what do half-marathons, spinning classes, rowing intervals, dragon boating and hot yoga have in common? and what the shit does this have to do with my weight loss journey?
There comes a point — 18 km into a half-marathon, 3/4 of the way through a spinning or hot yoga class, the last 250 metres of a dragon boat race, the sprinting part of your rowing interval session — when you want to quit. Your body is uncomfortable. Your brain is telling you to quit.
The thing is, you don’t need to quit.
Sissy.
You can power through — you just have to want to do it.
And then do it. You grit your teeth, focus, and hammer through.
And when you do — it feels GLORIOUS. Okay so maybe not at the time. It pretty much still feels uncomfortable. BUT pushing your muscles to the point of uncomfortable, working-out wise, is a good thing. And when it’s finally over you’re all like “yeah, I just did that, whatevs.” (Cause you are playing it cool, right?)
Okay, so I apply this to my feats of athleticism all the time. (Except when I stop going to the gym and instead read angsteful teen fiction and eat my feelings.) I have completed two half-marathons even! Yet, when it comes to not making poor food choices, I am on the losing team, and it’s preventing me from hammering through this plateau. So, do I just need to want it more? To suck it up and hammer through? Probably, eh?
December 1, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Totally off topic, but do you have any advice on training for a half-marathon? I’ve done a few 5ks and want to start upping my distances but double digit mileage seems so intimidating – how did you do it?
On the food front – have you tried totally shaking up your diet? Different foods, different recipes? I tend to get into food ruts where I eat the same low point foods for a long time, get sick of them, and fall off the wagon a bit. Do you eat meat? Maybe try cutting out meat a few days a week – I went vegetarian a long time ago and I felt like pounds just fell off.
December 2, 2008 at 2:24 am
Hey! I do have advice for training for a half-marathon — I went from 5 kmish in November last year to a half marathon in June this year (and again in October) — so it’s doable, but hard!
There are different schools of thought on how often you need to run to train for a half marathon. Running room suggests 5 days a week (http://www.runningroom.com/hm/inside.php?id=3292), but there are other training programs that have you run three days a week, and cross train (like biking, rowing, or swimming) hella hard the other two days (http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-238-244-258-9369-0,00.html). Personally, I do the latter. I look forward to my runs more when I only have 3 a week, and get more bang for my buck. I also think that cross training balances out your muscles groups better than just running all the time, and is less harsh impact-wise on the body.
So I’ll do interval training for one run, a tempo run (comfortably hard) for one run, and a longer run (plus 2 days of hard cross training — I go to spinning classes). You can figure out how long your long run needs to be by choosing a race date. You’ll want to taper your long runs down 3 weeks before the race. So, grab a calendar, write down your RACE DAY, and three weeks before that will be your longest run. I like doing a full 21 km for that one, or even 23, just so I know I can get through it, but you could build up to 19 instead. Then work your way back through the calendar. So you have your 21 km run 3 weeks before the race, the week before your long run could be 19 km, the week before 17 km, 15 km, etc. I like building in breaks along the way and doing a few weeks at distances I find to be tough before adding more distance. A big part of half-marathon running is injury prevention — you want to be in tune with your body, pushing yourself, but not so much that you hurt yourself. It is a fine line. But, if you pick a race in the early summer, you’ll have plenty of time to build up gradually. So, you can give yourself a few weeks at each distance for your longer distance runs. Are you running 5 kms now? Or more?
The thing about the 3-runs-a-week training is that it requires you to give’r on your runs. The idea is to Run less, better. I can explain more about intervals and tempo if you want. And/or cross training. I’m no expert — can just speak to what has worked for me.
Finishing feels glorious. And then you have to pee really bad.