Austin Marathon Training, Week 2

This week has been filled with exhaustion. I think it’s a combination of not sleeping well (for several reasons, including an uncomfortable pillow that I should really replace and a furnace of a dog who likes to sleep cuddled up right next to me) and working out a lot more than I had been. My sleep habits need to be adjusted yet, and I’m still working on that. Because of feeling so tired, I took two rest days this week. But it will not become a habit. I’ve fallen into that trap before, and it has led to disappointing races and injuries.

Something else that has been motivating me this week—new podcasts to listen to! I’m a regular listener of Stuff You Missed in History Class, Stuff Mom Never Told You, and Popaganda, but I recently found three more to add to my weekly list—The Black Tapes, Lore, and Guys We F****d. There are so different from each other, but so wonderful in their own ways. The Black Tapes podcast is laid out similar to Serial, but it’s about paranormal and creepy phenomena. Lore is about the history behind things that scare us currently, like vampires, werewolves, and the dark. And Guys We F****d is fairly self-explanatory. It’s two comediennes who market themselves as the anti-slut-shaming podcast (which is wonderful) and it’s funny and entertaining and enlightening. I love them all in their own ways, and I’ve been listening to them on my runs and my adventures to the creek with Ole, along with during monotonous work for my job. They help pass the time, and I feel like I’m learning things rather than just sitting in silence or listening to the same music that I’ve been listening to for months or years. Plus, it’s always different. And I don’t always learn very well by listening, so I’m trying to train myself to get better at that by listening in order to learn things.

Anyway. That was a long introduction. But here we go with this week’s training.

Monday—20 min yoga fusion + hip strength

The workout I was doing was supposed to be 30 minutes long, but my internet kept pausing the video at inconvenient times. Like when I was supposed to be holding a downward dog for a specific amount of time, but then the video paused and I was like, “hello? I don’t like staying like this?” So I finally paused it and decided to just do the hip exercises that I learned back when I was in physical therapy.

Tuesday—2.75 mile trail run with Ole

I took Ole back to the off-leash dog trail and with him there. He’s a much better trail runner when he’s off-leash, I’ll tell you that. My pace wasn’t great—I kept trying to get Ole to stay with me and he kept wanting to run off. There’s a pretty good incline and decline on this trail, so I’m okay with the pace. And it felt good. It was a good trail run.

Wednesday—rest

There isn’t much to stay about a rest day, but I was just genuinely pooped. So I took a day off rather than do the cardio cross training that I had planned.

Thursday—2.25 mile trail run with Ole

On Wednesday, it started raining. So by Thursday morning, everything was puddled. The part of Texas we live in doesn’t absorb water very well, so everything becomes a puddle. It was stupid to go trail running. The rocks here become slick, slippery as ice when they’re wet. So our pace was slow—we averaged more than 12 minute miles. It’s okay. We shouldn’t have gone in the first place. Ole didn’t even know it was raining. He still wanted to swim. He’s such a goof.

Friday—30 min UrbanKick

I transitioned my Wednesday cardio cross training to Friday this week, because they are the hardest work for me and feel the best. I did another UrbanKick workout on Booya fitness, this one called Off the Grid. There was some fancy footwork and punch-work that I had trouble with, but it was another great workout. If you have the chance to do any kickboxing, do it! I didn’t even think I would like it, but I love it.

Saturday—rest

I was going to do yoga, but I ended up going to a family get-together instead. We carved pumpkins and watched movies (Hocus Pocus and Inside Out) and it was awesome. I’ll always take a family day when I can get one, and it gave H time to do his homework and study for his midterms.

Sunday—5.05 mile run with Ole

It was a soggy one. Ole and I went back to Zilker Park for a five-miler yesterday, and I was kind of dreading it. I don’t mind running in the rain, but Ole can be kind of difficult in the rain. I think the smells are stronger when things are wet—that’s the only thing that I can think of that would make him as difficult as he gets when it’s wet out. He also almost caught two squirrels on this run, so that was fun for both of us. I had a route planned out, but part of the trails were closed off because of all of the rain that we’ve gotten, so Ole and I had to backtrack and rereun some parts of the trail in order to reach five miles. I felt pretty good through the whole run, which is saying something, since five miles is the furthest I’ve run since July! And that one seven-miler in July was an anomaly—before that, I hadn’t run more than 4-ish miles since the half, which was a year ago to the day of this run! Yeah. It feels so good to be back out there.