Twenty-eight days ago, I did my first DEXA scan with Composition ID, a body fat composition testing company here in DC. Since then, I’ve made a few tweaks with the aim of reducing my body fat percentage and lowering my total weight, outcomes that I am hopeful will improve my marathon times. Today, I went in for my second scan… Just like the first time, it was super easy and painless, and Tiffany even provided all my results in a nice email attachment. But anyway, the results… drum-roll please…
U.S. Arboretum
Another week has come and gone, and we are already into APRIL! This was my second week of training for the Vermont City Marathon.
Here was what I had planned for this week:
And here’s what I did…
Out for a walk during the other 23 hours
Runners and other athletes like to think they are healthy. We take comfort in our cardiovascular fitness, our low blood pressure, our low resting heart rates. We feel strong, mentally and physically, because we run. And we might even feel a little superior over others. I’m certainly not here to take those feelings away from anyone.
But recently I’ve been thinking (and learning) more and more about the importance of what we are doing with our bodies when we aren’t working out… You know, the other 23 hours…
I announced last week that I had registered for the Vermont City Marathon, held over Memorial Day weekend in Burlington. This will be another two-month training cycle, which I’ve been liking a lot lately. I took a full recovery week after the Asheville Marathon, and then I slowly started back up this week, without a focus on mileage.
You may have heard me mention CorePower Yoga in a few of my posts. The studios seem to be popping up everywhere these days, so I wanted to give it a try and provide a review for y’all. CorePower offers the first week of classes for free (nice!), plus I picked up a 10 class online discount coupon. I’ve been to a bunch of classes and am ready to report back!
Several years ago, when the minimalist shoe trend was really gearing up, I bought some purple Vibram Five Fingers shoes. They were hideous. But I loved them. And I walked in them for YEARS until the sole was falling apart. (I did not run in them, but that’s for another post.)
Since then, I’ve done most of my walking in my (expensive) running shoes. This has put extra miles on my running shoes, wearing them out faster. Also, my running shoes have a heel drop of 10.1 mm, meaning that I’m racking up a ton of miles (between running and walking) in a non-neutral heel.
I’d have loved to buy a new pair of Vibrams, but my husband would not be caught dead with me wearing those shoes. And I’ll even admit it: they drew more attention that I’d like, and I was a tiny bit embarrassed when I ran into certain people in the city and was caught in my purple toe shoes. So, I decided to look for an alternative.
I went back and forth about how many races I was actually going to run this year, and in particular, about whether I’d run something between the Asheville Marathon in March and the Mesa Falls Marathon in August. Summer isn’t really what I think of as marathon season, and it’s fun to take some time off for weddings and triathlons and fun, non-running travel. But I guess I’m addicted at this point, and I went ahead and registered for a May marathon. What did I pick???….
As you know, I ran the Asheville Marathon this past Sunday: recap here. After the race, it was time to recovery but also to really dig in to my 30-day Composition ID body fat challenge, which started last Thursday (and it’s actually 28 days, not 30). Oh, and what about that whole “2016 miles in 2016” thing? This post provides an update on ALL of that, plus a surprise I got in the mail this week…
Race: Asheville Marathon
Location: Biltmore Estate, Asheville, in the hills of western North Carolina
Weight. We all know that weight is just a number… that in addition to not telling us anything about a person’s worth or talents or soul or beauty or likelihood of landing on the cover of Sports Illustrated, it also doesn’t tell us all that much about their health.
That’s me!
But I’ve been writing for a while about thinking about trying (notice how this sentence is worded…) to lose a little weight because doing so is likely to help me race faster — less weight to haul around, less energy needed. Of course I don’t want to lose my muscle in the process; I’d want the weight to come from fat. I’ve posed some ideas about how to execute this “plan,” but it’s all been sort of esoteric, with no concrete goals and, more importantly, no data. Until now! (I know this is exactly how I intro’d my last post; this is my new set-up for all my blogs. JK.)
This morning, I had my first DEXA body scan at Composition ID!
athlettuce 