On the road to Brooklyn

Hey everyone, doing a little blog today that is a bit different than the others. If you follow my Facebook you page you caught a little glimpse into my New Years Resolution reality. Despite my positive and inspirational post to try to encourage everyone out there to seek out and start a new journey, I was stuck in my own "goal seeking" rut.

I started 2020 with no real goal, which is out of character for me as I always strive to complete something new each year and for me and it isn't always travel or fitness related. That is shocking I know but true! Last year my goal was to read at least one book a month(nailed it) and to heal ALL my injuries before running again after I finished the Houston Chevron Marathon(check).

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I tried to narrow my goals down but couldn't really nail anything down that inspired me to be better. Then my goal kind of just came to me, like a big red sign!

I am signed up for NYRR(New York Road Runners) promo emails and I received a notification about the Popular Brooklyn Half Marathon registration opening on January 22. So me being me, I saved the date and kind of pushed it aside all while thinking, "that would be really cool BUT I haven't ran any real distance since Chevron which was a whole year ago, would I even be able to run a half marathon in just 17 weeks?"

I am terrified of failure so pushing myself is an art in itself. I constantly doubt my physical ability which is why I started my blog. I wanted to get out of my head and show myself and others you CAN do it! Mentally fitness is a lot harder for me than it is physically.

January 22nd rolled around and I got my alert on my phone that registration was opening up in 30 minutes, I was busy at work and thought I will look at it later after I finish up my file if I can get around to it.

2 hours after registration opened I went to the website to see if the race was already sold out and there were bold red letters saying there was a problem with the registration site and NYRR will notify everyone once it becomes available again with an additional comment that said you will have to reenter the registration queue and your waiting time will begin at that time.

In that moment I thought, hmm that is weird and that's when the magic happened. I was really looking forward to the possibility of running the Brooklyn Half. I was hooked waiting in anticipation for the website to be fixed.

I kept heading back to the website every now and then just to see if the queue was up and running. THEN I was IN! I was in the queue with a 40 minute estimated waiting timeframe. I was sitting there like oh crap, this might actually happen. Okay, okay, calm down this could still sell out before you get to your turn.

The moment my turn came around the website chimed with this beautiful music and redirected me to the registration section. *Happy Dance* I was kind of panicking putting in my information, what if I don't have enough time or I can't finish before my timeframe is up. What if it sells out while I am putting in my information?

Then, BAM! Confirmation, you are in! I was officially signed up for the Popular Brooklyn Half Marathon in May!!

That's when my goals came to reality, it was the push that I needed, the inspiration I was desperately seeking. With that, I got to work looking at half marathon plans and tweaking my weight lifting schedule and nutrition plan.

Backstory, about 7 years ago my fitness journey started with running and cardio only workouts. I was obsessive with weight loss. I just had my second child, I was overweight, unhappy with myself and ALWAYS tired. I felt like I had to eat as little calories as possible and do at least an hour of cardio everyday in order to lose weight. I didn't have a plan other than to "get skinny". It kind of worked but I stressed about every single calorie I ate that was above my 1,200 daily limit that I felt the need to punish myself with more exercise. I honestly had no idea about macros, weight lifting or what was considered healthy eating. This went on for years until I started training for my first marathon in 2015. Training for this marathon taught me so much about what the word "healthy" really meant. My long runs ranged from 15- 24 miles long during this training cycle and I ran 4 other runs in the same week. I did NOT fuel properly, in fact I kept my diet the same and still consumed around 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day and my performance reflected that. I was weak, mentally and physically. Every little thing set me off it didn't matter if it was big or small. I stressed about running every single mile of my training plan and half way through was already burned out from over training. I did finish that first marathon in 4 hours and 45 minutes; which is pretty respectful considering how little I knew about nutrition and exercise. After that, I did a complete 180 when it came to training and nutrition. I had so much to learn and still do but I never want to feel under the gun like that again so now when I create my plans for myself or for you I base them on quality not quantity. I want to be strong but I want to stay strong. I want to run fast and complete a half marathon but not with a risk of injury.

Okay, now that I went off on a tangent back to the story!

My last full marathon was in 2019 and I used a 3 days a week running training plan from Runner's World combined with 4 days of strength training. This plan felt amazing to complete after my first marathon experience. I finished this marathon in 4:15, a whole 30 minutes less than my first marathon running less days in a week. Since I already knew that plan worked I took out my Run Less Run Faster book and mapped out my plan for the Brooklyn Half.

** Note, I bought my book on Amazon; get your copy here.

My plan is to continue with 4-5 days a week of strength training and add 3 days of running from the training plan in my book for the half marathon. That means two days will be double workouts and then I have two days during the week for recovery.

I refuse to have less than 2 days recovery in a week, overworked or injured muscles mean nothing on race day so if rest days is what it takes to stay injury free I will take them! If I don't take enough rest days I get mentally burned out as well and get extremely fatigued during the day. When I start feeling like this I back off a bit from training for a day or two to recharge and remind myself that I have to take care of myself to be my best self.

I am finishing up week two of my training as I write this blog. I have just over 14 weeks left until I step up to the start line and I already feel ready. I am going to throw this out there so I can hold myself accountable; I want a personal best time of 1 hour and 55 minutes or less. My fastest half marathon time is 1:56:02 so I know I can come close to that time.

I am thrilled to share this will all of you. I will keep you all posted with my training recaps and updated with my goals for 2020.

Let me know if you are interested in my training plan or if you too will be joining me in Brooklyn! My motto for the next 14 weeks is No Sleep Till Brooklyn (thanks for that Beastie Boys!)

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