starbucks counter.  When I asked for a cup for water, the kind woman working behind the counter gave me not just a cup that I could fill at the drink dispenser, but a cup of iced water with a lid and a straw.  Bless you, kind Starbucks lady.  You are the best!

I think I’m getting better at this thing where I’m trying to train for a marathon in summertime Texas.  Today I was on my feet for THREE HOURS and with 36 minutes of running mixed into that.  Here is what I did differently today to make it more tolerable, despite the still-formidable heat and humidity of my training location.

* Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!  I drank a lot more water during my walking today.  Some of it was even iced, which was amazing.

* Take breaks.  Go inside, even, to stretch.  I took a few breaks to refill my water, stretch, and give myself pep talks.

* Adjust paces as needed.  Today I ran, walked, and took breaks.  I tried to keep the pace strong when I was moving, but I also tried to stay aware of how good (or not good) I was feeling.  Building endurance is a bit of an art, I think—you want to push yourself outside your comfort zone, but you do it by walking the line between discomfort and flirting with disaster.  It’s still really hot and awful outside for us here, and I need to respect the multiple challenges I’m throwing at my body during this training cycle.

I do need to step up my game in the fuel department.  I didn’t eat anything during my work-out today; I should probably have eaten something salty to make sure I replenish the salt I’m losing from sweat.  This one is hard for me because I don’t like eating during my work-outs, but I know it will help my performance.

Finally, here are the details on the running portion of today.  I mixed it up quite a bit because three hours is a long time to be on your feet.  I’m finding that a mix of walking and running is good for my muscles, especially my hips, as walking and running don’t see to use the exact same muscles with the same intensity, so running can give my tired walking muscles a bit of a break.  Does that make sense?

So, 36 minutes of running in the following forms, spread throughout three hours of training.

* Two rounds of 10-minute jogs.

* A ladder: 1 min. run, 1 min. walk, 2 min. run, 2 min. walk, 3 min. run, 3 min. walk, 4 min. run, 4 min. walk.  (That adds up to 10 minutes of running.)

* A smaller ladder: 1 min. run, 1 min. walk, 2 min. run, 2 min. walk, 1 min. run, 1 min. walk.

* And at the very end, two 1-min. run intervals.

Whee!

On the calendar for next week is a break: only one hour for the long work-out.  I’d love to do more running than walking during that one, but we’ll see how I’m feeling and how the weather is that day.  On cooler days, a 30-minute run feels great outside.  On a day like today, getting through those 10-minute running intervals was challenging.  Thank goodness that in less than five weeks, I get to fly north to much cooler temperatures.  Hopefully all of my struggling through Texas heat will pay off in Detroit!

Happy week, friends.

PS  Weekly cat picture on this blog: yay or nay?