When it comes to fitness and wellness, I’m a mixture of vanity and competitiveness. I’m not going to lie and say that I only workout to be my strongest self and to win races (lol, it would take a lot more work to come close to winning). I’ll be the first to admit that part of the reason I love fitness is for the way it makes me look and feel. When I’m on top of my workout and healthy eating, I look my best and also feel my best, inside and out. Right now, I’m specifically working out to feel my best on my wedding day. I’m doing it in a very healthy way. I’m not restricting calories and I’m not focused on the scale (actually, I don’t even own a scale), it’s all clean eats, barre and HIIT. But as I continue on this quest for being a #FitBride, I can’t help but think about race training.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that training for races doesn’t get you in shape, it definitely DOES get you in amazing shape. On the flip side, training can take its toll on you. It’s a lot of work that can leave you exhausted, make you overly ravenous following long training workouts, and while you will get fit and strong, I don’t necessarily find myself looking my best during race training. Take marathon training for example. During long runs you literally eat packets of gu, basically sugar and carbs to keep you going. Sorry, gu isn’t on my wedding diet.
Love/Hate Race Training Relationship
I LOVE race training. Oh and I also hate it. If you’re a regular reader you know I make elaborate training plans and rarely follow through to the fullest. But hey, that’s me and my approach. Come race day, I’m typically feeling ready enough for the distance to compete and to enjoy myself. As stressful as it can be to have a training calendar, I love the structure and having goals to work towards.
A couple of weeks ago I traveled to Vancouver for the Lululemon SeaWheeze Half Marathon. Did I train? Not really. But I had a hell of a weekend and loved the race, even if parts of it were a struggle.
Very shortly after the race I started having long text chains with Kristine about future races. Kristine might be my race soulmate. We seem to have a similar track record of getting excited for races, sometimes training, sometimes not, complaining about the distance, then moments after crossing the finish line, wanting to sign up for another race. We have both run two marathons and have almost identical finish times. We both met our goal of finishing under 4 hours by promising ourselves that if we did that, we’d never have to run a marathon again. But of course, we’re already discussing if and when we should run another.
For the next two months, I’m focused on being toned and trim for my wedding, but after that, get me back to racing! I’d love to use race weekends as a way to explore the west coast. We’ve been brainstorming and have a pretty awesome list of potential races.
On my radar for 2017
- Eugene, Oregon Half Marathon
- HITS Napa Valley Olympic Triathlon (I live in an hour from Napa, how can I NOT do a race there?)
- Vineman 70.3
- Ragnar San Fran to Napa Valley
- Ragnar SoCal
- Escape from Alcatraz (seems terrifying but like a rite of passage if I live in SF)
- Ironman 70.3 Hawaii
Writing them all out, that’s a lot of races! I’m not going to do all of them, but it’s my initial interest list.
