Hammers & Honey buckets
Welcome to Denver and the mile high air!
Not gonna lie, those first couple months were a rough adjustment for breathing… especially given that I had decided to train for a marathon with some of my fellow AmeriCorps [iykyk].
Anyway, that’s almost besides the point! You may be thinking ‘okay Lydia, so you’re telling me that you decided to jump into marathon training even though you'd been having knee pain, only currently ran an average of 2x/week and had not run more than 8 miles ever?' Short answer: yup. For the sake of giving myself any type of credit, I will elaborate.
First and foremost, the knee pain was a definitely a consideration; I did not want to make anything worse. I had been in physical therapy in NY until I left for Denver and then shortly after arriving in Denver, established with a pt here. But, like I said previously, running did not seem to bother my knees for some reason. So, to me, it was a yellow light- proceed with caution, but don't stop.
Second, I really wanted to accomplish something. Since I had given up the power walking regimen, I had kind of felt like a slacker. I had taken up running the couple/few times a week, and still biked a bit, but my primary form of exercise had become the gym. While it may seem like I finally had found a more balanced exercise routine, at the time, I did not see strength training as a real workout. I did it occasionally because the pt's had told me that I really should, but most of the time I instead gave in to the desire to burn as many calories as possible and so I would hop on the Peloton or stair master for an hour plus.
I would not recommend this, as I have since learned the importance of strength training. It did however, get my lungs in decent condition to take on marathon training with minimal running background.
Third, I did not want to miss out. Like I said, several AmeriCorps were planning on running either a half or whole marathon in mid-May. Though I had just arrived February 27, I did not want to miss out on training runs, the opportunity to get closer to people, or the feeling of accomplishing it.
And last but certainly not least, I learned from the AmeriCorps already training that they were following a training plan. I had not thought about there being such a thing before. Once they told me about the 18 week plan they were using, I looked it up and was hooked on the concept. The plan broke down the weekly workouts which included varying mileage days, cross-training, and rest. Being a structure seeking individual about to start a full-time job for the first time in my life (not counting school), I loved the idea of knowing what I would be doing for exercise each day. Not only that, I knew I would almost always be training with someone else, so I wouldn't be lonely like all those solo power walks I had done in the past.
Now knowing more of the inner workings of the Lydia brain, you can hopefully see how I reached the decision to hop in on week 8/18 and train for the Colfax Marathon....
Training for the most part was fine. Like, I did not find the running itself hard. As time went on, the knee pain definitely presented itself, but it did not stop me from finishing out the training or running the marathon. However, what I never got sorted out during that time was food... shocker right? You mean that just because I all of a sudden decided to run a marathon that my food issues didn't just work themselves out? Precisely guys, precisely.
I was so stuck in my habits that marathon training had no positive effects for me in the food department. The food scene actually got worse for me. After all, I now had a full-time job and was not able to exercise 24/7, so I continued not having breakfast; but now, I also skipped lunch and used my break to go for a walk instead. Don't ask how I justified this, especially since my full-time job was literally physical labor- I worked at Habitat for Humanity as a construction crew leader. This meant that my day-to-day typically consisted of hammering, caulking, carrying wood around, or the occasional sledgehammering concrete... but anyway I digress.
As you can imagine, skipping breakfast and lunch got me pretty hungry. Now add to that my daily bike commute to work (yup I did this every day), the physical nature of my job, a half an hour lunch walk, and then daily marathon training. Like I said, it was bad. Don't worry though I still knew that I needed to get in a certain number of calories per day and made sure to do that, it was just very condensed. I ate at night. For the sake of not repeating information, refer to my post 'The Transition' for a detailed breakdown of what dinner looked like, because that part of my eating unfortunately did not change.
As you may have guessed, this eating pattern in combination with marathon training was such a mess. I was either running on literal empty if we ran after work, or experienced major digestive issues if we ran before work. My body had no idea what was going on or how to process food. Long runs were the worst. For those who may not know, the longer you run, the more your digestive system gets shaken up and the less oxygen it has to digest so it goes into anaerobic mode. Having either no food or too much food in my system definitely did not help the situation. What do I mean? Well, I had pooping emergencies on every single long run except one random run- and no, marathon day was not the exception! Thankfully, each time I needed to go, there was a lovely Honey bucket for me to go in. It often had no toilet paper or hand sanitizer,but hey, at least it was a sheltered container!
I honestly know it was a gift from God that I was able to do all the training runs and run the marathon in the time I did. I was not in a stable place physically or mentally to put my body through that much. Don't get me wrong, though. I loved marathon training. In the past couple years since I've had to take a pause on running to get my body actually ready for it, marathon training is something I have missed and everyday I pray for the opportunity to get back to it when the time is right.
In the meantime, I have learned that repairing damage done takes a lot more time than it took to do the damage initially. Even after a year and a half working with a dietician and getting my food intake where it needs to be, my body is STILL figuring itself out.
~Another day, another slay~
Lydia
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