Today is the last day to enter my EnduroPacks giveaway! Hurry hurry!
Good morning 🙂
I hope everyone had a wonderful Saturday! My workout went great and we took it easy here at home most of the evening. Another blizzard came through which pretty much takes away your motivation to do much of anything.
The first picture was in morning and the second was on our way to dinner in the afternoon. It was a complete white out.
I think this picture of Zoe pretty much sums up our evening.
We got to the gym decently early and I started the workout off with an 8 mile run. I didn’t increase my mileage because 8 miles is plenty right now for my “long run.”
The 8 miles went well. I started it off VERY slow and then after 2 miles picked up the pace a little.
When I was done running I walked for a mile and then called it quits.
I did a few upper and lower body weights and about 15 minutes of stretching to end out the day.
Here is a run down of my workouts throughout the week:
Monday (1/20)
Run: 4.5 miles
Walk: 1.0 mile
Spin: 40 minutes
Tuesday (1/21)
Run: 3.5 miles
Walk: 1.6 miles
Spin: 40 minutes
Wednesday (1/22)
Run: 4.5 miles
Walk: 1.0 mile
Spin: 20 minutes
Strength Train: 15 minutes
Thursday (1/23)
Run: 4.0 miles
Walk: 1.0 miles
Spin: 40 minutes
Friday (1/24)
Rest Day
Saturday (1/25)
Run: 8.0 miles
Walk: 1.0 miles
Strength Train: 35 minutes
Sunday (1/26)
Rest or Easy Recovery
Week in Review
Running – 24 miles
Spinning – 57 miles
Walking – 6 miles
Strength Training – 3 days
I met my goal of decreasing my spinning and only spun during the week. I skipped it this weekend, it just wasn’t necessary and I turned my focus instead on strength training.
All in all another good week. I am still trying to evaluate what next week will look like. Right now I have had ZERO pain (thank goodness) and each week has felt better than the last.
Wes mentioned the other day that he thought it might be a good idea for me to explain the match process a little bit better. I guess it kind of can be confusing if you aren’t aware of the process.
Wes goes to an Osteopathic medical school (DO) which means that he can enter two different matches. The AOA (DO match) and the ACGME (MD match).
The DO match is on February 10th and if Wes submitted a list for the DO match and did in fact match into a residency on February 10th then he would no longer be able to enter the ACGME match.
Wes did interviews for both programs and he had two programs in particular that thought very highly of him. One of them was an AOA residency and the other an ACGME. His first choice is an ACGME residency and they have shown extreme interest in him as well, he really struggled however taking the risk of “putting all his eggs in one basket.” We have gone back and forth this week trying to decide if his desire to be at his top choice was worth the risk. In the end, he decided to hold off and enter the ACGME (MD match) which is on March 17th.
Keep your fingers crossed – if all goes well we will end up back in North Carolina!
I hope this makes sense. It is an annoying and frustrating process with two matches, but it’s even more annoying to type it out. HA!
We are off to relax, clean, and then head out with some friends later.
What are your Sunday plans?
How were your workouts this weekend? Anyone race?
I’m glad your training plans are still going well, and am keeping my fingers crossed that you guys do end up back in North Carolina.
Had to scale back my training a tiny bit this week myself because of a nagging feeling in my knee, but I’m feeling better now since I gave myself the rest that I needed.
Glad you listened to your body and scaled back a bit. That is always so important!
Hope you have a good week of training ahead!
Early party? The SuperBowl is next weekend 🙂
hahaha yeah…I was a bit confused. We are hanging out with friends tonight but not for that reason 🙂 LOL
Congrats on a great week! I did a half marathon yesterday and it was awful. Cold, windy, snowy and icy. It made me think a lot about the value/quality of running indoors on a treadmill when the weather is rough (yesterday the snow was like running through sand) vs toughing it and running outside when it means running slower). Do you or Wes have any views on which is a better approach from a training quality perspective?
A lot of people have different views on this. When it is icy and cold we choose to go on the treadmill. The main reason for this is we have both had pretty serious falls outside – while this is very rare one fall can change everything. We have a friend at our gym who fell on the ice and broke her ankle, femur, and arm.
