Feb 15 2024

Here is another skinny: after several doctors appointments for the last part of January, it was discovered that I had a severe bacterial infection, a hip fracture, and a groin strain. Some of it due to under fueling. Lesson learned: fuel is a verb. DO IT.

Soooooooooooooooooooooooo, anyway,

Now i go to physical therapy once a week.

And will be,

For a while.

Goodbye.

For now.

I’ll be back.

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Bye!

Brave update 😮‍💨

I was supposed to run the SA Marathon literally one month ago today. What happened was I injured myself a few days beforehand! I guess the cookie really does crumble that way sometimes.

2024 is here and I’ve emerged from beneath my weighted blanket, wiped my swollen red crying eyes, and put my shoes on to move on. So here’s the skinny (last night my partner and I spent hours on the Way Back Machine looking at websites from the late 90s,00s and noticed that they used the phrase “the skinny” a lot.):

Jan 2024 is a recovery month. Physical therapy, stretching, massages, general prayer to heal and strengthen the system that includes my thigh, lower-back, pelvic area. Hopefully by the end of the month, I’ll be back to running short distances.

Feb 2024: pick it up!

Upward and onward, aunque sea llorando n shit. 😮‍💨

Injured

For

The

Last

Two

Weeks

-

It feels like I wanna give up but this is when I’ve gotta keep trying 😭

Got a pair of Saucony and they must be returned. They are too stiff and not because they need to be broken in. I think they are just stiff. Going for a pair of Pegasus next!

Went out for my 5AM run this morning and turning my regular corner onto my regular side road, I see that a usually empty street was partially blocked by a large moving truck, emergency lights blinking. As I jogged closer I noticed that the driver was a man praying Fajr on the sidewalk. There was something of a meditative feeling about our brief eye contact.

Early Shoal Creek Mornings

Looking out the window this AM I see that everything still looks blue outside which means the sun’s about to rise. These few minutes are full of anticipation not for whats to come but for what you are about to do. It’s sort of like that moment in art class when the teacher puts a ball of clay in front of you. There’s so much potential. In the past, I’ve let this moment come and go perhaps out of fear of ruining the possibilities in my head by doing them. Since starting this running project, I’ve leaned that it’s a moment never to be squandered. It means “go.”

Anyway, Daylight savings time started today which means the clock went back one hour, praise be, more blue light moments. I’m heading out on my longest run of the season: 22 miles. This means that I will go out for 11 miles and back, which means I will encounter many personalities ranging (in order of neighborhood, I guess) from retirees walking their dogs, first-time parents pushing strollers, weekend photo sessions at the park, flocks of university student runners, homeless folks/brunch folks colliding, pecks-out downtown runners. Shoal Creek is teeming with life lessons, and the blue tint is a reminder of that. Gawd bless long run Sundays.

It’s 8PM and I’m sitting in bed with a stuffy nose. I was about to cry a few moments ago until I remembered that I’ve been meaning to make a list of all the energy gels/food I’ve been trying out during every one of my long runs.

During my long run workouts, I need to replenish around 1700 calories (more or less) which means I should consume several packets of these lil goopy things in the span of 2-3 hours. Come marathon day, I will probably need to carry 8 of fuel sources and so I’ve been shopping around for months to find something that gives me a good balance of minimal GI issues (vom, the runs, burps) and maximum portability.

No verdict yet on what I will pick for race day, but here they are, in no particular order, my fueling gels/foods:

1. stinger waffles: while I started off hating these, they have a way of winning you over. It’s nice that they lead to very minimal burping, and better yet, the burps don’t make you gag the way the gels do. Their gigantic size and clumsy shape means I need to find a good carrying solution.

2. Huma strawberry gels: these have been my favorite although on my most recent run they gave me the gags. I just need plenty of water to flush down. I don’t know much about this company other than they claim to put chia seeds in their gels which gives you lots of energy. This pretty much checks out! I take them every 40 min. They have a similar texture to and taste almost like, if you’re familiar with Mexican candy, Lucas Pelucas (minus the spicy flavor). This is probably due to their high sodium content. Very, dare I say, fun to eat.

3. Ucan Edge gels: these were the first gels I tried. They’re not technically gel, instead they use some sort of cornstarch mixture which they claim is better than what other products typically use as the base for gels thereby reducing GI issues. Ironically, I got very burrrrpy when I tried them. They were also the first time I tried gels so I had no idea what to prepare for or expect. I may give them another try now that I have mastered the art of eating and running simultaneously.

