One Bite At A Time.

First things first: I knew you'd all want to know that in a recent study on active vs. sedentary lifestyles, most marathoners fell into what is basically the "active couch potato" category, ie they were moderately active for maybe an hour or so per day on average due to training & lightly active for maybe another hour or so (cooking dinner, taking out trash, etc.), but spent most of their other waking hours sitting, which is apparently the worst thing it is possible for a human to do on planet earth.

Apparently this was not surprising as there is incredibly high overlap between distance runners and people who do white collar/computer-type desk jobs. I feel like I'm not quite as bad as that thanks to strength work, karate, the occasional bit of biking, & having a standing desk (which I use maybe 50% of the time) but now I'm wondering if I should get one of those little office treadmills you use to turn your standing desk into a walking desk so I can maybe not die of high blood pressure / overproductive pancreas / herniated disc / etc.

Like Great America in your office, OMG so funnnnnn!!!!!!!!

Anyway.

It is a long road yet to SRM, but as June came to a close, I had to let myself take a moment to look back over the month with a little bit of pride and a lot of relief.

155.2 miles

21 hours & change + another ~20 hours of strength/karate/cross-training.

(In case you're wondering, the color coding is for tracking shoe mileage.)

No, it's not tons and tons by any objective standard; it's not even enough to reach the 2,000 miles-a-year club if I did it consistently. But it's still nearly double anything I've done in the last year. Although numbers like these wouldn't have phased me 14 months ago, I've learned that right now I just cannot look at a given month or week of training & go "Check, I am totally going to run 40/46/50/150/200/whatever miles this week/month." I can't even think about what I'm supposed to do tomorrow. It's utterly panic inducing.

What I can do is think, "6 mile track workout today? I can do that." "8 mile easy run today? I can probably do that." "13 mile long run today? I will try to do that." And if I keep saying that to myself every day, somehow, at the end of the week or month, things just magically add up.

Yes, on a couple of days I've had to say "Nope, tried, can't do it" or "Maybe I could do it, but probably not smart." But most of the time putting the big scary numbers out of my mind & just focused on one day at a time has kept me from feeling too overwhelmed. The only way to eat an elephant (and marathon training still does feel like a big, scary elephant) is one bite at a time.

Dibs on the short loin.

In a certain amount of theory, I am supposed to run some 230+ miles in July. I suspect I won't quite get there because I've already fallen a little behind the weekly increases (for very good reasons that I don't feel bad about at all), but if I could get up to around 200ish, that would be plenty.

The main challenge with July is that my research team & I will be in Vancouver the third week of the month presenting a paper & in then in LA (well; Covina) the last week of the month. My days will be packed but I should have most of my evenings free, so if I can find some good local routes (17 miles on a hotel treadmill is a thing that is #nothappening), I should be able to get by.

So yeah. Anyone know any good local run clubs in Vancover or Covina? :D