Little Miss Runshine

My First Personal Training Session at Republic Fitness

Disclaimer:  I am partnering with Republic Fitness and get to use the facilities in exchange for sharing some love on social for them!  All opinions are my own.

A few weeks ago I had a session with a personal trainer at Republic Fitness, Matt Hathaway.  When you become a member you get 2 free sessions–the first one is the get to know you one and the second one you actually get to do a workout.  I kept putting it off because I wanted to make sure I didn’t do something really different before or right after a race.

I told Matt that my main goals were to get stronger so that I could stay an injury-free runner and get closer to my pre-injury marathon PR.  Here is what I liked about my training session:

It’s personalized.  Of course–with personal training–it is really personalized to your growth and goals.

We focused on quality of strength not as many reps as possible.  Matt explained that working with him would mean we would focus on slowly increasing the difficulty of the workout not just trying to get in as many reps.  There was a caveat that as my marathon training picked up–we would shift to lower weight and maybe more reps so that my body wasn’t getting overworked and we were catering the personal training to my running schedule.

I was really sore after!  I didn’t feel sore the day after but two days after, I was feeling it!  I ended up not doing any of my BBG workouts that week so I could listen to my body.

It was around my schedule and convenient.  Matt was pretty flexible to find times that worked for me and the gym is maybe a 5 minute walk from my work!  With fitness classes you have to make sure you are there for specific times which can sometimes be tough.

So the big question is if I am going to continue after my free sessions…and my answer is unfortunately no.  Although I see value in the personal training, I just can’t quite afford to pay for sessions right now with a bunch of new expenses coming up.  I would be open to working with a personal trainer if it were a collaboration but I think for now I’m going to continue with my Kayla Itsines BBG journey paired with my marathon training.  I’ll be updating you soon on how BBG is going too!

Corporate Challenge 2017

This past Thursday I ran the JP  Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge and my company has been running it for many years now.  It’s always fun because we have runners of all levels.  Some come for the running but most come for the team bonding after the race.  We typically meet up and grab a beer and some food after.

The first Corporate Challenge was July 13, 1977 in Central park and was inspired by the firms who sponsor the NYC marathon.  The event hosts wanted to look for a way to have an event just for corporate runners.  Nowadays, all first place winners for each city will be invited to the championship that has an “olympic” style rotation where they visit cities throughout the challenge series.  This race started with 200 runners from 50 companies and has grown to what it is today in 2016 at 254,501 entrants from 7,612 companies for 13 cities in seven countries on five continents.  (Source)

For the everyday runner, it’s definitely not known as one of those races you PR.  The goal of this race is really to just have fun and an opportunity for some team bonding.  BUT…I actually did PR!!  Technically a PR for a 3.5 mile race isn’t too difficult because they are so rare, but my 5k time for the race was also a PR for me!  I ran the 3.5 mile race 23:48 (6:48 pace) and my 5k time was 20:55 (6:43 pace).  Previously I think my fastest was 6:58 pace!  I’m pretty excited because I felt pretty good after and have hope I can make some progress for my marathon training if I stick to it.  I had my coworker, Jay, take a celebratory jump photo for me.  And then I insisted that he take one too.  Let’s just say that I went for form and he went for height :)…

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Boston Run to Remember 2017 Recap

I wrote about my race expectations and I’m pumped to say that I did much better than I thought I would!  Although I’m not back to my pre-injury PR, I have a post-injury PR!  I ran a 1:40: 50!  Previously my post-injury PR was 1:41:22…hey…a PR is a PR. 🙂

I am wondering if going into the race without any specific expectation or goal is helping me.  I ran just listening to my body. It was towards the end of the race where I could tell I was close to meeting 1:41 that I realized I could maybe pick it up.  The strange thing about this race and Philly is that although I raced well–I felt not so great.  I didn’t feel like I was running strong–my legs felt tired, my cardio felt not as strong as it had in the past races I ran well in.  I am wondering if I have this runners black out where I just forget how terrible I felt during the race!

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Boston Run to Remember 2017 Expectations

Photo by Nick Cosky Photography

I have the Boston Run to Remember coming up this Sunday.  At first I was hoping to really go in with a specific race goal.  However, I got distracted by the month of Everybody Fights that I purchased through Gilt.  I went to too many classes and didn’t really focus on running (story of my life).  My main goal going into this race is to feel good.  That means that if I find that I can really race it–I will.  But if I end up feeling like crap and want to use it as a training run–that’s what I’ll do.

My fastest half marathon after my hip injury was 1:41:22 and my fastest pre-injury is 1:35:43.  I’ve got some work to do to get back to pre-injury speed.  I know how much work it took to get to that pace in the first place and am excited to work on that goal.  I find coming up with my training plan and being adaptive to what I need to for training a fun challenge and so rewarding to see results once I get them.  But it’s not just about the results for me–it’s about the whole experience:  getting out there to be active, learning more about myself and growing as a person, meeting new people and enjoying the journey.  I’m just so excited and thankful that I’m back running distance.  I still remember that time period where I thought I’d never run distance again.  Now look at me!  Six half marathons and a marathon since my injury!

Portland Marathon training begins June 5th and I really need to start to focus on running.  I realize that trying to complete BBG while marathon training might be a little ambitious but I also chatted with Zoë, aka MilesFitter, about this combo (thanks Ashley for the suggestion!).  Zoë mentioned that she was able to complete BBG while marathon training and it helped her stay injury-free.  Everyone’s body is different so if I find that it’s becoming too much–I’ll cut down on BBG.

Along with being better about running, I am going to try to be better about my nutrition.  I’m trying to start to track my food in MyFitnessPal.  When I was at my peak marathon shape in the past–I was tracking food so I could be aware of my nutrition.  I could see if I was really missing the mark on getting enough of the nutrients I need (I realized I was really slacking on veggie intake!).  Zoë mentioned that she didn’t follow the BBG health plan. She ate healthy during the week and did whatever she wanted on the weekends.  Because Dave and I enjoy exploring food so much–I think that will be my strategy too!