Week 5 – More Orange, Less Running

Posted on August 19, 2018 by jennsbostonrun

I feel last week was a successful week despite again only managing 2 of my 3 training runs–but i did get my long run and tempo runs in, which were the most important. i went to Orange Theory 4 days this week so that was probably plenty of treadmill sprints and probably also overdoing it on the cross-training.

Planned/ Actual: 27 / 26 miles

Monday. OTF with coach Nate. Good kickoff to the week. Surprisingly the class was not full and only a “2 group” (24 or less people) rather than 3 group (25-36 people).

Tuesday. OTF.

Wednesday. Nothing / rest

Thursday. Orange Theory Tornado Thursday! This was a tough workout. The ‘template’ for the class changes everyday but this one was a real sweat fest. It’s hard for me to go over 400 calories in the 55 minute class but today I really pushed it to 450 calories and 10 ‘splat’ points (minutes in the orange zone = 84% max heart rate).

AND then I ran the Cigna corporate 5K in downtown Manchester, NH. The race kicks off at 6:20pm which is better than 5pm but still hot and humid as hell. The course is actually 3 miles of down hill (literally) and then 0.1 of directly uphill to the finish line. I wish i was joking. I had hoped to finish under 27 minutes but really felt the heat after mile 2. My official time was 27:36. I also probably didn’t need to work out at OTF in the morning and do a 1 mile warm up. They opened up the fire hydrant at the finish line and that was refreshing! Happy that I averaged just under 9 minute miles.

Aspirational goal: I’d love to get a race photo where my feet are not BOTH touching the ground—where i actually look like i’m running. This one was the best one and my fire hydrant selfie.

Friday. OTF session #4 this week. Had a chance to do the 8am class with my workout buddy John. We don’t get to work out as much anymore since i am always in the 0530 class and John does not do 0530.

Saturday. Several things tried to derail my long run. Rain, overall feeling of malaise, I overslept and my iPad was not working (I was going to run on the treadmill to get over the rain problem). I borrowed my husband’s iPad and ran 13 miles. I started a new series, Sharp Objects on HBO. I’ve read the book, but I’m finding the series incredibly slow. Perhaps because I know the story. Funny story, my iPad was not working at all, would not connect to the internet to stream anything, get email, check the weather, nothing. I was super annoyed. Fast forward to Tuesday and I was looking at my xFi app (xfinity wifi app) and saw that i had ‘paused’ my iPad to test out the feature. Pausing any device blocks it from using the web. So yeah, I blocked my iPad, forgot about it, then got completely annoyed the thing wasn’t working. classic.

Sunday. Rest. And we made and ate a peach cafloutis! It’s a thing and pretty delicious! See you out there, – Jenn

Week 4: martinis and taffy

Posted on August 9, 2018 by jennsbostonrun

So….I took a rest weekend and didn’t do a long run. I ran my tempo and track workouts but the weekend got busy, I had a house guest and we went out for drinks Friday night and had a few drinks on Saturday. Just was not feeling it for the long run. Two out of three ain’t bad, hopefully this week I will get my 3 ‘quality’ runs in the schedule. I’m also running my 3 mile ‘tempo’ run on Thursday as a 5K. I realized the last time I ran a 5K without kids in tow was 2010, so i’m going to go for a new PR. (last year’s turkey trot 5K with kids I ran/walked it in 38 mins.) My PR per Athlinks is 25:18 which may be out of reach but something to strive for. This week’s race is a mostly downhill course with a sharp uphill at the very end. Seems doable.

Have you checked out Athlinks? A friend referred me to it and it’s pretty cool for the tracking your race results. I have run 9 marathons but I have no idea how many halfs (halves?), 10 and 5Ks. I’m working to tally up my half marathons. Not all the results are on Athlinks, particularly for races where I *may* have run with a friend’s bib or bought a bib on craigslist. Sometimes you miss the signup and sometimes you sign up but can’t run the race. I’m not against swapping for minor races and also (BTW) races could allow swapping, it’s just changing the name in the database and they could even charge another registration fee and make more money on the trade. I’m not qualifying for Boston, so in the past I’ve run under a pseudonym at a few races. Subject for a future blog about bib transfer thoughts, now back to the training update.

