Happy fourth of July everyone! I hope you all are enjoying the holiday weekend, extra days off from work, BBQ’s, pool time, etc. with friends and family ☺ I wore my American flag socks this morning on my run to honor the day, haha ☺ I enjoy these socks at races when there are tons of foreigners and I want to proudly show I’m racing for the USA. Thinking about our country and all the freedom I truly have in my life makes me incredibly grateful. Although I don’t think about it everyday like I should, I’m so happy I have the freedom in this country to choose my career, who I socialize with, who I date, where I can go in public, etc. There are still so many places where women can’t make their own choices, they’re told what to do by men or they have societal pressures to have a certain career. I love that I’ve been blessed with my athletic talent and I’m able to do what I absolutely love every single day. Of course there are ups and downs, but overall I have an amazing, great life ☺
I finally finished writing my training from now until the NYC Marathon and I’m so excited! I feel as though I finished an artistic masterpiece, haha. In the past I have literally just trained and done hard workouts based off what I considered to be common sense or past experiences of what I knew worked or didn’t work in college. Much of the past 3 years has been an experiment on my part. I worked with a coach for a few months last year, but other than that, I’ve done everything on my own. I finally read a couple books the past year and they have helped me learn some things about training. (Advanced Marathoning by Pete Pfitzgerald and Scott Douglas and Better Training for Distance Runners by David Martin and Peter Coe)
Of course I knew about lactate threshold training, VO2 max workouts, tempos, long runs, etc. yet I never really knew how to plan it all so that I peaked at the right time or if I was doing it at the correct paces in order to hit my goal times in races. In fact, two of my huge breakthroughs occurred unexpectedly when I had NEVER done the paces in workouts that I hit in the races. For example my 1:12:52 half marathon and my 2:35:52 marathon both must have been a result of some good overall strength, mental toughness and perhaps the fact I was undertrained and not burned out. Anyway, my plans for the next 18 weeks are definitely harder than I’ve ever done and I know it’s going to be difficult, and perhaps will need some tweaking at some point, but I have to take it one day at a time and I know I’ll accomplish great things☺
I’ve started to put motivational quotes, countdowns and pictures on my mirror in my bathroom and it’s fun to look at it every single day. It really helps me to see this sort of stuff and it reminds me to work hard every single day. Any day that I may not feel like going out the door to do my really hard workout is a day someone else WILL, so I have to say focused ☺ I’m continuing to take naps, foam roll a lot, stretch, ice little aches and pains and constantly working on my willpower to keep eating healthy.
Quote for today: “Life’s up and downs provide windows of opportunity to determine your values and goals. Think of using all obstacles as stepping stones to build the life you want”- Marsha Sinetar
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