I am in official marathon training mode. One week down. Seventeen more to go.
My emotions go back and forth between excitement and "what was I thinking?" They can change by the minute while I'm running.
Today I ran before Chris left for work and he asked how many miles and I said "just three." Which is a good sign that three is becoming "just three." And it felt short and relatively easy. Victory. Victory.
I've been using the hal higdon marathon training app and I really like it. $10 well spent. I've never run with a GPS during training before and I'm not sure why not. It tells you your pace and distance and how many calories you've burned, which is really helpful when you can rationalize eating two desserts that night. I love looking at all the miles I've done so far and get excited thinking about looking at in a few months from now.
The only thing not good about this is my OCD with wanting to cross off each training day. I'm going at this training knowing I won't be able to do each day and don't want to be as intense with checking days off the list as I was the last times. This app makes me want to though.
Speaking of second desserts, I am determined to eat healthier during these next few months. When I trained for the marathon the other two times I maybe lost two pounds. One reason is I think your body gets used to running and running and doesn't have to work as hard. There's no guessing in what you're doing, so your body gets used to it. (Unlike doing P90x, which I did one summer and lost more weight doing that, as I think you're targeting all muscles and doing a variety of things.) However the other reason is because I justified eating way more. Second dinner before a long run day? Yep. Junk food after a long run? Yes. Now you better believe me that I will reward myself with some extra desserts and will be eating more to fuel up for big runs. BUT I want to eat healthy overall and if I'm putting my body and energy into training, I want to reap some benefits of it and not cancel it out by eating crappy.
Shoes. Not sure if it's because I'm out of shape, old or that my shoes suck, but my ankles and knees have been bothering me. I've always always been an asics fan and love the look of these shoes, but may need to try out another pair. I'm not sure if they're supportive enough.
I don't always listen to music when I run because I like it quiet sometimes. However I do think I run faster with music and as the runs get longer I think I need it. I've been listening to Pandora and usually have it on Katy Perry station, which has good upbeat, run worthy songs. I only have to give the thumbs down every so often.
I apologize if my running pics on instagram get annoying. But it gives my over Addilyn sharing a break, plus it actually is good motivation to run and run faster if I'm going to be sharing it. And it's some good, needed encouragement received after. Thank goodness for instagram filters though.