Planned / Actual miles: 31.5 / 13.9

Monday. I had to head to work early with no workout, but I hit the treadmill as soon as I got home. This humidity is crazy plus it was getting on to evening. I got in my 4 mile tempo + 1 cool down and 1 for warm up. Catching up on Elementary on CBS streaming on the iPad.

Tuesday. Orange theory last day for bingo! Take a selfie with your coach was a square so here’s my selfie with my coach! … spoiler alert: I didn’t win the bingo raffle drawing.

Wednesday. Nothing.
Late Monday night and early Tuesday caught up with me.

Thursday. Orange theory workout.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Track workout early before work on Friday and then martini night! I felt good getting my track intervals, 5 x 1K was no joke, actually challenging to run each at about 7.4mph on the treadmill. Friday night, out for martinis. Saturday was rainy and we headed ‘upta’ Maine for brunch. My kids are in the braces age, one got them off last winter and one is getting them on in two weeks. Since they don’t have saltwater taffy in February, we hit up the candy store on the way to brunch. They have barrels of taffy, barrels! We let the kids do all you can eat taffy before the braces, then it’s a long 2 years with nothing chewy.

Sunday, hit the snooze on the long run. Here’s to next week!

See you out there, follow me on Strava if you like!
– Jenn

Marine Corp Marathon Training kickoff: Week 1

Posted on July 18, 2018 by jennsbostonrun

Hey, it’s been awhile. I’ve thrown myself headlong back into running this year and committed to running 1000 miles in 2018. More on that in a next post. I’m more than half way to 1K so far and hope to finish by November.

So after my 2 week vacation in June, I kicked off Marine Corps Marathon training last week. We are 16 weeks out from the race on 10/28 and I feel that I have a good base to start from having finished a 2 spring halfs and a 10K. Here’s my plan with adjustments for week 1, July 9-15th.

I’m following my own hybrid training plan that is based on the Run Farther Run Less methodology merged with an old Team in Training training plan plus adjustments for various life events or other races. I generally try to get in two or three 20-miler runs in the the plan leading up to the marathon. For now the plan is on a piece of paper but soon to be updated on google sheets. Here’s how the week went.

Monday: Went to Orange Theory Fitness (OTF) subject for a later post but I am really into this gym/class. It’s HIIT and I can say that it has helped me improve my overall fitness. In the past i never cross-trained, but OTF I will do and it’s a great addition to just running. I usually get between 1.5 and 3 miles total each OTF workout on the treadmill plus rowing and weights.

Tuesday: Nope. took a rest day, already couldn’t face the training plan. Had planned to get up at 6 and run before work but that didn’t happen.

Wednesday: Yay, treadmill track workout to beat the heat. I’m pretty happy that I did get up before work and run my track workout on the treadmill. I am not a morning person so this was the big accomplishment.

Thursday: My usual 0530 OTF Class. I’ll get out of bed for this especially because there is a fee for no-shows.

Friday: Found time to run on the treadmill while working from home. Then went to OTF at 5:30 for a crazy hard class.

Sunday: wow, so hot and humid. Was planning to run 10 miles but my stomach was feeling iffy at mile 8 so i ended up with 9.2 miles.

Follow me on Strava if you like. I am tracking all my workouts and miles there for the year so I can keep track of my progress toward the 1000 miles in 2018!

See you out there,
– Jenn

Watch this Space!

Posted on August 30, 2017 by jennsbostonrun

I’m a runner not a blogger, Jim! That’s what I envision Bones yelling at Capt. Kirk. It’s been almost a year since my last blog post. So much has happened since then. I ran the NYC Marathon in November, 2016. I’ve run a few half marathons since then. I’ve gotten out of shape, then back in shape (almost). And I am training for a few halfs this fall and the Austin Marathon in February, 2018! More to follow on all of this and perhaps a NYC Marathon race report. Maybe on the 1 year anniversary I’ll do a throwback post! I’m not running with a charity for Austin though I have dreams to run Boston again with Dana-Farber. Perhaps in 2019. More blogging soon!

