Where has the time gone!? I haven’t updated my blog since the end of June and suddenly it is already August. My running mileage has been pretty consistent over the last few months. I have varied back and forth on what kind of cross training I am doing. Recent Garmin badge challenges have helped me to stay a little bit more consistent, and I found a Beachbody program that I really enjoy doing for strength and recovery. My biggest struggle over the last couple of months has been nutrition and hydration.
It’s funny – since I am a registered dietitian you would think that nutrition and hydration would be the easiest thing for me. I think one of the reasons why it is tough for me is because it feels like work. Running and other forms of exercise for me are something different. They are something that I don’t depend on to make a living. I know I am not an expert when it comes to exercise. Food, nutrition and hydration are topics that take up the majority of my day at work. I think that I just don’t want to spend time on myself in that area.
I try my best to be as body positive or neutral as I can possibly be. I am human, though, and there are definitely days where I struggle with my body image. Lately the struggle has been real – between grief, new medication, stress, etc. I find myself in a larger body than I am used to. I am gentle with myself. It has only been 4 months since my mom died. I would rather be in a larger body than in a depressed mood.
I also know that I need to take better care of myself. I need to eat more lean proteins, fruits and veggies, and I need to stay better hydrated. It will help my exercise and overall health. After my mom’s unexpected death, I am more concerned about my heart health. Yes, I exercise almost daily but my food choices will eventually catch up to me. I am dedicating the month of August to making small but powerful changes – two months is going to go by very quickly and I will be standing at the start line for 26.2 miles. And in three months I will have my annual physical with my doctor. If I don’t make some changes, my labs will get worse, not better.
As for my body image and body size, instead of trying to change the size of my body I am trying to accept my body no matter what it looks like. I am trying to work on that along with nutrition and hydration with a goal of feeing better, not changing my body, not looking different.
Enough about all that – let’s get to the training recap, shall we?
- 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 / March 2021: 55.2 miles
- April 2020: 96.4 miles / April 2021: 28.4 miles
- May 2020: 83.3 miles / May 2021: 73.3 miles
- June 2020: 72.5 miles / June 2021: 69.95 miles
- July 2020: 84.0 miles / July 2021: 68.5 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: 399.05
June 2021 Marathon in a Month: 5:33:43, average pace 12:44 minutes per mile. So what exactly is “Marathon in a Month”? I have a spreadsheet where I list miles 1-26, plus 0.2. I record my 27 (one of them is for the 0.2 pace) fastest training mile times for the month. That gives me a total marathon time and average pace. I started this back in November because I signed up for a “Marathon in a Month” race. I decided to continue recording it because I thought, “Hmm, I wonder if this will offer a good prediction for what my actual marathon time might be.” Here’s how the last 9 months have ranked:
- November 2020: 5:09:37, 11:49 min/mile
- May 2021: 5:13:27, 11:58 min/mile
- March 2021: 5:19:11, 12:11 min/mile
- April 2021: 5:20:10, 12:13 min/mile
- December 2020: 5:25:24, 12:25 min/mile
- January 2021: 5:28:39, 12:33 min/mile
- July 2021: 5:31:34, 12:39 min/mile
- June 2021: 5:33:43, 12:44 min/mile
- February 2021: 6:02:29, 13:50 min/mile
This month I will be running my first in person race since February of 2020 – I will be running the Crim 10 Mile race in Flint. I am really excited but also a little bit nervous. With recent rises in COVID-19 cases I am concerned with how the race will be handled. I want to stay safe and keep others safe, too. After that my focus is fully on Detroit. It was recently announced that the race will be U.S. only, which is disappointing, but also exciting. This will be the 3rd time since the race was founded that the course will NOT be international. I’m looking forward to being a part of this unique experience. Which means I really need to focus on taking care of myself during this training because I want to be able to say that I ran 26.2 miles in the great city of Detroit!
RD on the Run 