4. Huma lemonade (caffeinated) gel: taking this was like inducing a panic attack? No good. I should say that my body is really sensitive to caffeine so i don’t typically consume caffeine other than in my morning cup of coffee. Now that I’ve tried a caffeinated gel, I’m going to stay far away. A few weeks ago, I received a HUMA sampler pack in the mail which included one gel pack with 2x caffeine lol. Just looking at it made me panic so I threw her out.

5. Honey stinger energy gel: very thick and sweet, and they don’t taste great. Water is essential to wash it down. The nice thing about these is how small they are. Very portable.

If I try any other gels I will add them to the list. But overall, I like the waffles and the salty strawberry gels. I stand by what I said months ago which is that all of this is such a show. I think a little pack of stroopwaffles, baggies of gushers, packs of honey would do the job. But here we are. 8:50PM. Good night. 🌙

I ran five one-mile intervals today, stayed consistently in the 7:20s range, but managed to get under 7 min in the first mile! 🥹

Starting to taper off after this week with being exactly one month away until my showtime. Big focus on speed workouts. For me, this is where the injuries lurk 😵‍💫

With October coming to a close, I’m thinking of ways to keep up my momentum next month.

Stay on schedule

Eat healthy

Avoid soda, alcohol, and greasy meals

Focus on building speeeeed

Sleep: take cozy naps, bed by 9pm, up early!

A rough draft of adjustments. Gonna type these up soon.

I recently read a super helpful article in Runner’s World Magazine on this idea of “Advanced Balancing,” the idea of balance being that the right mix of training and recovery is what gets you in peak fitness for top marathon performance. From the article I’ve gathered lots of great info on what details to monitor about myself over time to justify any adjustments to my training plan:

Weight (avoid weight loss) morning heart rate (not too high), environmental conditions (heat is a big bitch so don’t be hard on yourself when it’s 85•F and humid and your pace is not your best), hours of sleep (the more possible the better), quality of sleep (be silent, be still), diet quality (high carb intake, avoid greasy), hydration level (I’m really bad about this one), muscle soreness (you’ll be sore often because that’s just the nature of training but any increased soreness is a sign of illness or overtraining), energy level (if you’re always tired/fatigued, something’s off). So basically I should be wired to one of those hospital machines at all times lol. My friend and I were talking yesterday about how the irony of extreme sports is that those who do them are actually very calm people. And it all makes sense now—it’s because an insane amount of balance is imperative to achieving the freakishly absurd like running faster than cheetahs or diving deeper than fkn whales (we were discussing free-diving in our conversation) (for absolutely no reason other than to see if we can). Anyway, I digress.

The big thing the article stresses is to avoid monotony in a training plan—which is something I nipped in the bud right away in my own training. At the beginning of this whole thing, my training plan/routine of five days of 8mile pace runs quickly wore me out making me feel generally fatigued & uninspired, to the point of dreading my workouts. This can’t happen, i said, so I: made room for one full day of rest, added strength sessions, swapped some days around to accommodate life (family trips and unexpected events), and made peace with skipped workouts because well I’m human and life happens. So far the adjustments have led to big improvements in my performance and overall mindset to running. 🔥

On that note, I’ve made some more changes to my plan today which I think will help bring down my overall time muahaha: IE, moved up from one to now 2 speed workouts per week between week 15 and week 20. Hopefully my latest set of plan adjustments will reap more rewards 🥲 I’m also running a time trial half in November where I’m aiming for 8:30 min. LFG 😈

Still running mid-40 miles a week. Since I’ve been traveling , I adjusted my work schedule this week to accommodate my LR today, Monday. Did 18 miles today which is the farthest I’ve gone yet; unfortunately did not record the details because my watch glitched out at mile 12! Very upset about this i think my pace the last I looked was 9:45 though. Not bad considering my 16 mile run last week was at 10mile pace, which means I’m making hella improvements! 🔥

Tried stinger honey waffles 🧇 for my first time during today’s run. After an initial struggle with chewing and swallowing dry bits of waffle, I guess I got used to them? With all the biting and chewing and drinking water to swallow it, I never actually got comfortable with these. Might try again as I bought a box and three still remain, but I don’t think they’ll be my fuel of choice moving forward. They are large and flat, so they can’t be packed in my shorts neatly like the gels. When I left this morning thinking they could, it looked like I had stuffed wads of toilet paper 🧻 down my shorts.

Weather was beautiful this morning ☀️ , low 50s, so it felt so nice to run outside for the first time in a while.

Searching for a half-marathon race SOON to test out a 9-mile pace.

Grandmother passed away.

2023 has been a wild trip mannnnn.

One day I will remember this year as one of growth.

Hydration Notes:

Generally, drink 8-10 cups of water daily.