-Jenn

Austin 3M Half Marathon/Gluten-Free Austin

Posted on February 18, 2015 by jennsbostonrun

I ran the 3M Half Marathon on Jan 25th in Austin, Texas and it was a great run and really fun weekend. I met up with a friend from grad school and we covered a lot of ground in addiiton to the 13.1 miles on Sunday. Here are just some of the highlights of the weekend.

I arrived late morning on Friday to cold and rainy weather which I did not expect. I had a vision of sun and 70s, but no problem, anywhere without snow is good. I met up with an Army buddy of mine at Hopdoddy burger joint on South Congress a.k.a. “SoCo” area. The burgers here were delicious and they serve their own house-made gluten free buns! Anytime I go to a new city I like to check out the GF options in town and treat myself to some great gluten free bakeries and restaurants. www.hopdoddy.com was so good, i went back again on Sunday before leaving town.

After lunch I picked up my friend at the airport and checked in at the hotel. We stayed up by the Gateway shopping / Arboretum area north of the city because it was walking distance to the start of the race. We went by the Texas Running Company and I ended up buying some Hoka Constant running shoes – the gal there gave me a whole run down on how they are great for marathon and half marathon. I’m going to give them a try. Dinner we tried Maudie’s Tex-Mex on W. 7th. We had to wait about 20 minutes or so but the food and margaritas were worth it. Then on to the Hole in the Wall for some live music. Good music but it was literally a dark, semi-seedy hole in the wall bar. But apparently a famous landmark of the Austin music scene.

Saturday we covered a lot of ground. Around 9am it was still in the upper 30s/ pushing 40F so we went by Target and got some cheap grey sweatshirts for the race. “Team Hanes” was ready to rock. We did a nice 3 mile loop on Town Lake, a runner’s paradise and the one thing that I miss most about the city. We hit Joe’s for breakfast and it was delicious. We were at the downtown location but drove across the river to the SoCo location for gluten free pop tarts. I had a lavender-fig pop tart, and it was an out of body experience that I cannot even begin to describe. Here’s a picture of the pop tart. (Did I mention that I took a hundred pictures like a total tourist).

We went by the capitol and Texas History Museum to pick up our race numbers. Here’s our Capitol of Texas Selfie.

Then on to the University of Texas Co-op for some UT swag. I got a “hi, how are you” t-shirt and some post cards. The main drag by campus has changed a lot. Also if my current gig doesn’t work out, I can get a job at Jenn’s Copies–that’s Jenn with two N’s. They are everywhere. Back up to the hotel to kick up our heels for a bit before dinner. For dinner we went with a gluten free and pre-race standby, P. F. Chang’s. Then we had to see Interstellar at the movies, for our traditional pre-race movie night (to get off the feet and relax). And in Austin, if Matthew McConaughey is playing at the theater, you simply have to go. I give the film a thumbs up. We laughed, we cried, I was stressed out about the ‘dramatic’ scenes. We cried some more. Good movie in my opinion.

Enough about the food and around town, how was the race? Chilly start, sweatshirts came in handy, it was only in the lows 30s. The course is almost entirely downhill and billed as fast–and it was really fast. It started up at the Arboretum/Gateway area and finished with a run through the UT Campus and finish line just steps from the capitol building. I had a great run and didn’t realize that I was moving along at a pretty good pace (for me). There was a slight hill around mile 9 but otherwise it was downhill as advertised. The standout feature of this race is the ginormous goodie bag! A huge sampling of 3M products, here’s a pic of everything included: Scotch tape, lint roller, scotch brand kitchen sponge, recovery drink mix, glass cleaner, Post-It notes of course!

Post-race we went down to Snack Bar Austin for some brunch back South of Congress. Snack bar was very cool decor (if i may call it decor) and they serve gluten free french toast that was delicious! (pictured above!) We cleared out of the hotel and returned to SoCo for live music at the Capitol Club, and a final burger at Hopdoddy before heading to the Airport.

Great race in a fun place. I would definitely recommend this race and may come again or in February for the Austin Marathon and half. And this was my first time running outside since January 1st with all the snow in Boston!

– Jenn

Jenn's Boston Run

est. 2013 | Running the 2022 Boston Marathon

Tag Archives: marathon