Life After Marathons: A Running/barre3/Coffee/Life Journal

[SarahDisney]

Very Belated Week in Review: March 11th-March 17th​

It's been a busy week and my priority was getting the race recap posted, okay? Whatever. Better late than never.

​

Monday:
barre3 - with Lauren. Felt really strong at first, but started to randomly feel a little woozy in the middle, and I just couldn’t recover from there. I probably didn’t have enough salt before class. I’ll do better next time.
Was supposed to go to a NYC Half course preview at the NYRR RUNCENTER, but when I got there they were out of pint glasses and it was super crowded so I just took a few Honey Stinger Waffles and left. It didn’t seem super well organized and made me a little nervous about Sunday, but whatever.

Tuesday:
Run - 3.14 miles, 41:13 minutes, 13:08 min/mi avg pace. Other than some route planning mistakes (I did bad math in my head), this was an unexceptional run.

Wednesday:
barre3 - with Andrew (a guest instructor/instructor trainer from Portland). Sometimes I go to barre3 and it’s somehow exactly what I need. This was one of those classes. I thought Andrew was fantastic, and I knew when to push myself and when to hold back. Signing up for this was a last-minute decision (I was at first planning to avoid the crowds that accompany a guest instructor), and I’m really glad I did. I would take Andrew’s class if I was ever in Portland.

Thursday:
Run - 3.11 miles, 36:56 minutes, 11:52 min/mi avg pace. I did this as my NYC Half Virtual 5K, but I forgot that I usually don’t pause during those runs, so my Garmin time and my official time disagree. GPS went a little nutty, and stupidly I trusted the GPS, not my knowledge of how far I have to run down Columbus Ave to run 1.55 miles, so … I ended up having to run up and down in front of my building to get to 3.11 miles (spoiler alert: Strava took a 5K from Sunday's race to use as the virtual race, so it really didn't matter). Otherwise good run.

Friday:
barre3 - with Jess. It occured to me on the subway ride down that doing barre3 two days before the race might not be the best idea, so I took it mostly easy.
Went from barre3 to the race expo, which was was boring.

Saturday:
Rest day!

Sunday:
Run - United Airlines NYC Half! Official time was 2:28:11

Upcoming: (well, mostly already happened, but whatever)
Monday - Rest
Tuesday - barre3
Wednesday - Rest
Thursday - 3 mi Easy
Friday - Rest
Saturday - Rest
Sunday - 3 mi Easy

Today was the first run of the new plan ... but more on that in the next update. It's going to be an interesting plan ... two hard runs some weeks for the first time in a while, runs that start at one tempo pace and end at a faster pace (is that what everyone's always talking about with progression runs?) ... we'll see how it goes.

​

 

[amazingact21]

Congrats on the NYC half! That was a great time.

Interested to hear what your new plan looks like.

 

[SarahDisney]

Congrats on the NYC half! That was a great time.

Thank you! It was a fun race and I'm really happy with how I did!

Interested to hear what your new plan looks like.

I'll be posting more about it as it goes on, but ... it's certainly different than my last few plans. 3-4 runs per week (with one week having 5), mostly less than an hour each (except for one longer run on Sundays), with 2 "hard" runs most weeks. And my Sunday runs, which have been easier runs on my recent plans, are all mixed paces - starting off with a few miles at an easy pace, and then gradually speeding up to faster paces.
It's gonna be interesting. Different than what I'm used to, but it looks like a good plan. Not the plan I would have created for myself (this one was all @DopeyBadger with mostly just scheduling input from me), but since I actually have a time goal for this race, that's probably a good thing (I probably would have just done everything at an easy pace and then showed up on race day expecting to run super fast ... I feel like that's not the best idea).

