I was supposed to be running my 6th marathon today. As I start writing this, it is 7am – I’m sure I would be at the race, anticipating the 8am start. The current weather in Little Rock, Arkansas is 36°F, partly cloudy, with barely any wind. By start time it is supposed to already be 40°F. Over the next 5.5-6 hours (the length of time it probably would’ve taken me to complete the marathon) the temperatures would reach 60°F and the sun would be shining. A huge temperature shift but all things considered, really great marathon weather.
I’m not waiting to start my 6th marathon though, and in fact, there’s nobody gathered for Arkansas’ Race for Every Pace. A couple of months ago the race was postponed to November, and our plans for a road trip to visit my brother and sister-in-law to celebrate my dad’s 80th birthday and run the marathon were canceled. Another gift brought to us by COVID-19.
Don’t get me wrong – I completely understand the decision and feel that we made the right choice canceling our plans anyway. It is better to be safe than sorry. But it still sucks to reach this day and instead of being anxious in the starting corrals, I’m in bed, sore from yesterday’s workout and in no shape to run a marathon, writing this blog.
Instead of continuing to dwell on the sucktastic ways COVID-19 has messed with my plans, and quite frankly changed my life, let’s look at my training in February. I may not have continued to train for a marathon, or the other crazy challenges I thought I’d do this year, but I’ve moved my body in other ways and taken care of myself differently.
Starting off with “Banking the Miles”…
- January 2020: 50.0 miles / January 2021: 77.7 miles
- February 2020: 78.6 miles / February 2021: 26.0 miles
- March 2020: 84.3 miles
- April 2020: 96.4 miles
- May 2020: 83.3 miles
- June 2020: 72.5 miles
- July 2020: 84.0 miles
- August 2020: 94.7 miles
- September 2020: 50.1 miles
- October 2020: 53.7 miles
- November 2020: 69.3 miles
- December 2020: 86.0 miles
- TOTAL 2020: 902.9 miles / TOTAL 2021: 103.7 miles
February 2020 Marathon in a Month: Although my total mileage for February was just barely a marathon, I only count full miles ran towards my “Marathon in a Month” so I actually had to add in some walking miles to get my time. In fact, I just barely had enough miles to make it work. I’ll talk more about all of that later in this blog… my February “Marathon in a Month” was 6:02:29, a 13:50 pace.
What was I training for? At first I was training for a half marathon, but when I found out that the one I had in mind was sold out, I just gave up on running. As you can see from my “Banking the Miles” and “Marathon in a Month” I barely ran at all in February and when I did it was all at an easy pace. I did end up with intentional movement every day but one, and that day of total rest was definitely needed.
Any races? My hubby and I walked a 5k – The CLUBWAKA Happy Hearts Virtual 5k benefitting the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. It was a really nice day spent together – we had fun visiting our “friends” at Bronner’s and letting them try on our medals.
How is it going? I just completed the #MBF workout program from Beachbody OnDemand. As I have mentioned in my Instagram and Facebook posts, this was the first Beachbody workout program that I have fully completed. I really enjoyed that each day had a new workout, even if they repeated similar moves from before, it didn’t feel like “Oh, it’s lower body day again.” I also really liked that the program was 3 weeks. I didn’t do the workouts every day for the first two weeks of the program… in fact, I did day 1 way back at the end of December, and didn’t try day 2 until the second week of January! Even though I was only doing a couple of workouts per week and sometimes went whole weeks without doing the workouts I felt like I still challenged myself and got something out of it. I liked it so much that I plan on starting the advanced version tomorrow!
What do I hope to improve on in March? My March challenge is to try to eat from home for breakfast and lunch as much as possible. I had gotten into the habit of eating breakfast and lunch from fast food or take out every single day during the work week, and sometimes even dinner, too. So far this week I have enjoyed the majority of my meals from home and I have already noticed a difference in my bank account and how I’m feeling! I also want to share more nutrition content with you since it is NATIONAL NUTRITION MONTH! Stay tuned for more throughout the month.
RD on the Run 