The other reason Wes chooses to train on a treadmill is because in order to train at the pace he needs to for Boston (5:40ish) it is too hard for him to do it on snow and ice. You have to pay so much attention to where you are going and the snow makes it hard to be able to go that quick. That is just our choice – there are some people that train outdoors in the winter and have no problem. We have just had a horrible winter here temperature and snow/ice wise so we’ve been spending a lot more time with the treadmill 🙂
Thanks Sara! That is so scary about that girls injury!! I would be devastated if that happened to me. Those are really good points. I definitely find the snow slows me down too. It is quite disheartening when your working hard and can’t get the pace you normally keep. Thanks for getting back to me on this! I really enjoy your blog:)
Thank you 🙂 Yes snow and ice can be really tricky. There is something to say for training a pace outside simply because it allows your body to be able to feel the pace – so if you can find an indoor track that’s probably a good idea, but if not I would just stick to the treadmill until the weather cooperates a little more 🙂
Enjoy your daily blogs. You are an inspiration to me. I have been trying to run outside but the weather you have is the same as we have in Cleveland. As a result I went to our fitness center to run this morning and got 4+ miles in and then went to yoga class for an hour. Overall a great start to the day and week. If you can do all your work outs in Erie then I can certainly do them in Cleveland.
You aren’t too far away! We have been to Cleveland a couple times since we have lived up here. Yes, the weather is NOT cooperating this winter. In fact this has probably been one of the worst winters since we moved up here. I have spent a lot more time than I like in the gym, but it gets the job done! 🙂 Good luck getting through the rest of the winter. Great job getting your workout in today and thanks for reading 🙂
Thanks for giving more insight into the match process! Just curious – did Wes decide to go to the Osteopathic medical school because he wanted to pursue the DO path originally? Or has he debated between the two the whole time? Thanks!
To be honest, when he first started the process into medical school he really had not looked into the osteopathic side and had never really heard about it. Wes ultimately wants to do sports medicine (Shocker I know right?) and the Osteopathic portion that they are taught has a lot of use in sports medicine. In fact the residency that is his #1 choice wants him for that reason – there can be a lot that osteopathic trained doctors can bring to the field of sports medicine. A lot of people don’t know the differences but an Osteopathic physician takes all the same classes and training as an MD the only difference is they have the extra course of osteopathic medicine. Wes will be the first to tell you that some of it is a little “cooky” but some of it really does work and can help those who are looking for alternatives especially when dealing with sports related injuries.
When it comes to residency it doesn’t matter – if you are a DO then you have the choice to apply to both and you just compete against more if you do the ACGME match. They are eventually going to be combining the two so that should help things, but right now they are still separate.
I hope that answered your question 🙂 I may have Wes do a guest post on it one of these days!
Yes, that answered my question! I knew extremely little about medicine before I met my now boyfriend, who is an MD. And to be honest, I only know a tad more now 🙂 I hadn’t heard of the D.O. or what the difference was between than and an M.D. so I was curious. Plus, I always like hearing about how people chose their career paths since I’m just starting out in my own career.
Thanks for your response, have a good day!
Another good week, and great with the decision – it is always hard when you know you are closing a door, but sometimes that is what you need to do.
And on the ‘indoor/outdoor’ thing you mentioned, it is definitely a tough choice. This week I fond much more exhausting than last week – and that is due almost entirely to temperature and road conditions. As you say there is much more attention needed running in the winter and that mental stress and physical difference is pretty significant. I have no idea what is best for anyone else, but personally seeing the toll that running in sub-zero with a difficult surface takes … it seems like it would be a good ‘mental exhaustion’ challenge. Of course, it can also be a great way to get hurt …
What strength training do you do? I need to start but I have NO CLUE what I’m doing!!
I am actually just starting a book called Quick Strength Training for Runners, but besides that I Just stuck to the simple things. I used machines and I did have some basic knowledge from when I used to focus more on strength training.
If you want some examples of workouts I did shoot me and email I can give you a few good places to start! saralovingontherun at gmail dot com. 🙂