 

[SarahDisney]

Week in Review: March 18th-March 24th​

(I'm Woody here)

Monday:
Rest Day! Was originally registered for a barre3 class, but decided to skip it and give myself a full recovery day. Probably the wrong decision, but whatever.
Eating - Meh

Tuesday:
barre3 - with Allie! I took it a little easy, and it was a good class overall.
Eating - Meh

Wednesday:
Rest Day! Religious fast day, so I slept in … very rest day.
Eating - Great until 9pm. Bleh once I broke my fast.

Thursday:
Run - 3.01 miles, 38:25 minutes, 12:48 min/mi. Treadmilled this one because I was too tired for outside (I had been up for 2.5 hours already with no coffee and no coffee Wednesday). Probably could have gone outside, but there was at least a 15% chance that I would have taken a nap on a bench in the park. Struggled with boredom early, but settled in by the last mile.
Eating - Thumbs down.

Friday:
Rest Day!
Eating - Meh

Saturday:
Rest Day!
Eating - Two Thumbs down. Get it together, Sarah! Was at my parents’ (in case you didn’t get that from the treadmill on Thursday), so there’s more junk available than when I’m at the apartment. (btw ... I almost wrote "home" there instead of the apartment. I'm starting to think of it as home, which kinda sucks because I shouldn't be so unhappy at home. But whatever. It was my decision to move, I have to live with the fact that it was the wrong decision. Whatever.)

Sunday:
Run - 2.50 miles, 30:32 minutes, 12:13 min/mi. Was supposed to do 3 miles, but … Sundays. Oh well.
Eating - Meh

Upcoming:
Monday - barre3
Tuesday - 3 mi Easy
Wednesday - 4 mi Easy, barre3? (barre3 is scheduled for afternoon, so I have the option of cancelling if I don’t feel up to it … although another option is switching to an early class and doing the “run to barre3” thing I used to do on Sundays … can’t really do that on Sundays on this plan, which means I’m missing Vicky’s classes )
Thursday - 0.5 mi WU + 4x0.75 mi @ 10mi Pace w/ 0.25 mi RI @ WU + 0.5 mi CD … or however I manage to translate that into time/intervals
Friday - barre3
Saturday - Rest
Sunday - 5 mi @ Easy + 3 mi @ HM + 1 mi @ Daniels T + 0.5 mi @ Easy
Lots of new things next week. I’m nervous but also interested to see how it goes

 

[amazingact21]

It's gonna be interesting. Different than what I'm used to, but it looks like a good plan. Not the plan I would have created for myself (this one was all DopeyBadger with mostly just scheduling input from me), but since I actually have a time goal for this race, that's probably a good thing (I probably would have just done everything at an easy pace and then showed up on race day expecting to run super fast ... I feel like that's not the best idea).

That does sound like a different plan. You've got a lot of running in that schedule, but I guess if you're going for time that's what you need. I hope if nothing else, switching the training up, makes it refreshing and fun.

 

[SarahDisney]

First tempo run of the plan was not a total failure. I mean, I forgot what pace I was supposed to be running for a few intervals there (I may have done the first minute of a rest interval at tempo instead of warm up), but ... I did it. Avg pace was around 10:29 (goal is 10:11), so it was actually pretty good. Yay!

 

[SarahDisney]

Week in Review: March 25th-March 31st​

Monday:
barre3 - with Lauren. Had a good class! Held a full plank for the full 60 seconds, which I haven’t done in a long time (lately I’ve been mostly on my knees or at the barre, but today I felt like trying the full plank). Yay! Alternated between 3lb and 4lb weights and was all good.
Eating - Sigh.

Tuesday:
Run - 3.00 miles, 36:06 minutes, 12:02 min/mi avg pace. Decently average run.
Eating - Grr. Although when I wanted a post-dinner snack I went for fruit, not junk, so that’s a mini-victory. Go Sarah!
Life - I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned it here, but I’ve been having some skin issues. Went to the dermatologist today and she prescribed some creams and lifestyle changes (bye bye Bath & Body Works products ). Hopefully that’ll fix the problem. I go back in 2 weeks.

