What’s next?

So a week after the marathon and the question bumbling around is – what’s next?

For me the answer seems to be – semi-retirement.

I have no big plans for the moment except to enjoy some variety in my workouts since I’m not going to be running all the time (or ever) anymore.  It will be nice to hit the weights again.  It will be nice to not battling the food monster 16 mile runs brings on.  It’ll be nice to go for bike rides before winter sets in or maybe even roller blade.  I might try a warrior dash or some other type of organized event next year, but for now, no plans.

I also plan to semi-retire this blog.  I’ve been incredibly busy and this blog has been on auto-pilot for a year or so.  The weekly weigh-ins aren’t keeping me focused.  I’ve shared my ups and downs without much hiding, it’s just not been motivational to me to avoid bad behavior like this week with a bit of post marathon binge.  I’ll still be tracking on Lose It! and RunKeeper (5 years to make the loss permanent research seems to say), but I won’t be posting very much anymore.  It has turned into one more point of time pressure than I need right now and I don’t feel like I’m adding a lot right now.

That said, I won’t be shutting it down.  I did something here maybe someone else can learn from.  I’ll drop by to say hello once in a while.  (And I still get tons of hits on my Olive Garden Venetian Chicken review, can’t deprive the world of that!)

So off to the gym!

 

 

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What comes next?

As my various calendars and emails keep reminding me, the NYC marathon is just a tad over a month away.  I’ve been pretty focused on the training and busy with work, but people are starting to ask me … what’s next?

I don’t have much of an answer.  Partly, I’m so busy, haven’t had much time to think about it.  Partly, cause I really have no idea.  I’ve commented earlier that I’m not especially in love with running.  I can’t say I’d sign up to run another marathon ever again (tho again, some people capture the bug AFTER their first one, so I’m not ruling it out either).  In addition to the time and effort going into training for it, I dislike how I avoid doing other things (rollerblading) because I’m afraid of injury.  I also don’t like the lack of control over my eating I have at the higher mileages (body is just saying – SEE FOOOD!!!!! EEEEEAAAAATTTT ITTTTTT!!!!!!! NOM NOMNOM NOMNOMNOMNOM!!!!).

That said, I don’t mind the half-marathon distances(heck I’ve just done a half-marathon or more each of the last four Sundays all by myself), AND I am in lover with the calorie burn efficiency of running vs other options at my current weight.   The training for half’s is a bit less strenuous for those, so I could definitely see myself maybe doing one of those a year.  So definitely some running just not marathon lengths.

I also was toying with idea of triatholons over the the past few months.  However, I was always a bit concerned about how fiddly it seems to do right, and my re-introduction to swimming due to injury has been a useful reality check on what I would need to do (least of which is pay for pool access).  Also, the thought of swimming in the hudson was never tempting and I recently read A.J. Jacobs book on getting healthy and it just reinforced my feeling of .. ick.   So probably not.

One idea I am toying with is restarting with couch-to-5k with the dog as she could use the exercise and would need the build up.  And as my kid gets better with the bike, I want to go for rides, so I am thinking of getting a bike might be a good idea (and confirming that I only hate the stationary bike, not real ones).  And .. rollerblading!  At least sometimes when the weather permits.

But I still think I need to shake-up my workout routine a bit more than this.  I’ve been plateaued the last few months.  Part of it is the running induced food monster not letting a calorie slip through and part of it has been work, but I think I also need a more radical workout shakeup to shock the system a bit for those final couple of pounds.  One idea I have is to go back to the strength focused program I originally started with but abandoned with the marathon training.

Any other ideas?

Around the Web – June 8

I was poking around people who recently subscribed to my blog and I found this guy.  He’s excellent at making me look like an underachiever!

Improved running training program from Denmark, 1/2 the time for 5ks.

Eat well guide for traveling.

Fitness trainer gains weight to better understand clients (but I think he probably only got a tiny taste of it).

Not that water is bad, but again, the 8 glasses a day myth takes a knock.

Via Hungry Grumpy, an interesting update on salt.

Want a raise?  Hit the gym.

Mystery Solved

Or so it seems likely.  So this never ending cough / cold I seem to have seems to have a ‘root’ cause.  I have a tooth infection.  That can causes what feels like a throat infection.  Sadly, this is the second time this has happened to me.  The first time though, the infection and actual pain were relatively close apart.  This has been going on for months now, and I only felt a twinge of pain recently.  So I’ll be getting a root canal tomorrow (those guys have good drugs) and we’ll be treating the infection.

For the record I have terrible teeth to begin with,- it took some years of braces as a kid to mold my mouth into something resembling a useful a bite where a dentist who didn’t know better might recommend I get braces now to straighten them out.  I had majorly impacted wisdom teeth (one was sideways apparently) which were removed a long time ago.  Add a number of years of neglect and poor care on my part and I’ve had my share of dental work.

The unfortunate issue is that we seem to be coming back to the same teeth – well meaning dentist will say ‘ok there’s a cavity here, let’s save the tooth and fill it.’  But the new form of the tooth becomes an even bigger area for food to get stuck and eventually we wind up with a crown and/or root canal.  The majority of dental work I’ve had over the last 10 years has been on the same 4-5 teeth.

However, if it means I can finally get rid of this cough – hurrah!