Books: If you tell. This book was so intense. I couldn’t believe it can happen to anyone. I only realized it was a true story at the end. Human nature could be so surprising and scary sometimes. Ready or Not. I had high hope for this book as I read this author’s previous books and enjoyed them all. But this one was disappointing as I felt like I knew the concepts well and didn’t learn much. Can’t hurt me. A great memoire that helped me to survive the hardest long run as it’s all about mental strength.
Podcast: Tim Ferriss mix episode. It was great to listen to Elizabeth Gilbert and Sam Harris.
Supplement: I am still trying out AG1. I started when Lizzy got sick and wanted to increase my immune system. I don’t particularly like the taste of it but with ice, it is growing on me. I didn’t get sick, which is good. Will report back next month to see if I believe it makes a difference.
Workouts: I stopped going to the gym. I gave it a try for 5 months, 2-3 times a week. I must say I had to decide each time whether I want to do it. Usually I felt good after I finish, but the after sessions feeling was not great. I was sore and fatigue for 1-2 days, and tired for my runs. My resting heart rate has increased in the months that I was going to the gym, consistently. I am not 100% sure they are related but since June, it has come down. Now that I started my marathon training, I want to do strength/stretch exercises that complement running, not detrimental to running. I’m back to Tracy Anderson’s metamorphosis program. I bought it 10 years ago, never finished but felt like giving it a try. I am on day 40 and so far so good. I like that it’s short (30 min), I can do it anywhere, quite challenging for body weight workout. Surprisingly, I feel stronger, especially in my lower body without feeling too sore like gym workouts. I do 3-4 times a week on my rest days from running and easy run days. I go to the next level after I complete 10 sessions of one level. On days that I feel moving gently, I do yoga or Melissa wood’s workout.
Running: I love following the runnersconnect plan. When I don’t follow a training plan, I tend to run at the same effort regardless of the distance, which means I don’t progress. With the plan, while it’s daunting sometimes what I have to do, I can see my progress. One thing that I learned is to really take easy runs easy by keeping my HR between 135-140 in those runs. It makes a big difference. It really feels easy while building the aerobic base. Then I feel good when I do speed/tempo/hills. My pace varies so much now, from 7min/mile to 11 min/mile depending on the type of runs.
Taking a Break from CGM: I have been tracking my blood sugar for quite a while. I like to learn insights of how food/activities/stress affect my body. Yet I feel it began to dictate what I choose to eat to avoid seeing a spike. I don’t like restriction in general, so I thought it was a good time to take a break from it. To my surprise, I didn’t miss it much. It didn’t cause anxiety. I ate intuitively, still minimal sugar and process food. I was more conscious to fuel whole food carbs the day before my hard workouts and long runs. It worked well and those were good runs.
June goals progress
Less structure days: mostly accomplished.
Friday off unless important meetings. DONE.
Early dinners, ideally before 5:30pm. Most days.
Start marathon training and stick to the plan. SUPER.
Plan for a short gateway. El Nido booked.
July goals
Early dinners.
Waking up meditation every morning. I’ve been meditating for a while. either using Oura meditations or podcast by Tara. Upon Tim’s episode, I signed up Waking Up app as it seems more structured, as a course.
Date Fridays. Let’s see if we venture out beyond golfing. 🙂
Take more walks with kids or husband. We all enjoy it but always forget.
Our New Journey 
Love these updates. My sister is an amateur athlete and is adamant the best way to train is within the 135-145 heart rate range. That’s my only fitness goal this summer related to running now!
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I also love these recap posts! I haven’t been really setting/tracking major goals right now as I might in other seasons… summer has felt so all over the place/ random/chaotic. But I always love reading about it, and I would prefer to be doing it myself too.
About your strength workouts, I’d be curious to see one of your workouts written out. I wonder if maybe you were overdoing it a little? That is a common pitfall for people new to strength training.. you’d be surprised how actually few exercises i do some days. It may be only 4 exercises in my entire lower body workout for the day (especially if doing unilateral work). I think some people believe it takes lots of exercises to get a good workout in.
Or, were you doing different workouts every day, thus not allowing your body to adapt? I will do the exact same lower body workout, for example, once per week, 4 weeks in a row before switching it up. I may be a little sore the first week, but it would be very rare to be super sore on subsequent weeks, as my body adjusted. But I have been lifting for years now, so I probably have a lot of muscle memory in there. 🙂
That being said, even though I am a huge proponent of strength training (both for body composition goals and bone/joint health), if running is your primary focus, it definitely makes sense to put your main efforts there! It CAN be tricky to combine long distance running and strength training. When I used to marathon run, years ago, I definitely did less strength training, because all those miles can wear out your legs! And you do want to feel fresh if you’re doing a long run the next day, for example. I think you definitely would not want to be do heavy volume, heavy weight strength training DURING a marathon training cycle. Like you said, some lighter supplemental strength work that complements your running is plenty. I know some runners will do heavier/more strength work in their running “offseason”, if they have one, and then dial it back when they ramp the running back up.
And maybe you just don’t really like strength training! That’s ok too. No matter how “good” something may be for you, you have to enjoy it in order to stick with it. I found I personally didn’t really enjoy running as much anymore, after loving it for many years, so eventually I stopped. I don’t know why I suddenly stopped enjoying it… who knows. Obviously, many, many other people love running!! Nothing wrong with that, either. Exercise has a million options and I don’t believe there is one right way to do it for all people.
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