Wednesday:
Run - 4.01 miles, 51:57 minutes, 12:57 min/mi avg pace. Ran along CPW to the top of Central Park … not my jam. I think I’ll stick to running south.

Was originally scheduled for a barre3 class, but cancelled because of schedule stuff.
Eating - Started off okay, but then went downhill later in the day.

Thursday:
Run - Total: 4.79 miles, 54:52 minutes, 11:27/mi avg pace.
Tempo: 4x0.75mi @ 10mi pace w/ 0.25 mi RI - interval paces were 10:30, 10:22, 10:13, and 10:53. Third interval was the closest to goal pace (10:13), but all of them were good (4th interval had some uphill at the end, which contributed to the slower pace). Did it as sets of 7:40 (with the way I do the intervals in Garmin it's easier to go by time than distance, and if I’m running at goal pace then that’s pretty close to 0.75 miles), and the distances were 0.73 mi, 0.74 mi, 0.75 mi, and 0.71 mi.
Eating - Sigh. Does walking to the pizza shop cancel out the calories from the pizza?

Friday:
Barre3- with Allie! Was originally scheduled for a 9:45 with Dino, but then I scheduled a 9am coffee chat, so I had to cancel. Realized I couldn’t do a later class either, so I decided kinda last minute to just sign up for a 7:15AM class. Glad I did - this class felt really good. I’ve had a good plank week, which is a nice surprise. Happy I got up early for this.
Eating - Not my worst day, but not great.

Saturday:
Rest Day!
Eating - Medium eating day. I was pretty good about not eating too much at kiddush, but I still could have made better decisions throughout the day.

Sunday:
Run - Total: 9.41 miles, 1:51:56, 11:54 min/mi avg pace.
Tempo: 2.81 Mi HM Tempo, 31:00 minutes, 11:02 min/mi (planned pace was 10:20 … yeah), 1 mi Daniels T Pace - 9:52 (planned pace was 9:56).
Hit the struggle bus hard on this one. I decided to do it on the east side for a change of scenery, but I forgot about the construction and it was just a mess. Plus, going back west was uphill. By the time I got to my last HM Tempo mile I was done. I honestly don’t know how I got through the Daniels T Pace mile, other than that it’s actually a slower running pace than HM Tempo (HM Tempo is a slower overall pace because of intervals ... so it's a faster than T pace running pace, but I only have to maintain that pace for 2 minutes, not a mile like I do with Daniels T)… I just had to try and convince myself that there was a walk interval coming up soon, even though there wasn’t (but I did stop for a breather a few times). Yuck.

Note: The bridge on the shirt is not the bridge in the background. Clearly. They look like totally different bridges.
Eating - Actually not terrible, but mostly because I spent much of the afternoon with some friends in a place where there wasn’t food I would eat.

Upcoming:
Monday - barre3
Tuesday - 3 mi Easy
Wednesday - barre3
Thursday - 1 mi WU + 2 x 1mi @ 10mi pace w/ 0.5mi RI + 0.5 mi CD
Friday - barre3
Saturday - Rest Day!
Sunday - 2 mi Easy + 4 mi @ HM Tempo + 1 mi @ Daniels T + 0.5 mi @ 10K + 0.5 mi @ Easy ... really not looking forward to this one. Three harder paces and an 8-miler on a baseball day. I will have to get out early so that I have time for much coffee before the game.

 

[jennamfeo]

Does walking to the pizza shop cancel out the calories from the pizza?

Absolutely.

 

[SarahDisney]

Absolutely.

Okay, good. Now I feel less bad about Thursday. Thank you.

 

[SarahDisney]

Oh, I keep forgetting to mention ... I started cold brewing early this year (well, sort of early ... I usually wait until after Passover, but Passover is super late this year, so it's before Passover but not necessarily that much earlier in the year than usual)! Dunkin' Donuts Dark is not the best grounds for cold brewing (although it's drinkable), but there are some supermarkets near here that have specialty coffee sections, so if I get over my fears of people and supermarkets, I may see if I can find something interesting to try (if not ... back to Starbucks House Blend or Columbia).
If I remember, next week's week in review will include a picture of some cold brew in my new iced coffee tumbler.

