Learning to like running

I have always been vehemently anti-running. Growing up on the beach my sisters, friends and I always participated in Junior Lifeguards. I used to tell my instructors I was sick to get out of running at least once a week (to be fair, running on sand is hard)!

When I was in high school and on the field hockey team we were required to run an 8 minute mile. I ran past those same instructors, years later, on the boardwalk. They were so shocked they stopped what they were doing, dropped what they were holding and started clapping. That hockey season was probably the last time I ran. And even then, once we reached an 8 minute mile we didn't have to run laps in practice any more, plus I was the sweeper so I didn't have to run the field quite as much. (And I got to tell the defensive players what to do, pretty much my dream sports position).

So flash forward almost 10 years, my cousin suggests a triathlon and I find myself agreeing. I was fine with the idea of biking and swimming but the running had me scared. In early December, when we were still just contemplating this, I decided to attempt running a 5K to see if I even could!

I can't believe I stopped at 599 calories!

Turns out I could! And no, it didn't take me more than an hour to run 3.1 miles, I felt so good after my run I ended up doing another 30 minutes on the elliptical.

Since then I've run quite a few times and increased my runs from 3 miles to 4 or 5 and most recently 7. Not only that, I've almost even enjoyed them.  It's helps that I'm incredibly fortunate enough to run past some great views.

I particularly enjoyed running along the beach (note, not on the sand because again, that's hard) while I was home for the holidays.

And DC offers it's own impressive views (if you just tilt your head a bit).

Bike ride to nowhere

So apparently winter decided to show up this year. I was so hoping it wouldn't...

On Tuesdays I have two classes, 1:00pm to 3:00pm and 5:00pm to 7:30pm.  I despise ending class at 7:30 but really love the 2 hour break between classes. It's just enough time to get to the gym, workout, shower, change and get back to class. Today I had initially thought to run but after my 7 mile run this weekend and some residual pain in my foot, I decided to bike.

I would much prefer running/biking outside but since it was about 20 degrees today, not including the wind chill, that was definitely out of the question.  I'm kind of conflicted about the whole gym biking situation.  Definitely nice to be out of the cold and I try to still challenge myself with the workout by choosing a relatively high intensity level and selecting a random or hill course.  At the same time I feel like it cannot possibly be as effective as a road biking workout.

On the other hand, I'm so busy right now (2 independent contractor consulting positions, a Graduate Assistant position, school, training, occasionally actually attempting a social life, etc) I like that the gym workouts allow me to multitask. Today I was able to get a decent amount of reading down.  But of course, I have to imagine when you're splitting your focus like that, it's only further taking away from the quality of the training.

Although, I just went back and looked at some of my past bike workouts and my average speed today was on par with previous, flatter, rides (12mph).

Who knew one workout could cause so many conflicting emotions??

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This is why I shouldn't be given too much information...

I have so many questions and no one to answer them!

The organization running the training program Vic and I are doing just posted the training plans!  The actual orientation for the program isn't until next Saturday (at 7am...ugh) and technically the training doesn't begin until Jan 29th.  So now I just have all these questions and I have to wait for answers (I hate waiting).

Some of my questions include:

• If I'm already running/swimming/biking longer than is prescribed on the training plan, should I keep up with what I can already do, or stick with plan?
• Can I swap workouts around across the week?
• When we get up to working out 6 days a week, can I take a different day as my "off" day?
• Is there a benefit or detriment to stick with my current strength training workouts on the off days?
• When we get up to working out 6 days a week, should I do strength training in addition to the running/swimming/biking or forgo it all together?
• If I can't bike outside, any tips on using the gym bikes? Settings? Resistance? Hills? etc
• What if I have to miss the training tri? Will there be other opportunities to practice transitions?
• All the plans only have run/swim/bike times, what distances should we be expected to accomplish within those times?
• How soon after the goal race can we expect to be able to complete another race? 
• I saw the first happy hour is a block from my apartment, how do I make sure the future ones are as well?

I'm sure there are other things I need/want to know, this is just what I came up with in the first five minutes, and it doesn't include the questions I assume will be covered the various bike maintenance/nutrition/gear buying/etc clinics. 

Very much looking forward to getting the answers to these questions and getting started!

Because you can't stop at 6.93...

So as I mentioned yesterday my cousin and I decided to attempt a 10k as our Saturday workout.  I found a 6.2 mile run already mapped out on mapmyrun.com which started at my cousin's house and has us running through the District. This was the route we set out to do:

This is the route we actually ran:

In general we stuck pretty closely to the route.  It was beautiful day and in just a few miles got to see quite a bit of DC.  We ran past embassies, ambassador's houses, the Vice-President's residence, through residential, urban and historical areas. Turns out it's really difficult to follow a route on your phone while running though so there was a detour or two. It all worked out in our favor because it actually pushed us to run 7 miles.  I contemplated walking at 6.5 and doing the last 1/2 mile as a cool down but I'm really happy I pushed through that. (Dad, before you say anything, we did do a cool down/stretch but I turned the GPS tracking off for that).

