Do you hear that? That's the sound of 3:45am alarms going off once again. You know what that means? IT'S TRAINING TIME! I've been so excited for this moment to finally be here. If you've been following along with me since day one, you know I haven't trained for a race since my 5K back in February. While goals were missed, we still had a blast doing it and to race as well as I did from being down and out for so long, I'm pretty friggin' proud of myself and my performance. I've learned to not dwell on the negatives and to hold my head up high from the positives.
Okay, so I know you're just all dying to hear what race I'm training for and how I'm going to execute it. You're lucky I like you so much and I'm transparent as heck. I've chosen to go for another half marathon adventure in November and run Mt. Lemmon in Tucson, Arizona.
I was on the fence between this race and another one because I couldn't talk myself into running a (basically) completely downhill race. I didn't want it to be too "easy" for me, especially since we are going after another PR. Who am I kidding, running downhill is NOT easy, especially for how long I'll be doing it for. But, I thought to myself, "why not"? I want to have fun doing this, not to make it a chore. If I PR, great. If I don't, at least I had FUN. I think that's one word that is definitely missing from many runner's vocabularies when they are so stuck in their ways and take too much time trying to outshine the rest. Plus, I heard Revel has some sick racing swag and let's be honest, a race with good swag is a race worth running. In total, I will be running 13.1 miles at an elevation drop of 3,125ft. My quads are already twinging. I have developed a better strength program to follow that is runner-specific and focuses on key muscle areas. I'm no athletic trainer but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to write this stuff out. A fellow running friend of mine did a great job selling this race to me and who WOULDN'T want to run in the mountains?
Now, onto the nitty gritty. How am I training? I had my google calendar ready to roll with Hansons Advanced Plan as I've worked with Hansons before but, one day, perusing my Garmin Connect app, I stumbled upon the training plan section.
I always knew Garmin had training plans but didn't realize they were built into Connect now. I live in a cave. They offer 5K, 10K, and half marathon plans. I had to play around with it to see what it was all about. It's very customizable. You put it how many miles you're currently running and at what average pace. You tell it what days you want to run, what day you want your long run, and if you have a time goal in mind.
There are three coaches to choose from. After you finish your questions, it builds a plan. It's an adaptive plan so it changes with the data from your workouts. You can only see the next few workouts or so in advanced. It kind of leaves you with a suspenseful feeling. Here's an example of what my training for next week looks like. I know I have a long run on Monday and an easy run Tuesday, but Thursday and Saturday are left to be determined.
I almost like the idea of not knowing what's coming. I think if you know you have a workout you've been dreading for weeks, it makes for poor mental performance. I'm very curious to see how it works and how my body does. I've chosen to work with Greg McMillan. I'm running 4x a week with varying workouts. The best part about this feature all together besides the fact that it's free? It automatically builds the workouts for you and syncs them to your watch. If you're like me, you use that feature a lot when in training mode. I like my watch to tell me what to do and at what pace/for how long. The fact that I don't have to spend the extra time typing them all in made me happy. A+ for that, Garmin. I'm actually at the beginning of week two of the program right now and feeling fine. There's even a little circle at the top that gauges how your performance correlates with your time goal. I know I don't have to tell you that if it's in the green, you are good. They also post videos every week about specific tips and tricks as well as articles. Again, I'm curious. Very curious. If all else fails, I still have my Hansons plan synced. I'm hopeful, however! Side note: I can't guarantee the training plan works for every Garmin. I have a Fenix 5X. I have heard that the less-advanced watches do not support them.
I've been relying heavily on Nuun to carry me through. There isn't another electrolyte supplement that compares. Yes, I'm an ambassador for the company but they do not pay me to say that. I have dropped using my previous pre-workout supplement in replacement of Sport+Caffeine. I like that is has less caffeine (40mg) and has the added electrolytes. On long runs, I supplement with a regular Sport flavor and immediately follow my workout with another flavor of Sport. I throw in a few more later in the day as well. We may not have the gross Midwest summer humidity here but that desert sun does not mess around. Have to keep those minerals balanced! Stay tuned later this month when I'll be sharing a special discount for you to grab some for yourself!
Now that we have all of that out of the way, let's feast our eyes on a new recipe! It's summer time and what's a great way to cook easy meals? Grilling! I've actually never made homemade kebabs before trying this recipe but it was super simple and they tasted delicious. I was able to make lunches in less than 30 minutes that included a side of rice.
Throw on some bell peppers, mushrooms, tofu, and pineapple (I forgot the pineapple >.<), brush on some BBQ sauce, and grill for 10 minutes! As I always mention, I'm sure you could use your protein of choice. I simply use tofu because I'm a plant-based athlete. I served it with Jasmine rice which I added fresh lime juice to. Holler! You can find the recipe here. A word of caution when using wood skewers: soak them in water for a few hours first otherwise you'll be putting out fires you never wanted in the first place.
Now that I'm hungry just looking at that photo, I think it's time to cut it off here. As always, thanks for coming by. Don't forget to subscribe to my email list in the sidebar if you want an alert for future posts. We'll be updating weekly since we're officially in summer training mode! Let's go, team!
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