 

[ZellyB]

Trying to get caught back up on journals!

A new plan is exciting and glad to see you are doing well with it. I'm a bit lost right now and need to get back to it.

I never really have tried cold brew coffee. I always drink my coffee hot, but maybe I should try it out some this summer.

 

[run.minnie.miles]

Life has been crazy, so I haven't been very good at commenting- but I'm still reading

It's baseball and cold-brew season... very exciting! I am more of a cold brew than baseball fan, but I can appreciate both.
Have you ever tried sweetened condensed milk mixed with cold brew? It is rich, but sooo good as a treat.

 

[SarahDisney]

A new plan is exciting and glad to see you are doing well with it. I'm a bit lost right now and need to get back to it.

Thanks! I definitely get that it can be hard to run when you don't really have a target. Hopefully you'll be back to your regularly scheduled running soon!

I never really have tried cold brew coffee. I always drink my coffee hot, but maybe I should try it out some this summer.

I drank iced before I drank hot, so cold brew makes sense. I know a lot of people who drink hot coffee year-round.

Life has been crazy, so I haven't been very good at commenting- but I'm still reading

Thanks for reading even when life is crazy!

It's baseball and cold-brew season... very exciting! I am more of a cold brew than baseball fan, but I can appreciate both.
Have you ever tried sweetened condensed milk mixed with cold brew? It is rich, but sooo good as a treat.

I have not tried that. I'll have to buy sweetened condensed milk and try it some time.

 

[SarahDisney]

A Tale of a Sick Day: WDWMW Day 3 In Pictures​

(These are a little out of order because I don't have the patience to put them in order)

Race:

Animal Kingdom:

 

[ZellyB]

Great pictures!! Your I Did It picture is especially cute!

 

[SarahDisney]

Great pictures!! Your I Did It picture is especially cute!

Thank you! I love that I Did It picture (I actually really like all of my "I Did It" pictures from the weekend)

 

[SarahDisney]

Week In Review: April 1st-April 7th​

No pictures in this one because I'm too lazy to upload them. Sorry.

Monday:
barre3 - with Lauren. Wasn’t feeling great going in (I was just super out of it - I took the wrong train to get there, that’s how out of it I was), so I’m not surprised that I wasn’t working at as high of a level as last week, but it was still a good class.
Eating - Well, I ate two lunches, so … yeah. It was just a rough day in general, though, so the fact that I didn’t order Insomnia Cookies for delivery is a big victory.

Signed up for the NYRR 1 For You 1 For Youth 5K on June 5th (global running day). Instead of the traditional shirt, the giveaway for this race is a pair of the New Balance Fresh Foam Zante Pursuit. So … that’s cool.
Also, for every registered participant, NB will donate a pair of shoes to NYRR’s youth running programs, which then gives the shoes out to kids who participate in the program. So for the not-so-low price of $60, I get a 5K race and a new pair of shoes, and a young runner gets a free pair of shoes. It’s pretty cool.
The downside is that I think the course includes Harlem Hill. Sigh.

Tuesday:
Run - 2.99 miles, 36:02 minutes, 12:04 min/mi. This was just a nice, easy run. Exactly what I needed for the day.
Last time I wore my 880s, everything hurt and I was worried they were shot with a mere 300 miles on them (I got 425 out of the older model). So I took a week off from wearing those shoes. Wore them again today and they’re not ready for retirement, but they’re on the way out. Like maybe 50-75 miles left, and for shorter runs only. If I was still only wearing one model of shoe, I would start rotating in my next pair now, but since I wear two other models, I don’t need four pairs of shoes right now (I know that’s not a lot for some people, but for me it is). So I’m gonna keep wearing these for non-tempo runs of 5-6 miles or less, and all longer runs will be in the Levitate 2s. Including Broad Street Run. I’m not thrilled because I was hoping I could keep the Levitates to longer runs only so that I could stretch out this pair through NYC, but it looks like I might not be able to do that. Sigh.
Eating - Not the worst, but could have been better.

