Second Things Second*

This is going to be a slightly different post and not sure why. I think I’m just a bit tired of people commenting one two things: the first is how I look and the second is how to running.

The first is that I have a fairly runner-like body. Not quite the same as someone who runs distance professionally (years of skating and hurdling will never allow my legs to tiny like theirs) but I’m petite I suppose. And that is both built on luck (metabolism and genetics) and work. When people talk about stuff like being in shape who are not built like me, they tend to always infer that I don’t know what it’s like to work at looking like I do. Perhaps, if I “gave up” I wouldn’t ever find myself obese, but I certainly would gain weight and not run what I run. But people don’t seem to understand that or how much work I put into my fitness. I find it frustrating because it’s not something I can really complain about be it truly in sort of a firstworldproblem but it’s still something that bothers me. I work hard and I take pride in my hard work and what it results in.

And the second sort of ties into the first. The same people who tend to say that I don’t understand a daily food and workout battle are also telling me how to run, how to eat, what exercises they do and why what I do isn’t necessary the best,  I usually stare at them and give them my blinkblink look. Here’s the deal: everyone is different and what works for one may not work for the other person. But what works for me is working for me thankyouverymuch so please don’t offer unsolicited advice unless I ask or am paying you.

So where I usually try to keep this blog focused on my running and the good, hard, etc side of that, I’ve been in a fairly Bad Mood Base for a bit and felt like a rant.

In other news though, I did SIGN UP FOR BAYSTATE 2018. bring in Boston 2020.

*Don’t you tell me what you think that I could be

Just a Young Gun*

And we’re off to our first speed work out week which included doing a tempo or threshold AND speed. Some part of me wonders if I’m too old for this. I have been trying to do a week where I run four days instead of the three so that when Marathon Time rolls around I’m used to that. I hope that I don’t wear myself out, but like with a race, sometimes you just have to push and hope (and of course, be safe and careful). I also worked 6 days including the Expo which...ooof. Definitely too old for THAT. I do like that know I can tell people I ran a marathon there, though, and feel like I belong in that crew and, in some selfish ways, maybe belong more than some (sorry, super rude).

So anyway... my threshold with run club went well. I did three miles at 7:59; 7:40 and 7:22 with a goal of hitting around 7:45 (the 7:59 I was still with a friend so it would have been awkward to just take off although I did pick up the pace at the mile bell). And I also did the first speed workout which was 12x200 aiming for 49 seconds or a 6:30 pace. It wasn’t as hard as I feared, although still hard. I hit them (assuming my attempts at hitting 200 meters with my Garmin was close to right) in:

6:08
6:19
6:16
6:34
6:24
6:24
6:22
6:32
5:58 (this one had a watch bumble I think)
6:10
5:55
6:05

So, that’s pretty on if not faster. I’ve a,ways been fairly able to hit splits on sprints but I hope with this and the threshold and tempos, the combo will work. We shall see. All I know is that I think I need to stretch better and watch my work shoes some. My body can handle this, but I need to be smart about pushing it and the wear and tear especially as I want to work Orangetheory into this as well.

* I think this should be a question and not a statement