I formally present to you my personal adventure into revolutionizing my life redux version. This is delivered via:

• Marathon Training
• Re-introduction into Crossfit, post-injury  (otherwise known as “humble pie”)
• Nutrition Revamp

What I am not going to do is glorify the experience. I am serving it up sans BS. None of these activities are easy. In fact, they are really annoyingly challenging and can sometimes lead to some serious mental and emotional fatigue. Honesty is the best policy. It always is, even when it hurts. So let’s get into it.

Backstory
In the effort to stay true to my “sans BS” policy I will tell you that I was never a very good runner. I was the girl during “track day” with our gym class would only run when the teacher was looking in my direction and otherwise spend the time talking to my friends. I always loved sports but running felt pointless and uncomfortable.

Fast forward to my adult years and I dabbled in a few 5Ks that felt really really hard. Always focused on “just don’t stop” versus any sort of time challenge. My first 5K clocked in somewhere around 36 or 37 minutes but I am still just as proud of that race as any others. It was in the rain and I ran the whole thing with my sister.

My first 10K was in London with Nike. They provide shirts with your number imprinted on it and the whole race had huge jumbo screens with video shots from along the race course. I thought that was normal. It is not.

My first half marathon was long. 2 hours and 28 minutes long. I introduced Crossfit into my life to get stronger and meet new people in the city. I believe my strength support allowed me to accomplish my second half in 2 hours; still my PR today.  This was also around the time of my introduction to Paleo and my nutrition overhaul didn’t hurt my performance.

I gave up on running for a bit. I sluggishly ran a few races but didn’t feel my peak. I realized that my elbow pain and hip pain were not going away and it was time to handle it. I reverted back on my old diet of wine and whatever-I-felt-like-eating.

SURPRISE! I gained some weight. 6 months of PT on my elbow and 3 months of PT on my IT band later and I wanted to get back into the fight! I was so excited at the prospect of being able to workout regularly again that I forgot that my cardio ability had degraded. A lot.

Marathon Training
I remember that I was having a particularly rough work day and feeling really tired on that March 8th evening. Checking my inbox to see “You’re in!” and thinking that there had to be some mistake. I had put my name in the lottery the last 3 years with no success. Now, I was in. I was excited and had visions of the finish line beckoning to me. I let everyone know that I had made it and then realized “I LET EVERYONE KNOW I MADE IT. ugh!” Now I am accountable. Friends from overseas mentioned coming out for it. What? No! I will fail! Those are the words of individuals who are not prepared in the slightest.

Run coach, run groups, running buddy, Facebook groups, Instagram, communities. The choices are endless and I wasn’t really sure that any of them made sense. I had also made the decision to revamp my Nutrition around same time (to be explain in a later post) so I knew that I was going to need active support. I love accountability, even if it’s just me inputting my numbers/data somewhere.

I have been attentively following the NYRR plan and just completed 4 weeks of “pre-training” as part of a 20-week training program. We are now almost done with week 1 of the 16-week program. The good news is that there is a ton of flexibility in the program. Granted, you gotta do the work but you can pick and choose and I still get to do Crossfit 2-3 days a week!

I would recommend the program if you need a little push in a positive direction! I would say there are a lot of very experienced, talented runners out there and the Facebook community can make you feel like you are WAY behind. I try to avoid that a bit more and just stick to my plan.

Suggested podcast motivation for on-the-go:

• Lewis Howe’s The School of Greatness episode 336- Amy Purdy: Turn Life’s Tragedy into Triumph
• Is this Podcast Paleo? Episode #36 – Macros, Recovery, Working Out Anywhere and Livin’ Paleo with Ashley Beaver