We certainly didn't set any speed records but I'll take an average 10:00/mile.  Also, that last mile or so was all uphill. Oh, and these are just my times. Vic had to show me up and sprint up the last hill. We got back to Vic's house with 6.93 miles behind us, so clearly couldn't stop until we hit an even 7.

It was definitely a challenge but I was pretty happy with the pay off. (Although a little bitter Vic burned more than 300 calories more than me!)

Blackened Tilapia Tacos at Surfside!

So here's how this should work

The last few weekends my cousin, Vic, and I have set out on various longer workouts, more on those later. This week we're attempting a 10k or 6.2 mile run.  In fact, I should be getting ready for that instead of typing this post!

I wasn't kidding yesterday when I said this was my first time running 5 miles. I actually maxed out at 5.5 miles while I was home in NJ over winter break. As my Dad can attest, I've always been vehemently anti-running so I'm going to need that peer pressure I mentioned to get me through this!

Here's the route we're planning to run today:

It is a 6.2 mile route through parts of DC including Georgetown, Glover Park, Woodley Park and West End.

It has a total ascent of 229.66 ft and maximum elevation of 301.84 and includes a "Category 5" climb.  These are things that make me particularly nervous since the longer runs I've done were at the beach in New Jersey, essentially flat and at sea level!

The plan is to stop typing up this post, get my butt in gear (running so far behind) and start this run in the next 40 minutes.  Ideally I'll be back here in the next day or two with details on how it went!

Because I believe a little peer pressure is a good thing

So I'm resurrecting the blog.

My cousin and I recently decided to attempt a triathlon. We started "training" for it by doing things like swimming laps for the first time in ten years and running 5 miles for the first time...ever.  We also signed up for an actual training program that starts next Saturday.  The training program is set up for a goal race on June 2nd and, if things go according to plan, we hope to do a few more across the season. Right now I'm 85 percent committed to the Olympic distance race (.93m/1500m swim, 25m/40km bike, 6.2/10km run). At the very least I'll start that training program and can drop down to Sprint distance (.5m/800m swim, 12.5m/20km bike, 3.1m/5k run) if necessary.

I'm planning to use this blog to write about my training experiences, hold myself accountable and basically peer pressure myself into seeing this sucker through. So for anyone that still checks this thing, what would you like to know about triathlon training? What would you like to see? Before/after photos? Run/bike routes?

Oh and by the way, for those that don't know, I actually am still in health care.  I'm currently attending Georgetown getting my Master's in Health System Administration. So who knows, occasionally I might post something about that as well (also I'm too busy/lazy to set up a new blog or figure out how to change the name).

I just want to go to sleep!

Believe it or not I didn't forget about this blog! I haven't had much (about work travel) to say lately. For a while I just going back to the same few places, staying at the same hotels, flying the same flights...nothing interesting. More recently my travel basically stopped. I've only flown 9 flights, had 4 hotel stays and 1 train trip so far this year! After working so hard to achieve status last year I've basically given up any hope of maintaining it for next year.

Not traveling has actually been fairly refreshing. I love routine and it's been great to be able to maintain one. I can go grocery shopping and not throw out bags of lettuce because they go bad, I can bring lunch into the office because I actually have stuff at home and I even have time to workout!

That being said, traveling this past week to Suffern, NY was fun! It was great to get out of the office for a few days. The nice thing about going to Suffern is that we actually take the train into New York City. My colleague and I split up once we arrived in the city and met with our respective close friends. It was great to catch up and have a nice a dinner. After dinner I met back up with my colleague and drove the 45 minutes or so to the hotel. By the time we got to the hotel it was probably 10 or 10:30. I wanted to read for a bit and then go to sleep. I tend to be cold and had a chill all day. With the weather getting warmer everything (train, restaurant, hotel) all seemed to react by cranking up the air conditioning. I tried to turn the heat on/air down but when I tried to adjust the thermostat nothing happened! There were no numbers/temperatures/etc. I pressed the up and down arrows, the on/off button, etc. I held the buttons down, I pressed them repeatedly with no change. When I called the front desk they, naturally, assumed I could not figure out the complicated 3 button system and spoke to me like an idiot. After explaining I had, in fact, tried pressing the arrows they sent someone to my room. Naturally they sent security...because, security usually fixes thermostats. After pressing the same buttons with the same (lack of ) results the (fairly creepy) security guy said he was going to go speak to maintenance. At this point it's about 11 and I'm hoping I can go to sleep in the next few minutes. Of course it take 15 minutes for him to get back to me but just to tell me I've been moved to a different room.  Now I was chilly, but it wasn't that bad. I had just wanted to knock it up a few degrees. I didn't want to change, repack all my stuff and move at 11:15 at night. I explained the (still creepy) security guy that I would be fine and I didn't want to move but thank you anyway and proceeded to get in bed and finally go to sleep. Unfortunately what the security guy forgot to tell maintenance I was still in the room so when they came knocking at 11:30 at night I was less than thrilled and they were surprised to see me! But after explaining how much I just wanted to go to sleep they left and I finally did.

Hopefully I'll be back here occasionally. I have a trip to Nashville planned and my colleagues and I are looking forward to hitting the town. Should also have an exciting announcement coming soon!