Wednesday:
barre3 - with Jenna! Great class overall, and I felt really strong through most of it.
Eating - Sigh.

Thursday:
Run - 4.00 miles, 47:36 minutes, 11:54 min/mi avg pace. There were supposed to be two 10mi Pace miles in there, but I set up the workout wrong and it just kinda got messy. Whatever.
Eating - I was in the Times Square area (longish story) and while I was there I went to Hershey’s for a free chocolate sample #sorrynotsorry.

Friday:
I was scheduled for a barre3 class, but cancelled to study with my friend instead.
Eating - Medium-ish.

Saturday:
Rest Day!
Eating - Surprisingly not bad. There’s this thing called kiddush after the prayer service I go to where they serve food and I used to eat all the things, but lately I’ve been talking to people more and eating less, which is good.

Sunday:
Run - 7.86 miles, 1:30:11 hours, 11:28 min/mi avg pace
Tempo: 4 mi HM Tempo (10:20) + 1 mi Daniels T (9:56) + 0.5 mi 10K (9.52) - As with other tempo runs, I did the HM Tempo and 10K parts by time instead of distance because of intervals (Daniels T is continuous, so I can do that by distance easily). HM Tempo was 3.72 miles in 40:45 minutes (10:57 min/mi), Daniels T mile was 9:55 minutes, and 10K pace was 0.55 miles in 6:20 minutes (11:31 min/mi). I struggled a lot starting with the back half of the HM Tempo miles, and I felt like I had nothing left when it came time for the Daniels T mile. I’m really surprised that one was on pace. I knew the 10K was slow, but I didn’t realize it was that slow (although there was some uphill at the end, so that’s a factor).
Eating - Thought I did okay, but the scale disagreed. Sigh. Hopefully it’s just a fluke.
Baseball - First game of the season! Mets vs. Nationals, Jacob deGrom Cy Young Bobblehead Day. The Mets pitching forgot how to throw strikes (no seriously, Zack Wheeler walked 7 batters in 4 2/3 innings), but I still had fun.


Upcoming:
Peak Week! It’s going to be a rough one because I’ve put a few other things on my schedule. I have an early dermatologist follow-up on Tuesday, so that’s a day that I have to get out early, and I have study plans with a friend most days of the week, so I have to be on my game every morning.
Monday - 3 mi Easy, barre3
Tuesday - 4 mi Easy
Wednesday - 4 mi Easy, barre3?
Thursday - 0.5 mile WU + 2 x 1.5 mile @ 10mi w/ 0.5 mi RI @ WU + 0.5 mile CD (this time I will try to set up the intervals properly)
Friday - barre3
Saturday - Rest Day
Sunday - 5.61 miles @ Easy + 5 miles @ HM + 1 mile @ Daniels T + 0.5 miles @ 10k + 1 miles @ Easy (Total: 13.1 mi)
Might cancel some of the barre3 classes so that I don't overload my legs, but I also want to get my money's worth out of my membership and I won't be going at all during Passover, so ... we'll see what I do.

I’m thinking of running either Monday/Tuesday/Thursday or Monday/Wednesday/Thursday during the summer so that I don’t have to worry about getting my long runs in before baseball games. I’d probably top out at 60-minute runs … although that won’t work for my monthly half-marathon challenge. We’ll see what I do about that. I’m making baseball my priority for the summer, which means running may have to be on the back burner sometimes.

 

[ZellyB]

Great week of training. Loving your consistency both with runny and your barre3 classes.

 

[SarahDisney]

Great week of training. Loving your consistency both with runny and your barre3 classes.

Thanks! I'm really happy with how well I've been able to stick with things this plan!

 

[Sleepless Knight]

Love the race recap pics. Glad to see you're doing well with training. Soon, I will resume training. Soon. . .