If I want to bring my own hydration to the race, aim for 500-700 mg of sodium.

If I don’t want to bring hydration (which I’m leaning towards unless I get used to carrying the weight of my bottle), consider salt tablets and gels that are higher in sodium and other electrolytes, and washing them down with sips of water served on the course.

No Week 7 log but as a recap, it was restful. Just nursing this hip flexor strain back to full health.

Started taking beet supplements which are yummy bc they taste like gushers without the goo inside. Got some actual beets too which I plan to turn into a juice or something.

This week I did a five mile tempo (1mile fast, 1mile at 60%) and my long run was actually in San Antonio as I was visiting my sis. Loved the Salado Greenway trail here, it gave me so much energy seeing all sorts of different people enjoying nature at the ass crack of dawn. Ran 13 miles at 9:07 pace! I was impressed.

Week 8 was incredibly I mean incredibly hot and with an unrelated deadline to meet, I took a few days off running, which was also perfect to give much needed healing time to my strained hip flexor. Things have worked out excellently.

Today is the end of week 8 and I’m feeling good. While the temps have been constantly near record breaking 110 degrees F (for that this week will forever live in my heart in infamy), today I expected it to be a little cooler bc the weather ppl said so. They were not wrong. I will take 98 degrees by noon as a total win.

This week’s (today’s) long run was one of several firsts.

I ran 15 miles. I don’t think I have ever run fifteen consecutive miles in my life before so I feel very proud of myself (my feet especially…man they look rough right now) to have accomplished this feat today. There were moments where I felt like I couldn’t finish but what put me back in the moment was a reminder I’ve adopted: “all that matters is me, here, now.”

It started off a challenge because I drank lots of water beforehand (idk I woke up thirsty). At mile 5 I ran past a mysterious but very much available porta potty. The missed opportunity made things feel mentally worse. Was I actually cramping or was I punishing myself for not using that portapotty? Fortunately for me, the nice cashier at a gas station half mile later let me use his “employees only” bathroom. Sweet, sweet relief. It was only a matter of time before the pee problem would catch up to me. Ppl talk about it all the time—“yup I had to relieve myself behind a tree once…” I’m glad it happened to me sooner than later in the training season because now I get to adjust and account for my timing so that I don’t lose precious minutes stepping off the course into a porta-potty on race day. Note: stop drinking fluids 2 hours before start to allow body time to flush.

Since I accidentally bought several gels with caffeine I decided to go ahead and try one of them. Much to my complete dismay, it caused a spur of jitters. I was briefly sad because there are five more in the pack and I don’t want them to go to waste. Maybe a running friend will take them. At least now I know what I don’t like.

I definitely ran past a man pooping on the sidewalk. I really wanted to help him somehow but all I could think to do was keep running.

—

Today’s long run was 15 miles at a 9:30min pace. I’ve been focusing heavily on upper body and core workouts and I believe it is what has helped me maintain this steady pace. However, this puts me at a 4hour marathon, so I need to zone in and focus on building SPEED. I signed up to run a 5K with a friend in a couple of weeks. Considering taking that as a challenge to run a sub 8 min pace.

Week 6 Log

Generally: in the food department, getting my full calories is a challenge! Sometimes I don’t have much of an appetite, so baby needs to get creative with her recipes. In the running dept, I need to incorporate more easy running (while it’s important to remember that below 8 min pace is my goal, I don’t want to become pace obsessed. It should be ok to go east on the days I’m not running my sprints). In the aches department, a nagging discomfort in my hip and groin area won’t let up—feels sorta like a pinch. Will continue to monitor. Maybe ice it. Daily:

Monday: Rest day today is a nice, low-stress way to start off the week. I added stability exercises to my routine, which I imagine Mondays will be a good day to do. Lesson: as a lifelong runner, I’m doing this because I love it and not to compete against it. I can just run the way I am.

Tuesday: first day back after rest day. 4 miles at 9min pace. Couldn’t get down to 8min pace 🥵

Wednesday: 3 miles at 8min pace

Thursday: 3x1000 as my speed workout. It was pretty hard! But that’s good, I should leave nothing behind on Thursdays.

Friday: 3x1000 speed training plus core exercises (Nike training video)

Saturday: light jog plus core+arms.

Sunday: long run of 11 miles. Tried to run 3 of the miles at 8min pace but could only manage to maintain a consistent 9min pace 🥵 Dedicating more effort to speed next week. Eager to see how my strength training improves my sprints. Lesson of the day: The trick to getting faster is to, well, run faster. Don’t be so pace minded! Just get faster.

Today I learned: beet juice is a superior source of energy for endurance runners 🩸 #teamedward