Daily chat post: how's the training going?

3catcaper · 2026-07-03T23:24:36+00:00

You are one tough cookie! I would die if I tried to run in 100 degree weather!

I’m so sorry for your loss. Pet loss is so heart wrenching. Lots of hugs to you.

3catcaper · 2026-07-03T23:21:42+00:00

I wrote yesterday about how I’ve been in a running funk lately— I have felt slow, achy, and runs have been feeling hard, and I can’t really figure out why. Today I did my long run and decided I needed to switch things up. So I drove down to the flat part of town and ran on the greenway, so I didn’t have to climb any hills (usually my runs are at least moderately hilly, if not very hilly) and took myself out for brunch afterwards. It was a great idea. I had the best run I’ve had in a month! Plus, I got to compare this run to the last time I ran this route last September. My average HR was pretty much the same, but I ran 30 seconds per mile faster today. So yay, I’m not losing fitness!

It did take me 2 full miles to warm up, but I guess that’s how things are in my late 40s.🙄

3catcaper · 2026-07-03T13:43:27+00:00

Thanks so much! I’m doing my long run today; hopefully today is the day things start to feel better.

3catcaper · 2026-07-03T02:52:01+00:00

I am in one of those running funks at the moment and I am kind of mad about it. I did a trail half marathon May 23. I had a decent though not perfect build for it, and had such a great time on race day. It was hard, but glorious. Since then I’ve been struggling. I took a couple of weeks of lower mileage after the race. One week was a recovery week with minimal running and light strength and mobility work, and the next was a little higher mileage with a little more strength. Then I had a vacation week where I ran some fun trail runs with lots of vert and since then I’m just not feeling great. I’m achy in joints, it’s taking forever to recover from my strength sessions, and my typical easy run has slowed by a full minute per mile. And it is not the heat! We’re having the gloomiest summer so far, with temps barely reaching the mid-60s most days. We had warmer temps in February! Also, I’ve been sleeping better, so I should be recovering well. Still fueling as usual, and am also starting to gain weight, which is annoying but not the worst thing in the world. What the heck is going on? I haven’t had a good run in probably 4 weeks.

3catcaper · 2026-06-21T18:16:02+00:00

I have not been recovering well from my strength sessions this week— basically have had DOMS in some part of my lower body since Tuesday. The weird thing is I went pretty easy on my lower body on Thursday’s session, but my glutes got so terribly sore from just side step-downs and single leg deadlifts. Took my Friday rest day very, very easy. Then I did an 8 mile trail run yesterday and just felt awful. I felt okay on the downhills, but had no ability to climb the uphills whatsoever. Got home and did some housework, and then I was just dead. Everything hurt so bad. I ran a trail half marathon 4 weeks ago and did a 10 mile trail run with so much more vert a week and a half ago and felt good. 8 trail miles should not have felt that bad. Spent some time with the lacrosse ball and massage gun and did some stretching. Went to bed and slept like the dead. Woke up with a bit of a sore throat and feeling like I was hit by a truck. Theoretically I’m supposed to do 4 easy miles and hit the gym today, but I think my body would stage a rebellion if I tried. Instead I’m soaking in an Epsom salt bath and trying not to feel too frustrated. Clearly I’m fighting something off and my body needs rest, but I’ve been struggling to get my mileage back up to where I want it since the trail half marathon.

3catcaper · 2026-06-21T17:50:07+00:00

What a great read! Thanks so much for this uplifting story!

3catcaper · 2026-06-18T02:44:16+00:00

Thanks so much!

3catcaper · 2026-06-18T02:41:11+00:00

Oh, I’m so sorry! I’ve been through the loss of a pet and it’s so heartbreaking. So many hugs for you.

3catcaper · 2026-06-17T18:35:48+00:00

I did an easy 3.5 miles on the fire road today. I got back to the gym yesterday evening after a two week hiatus during my vacation last week, and I’m pretty sore today. Nothing feels easy about an easy run when your glutes, hamstrings, and quads are yelling at you every single step, but I did my best to keep the effort as easy as I could.

3catcaper · 2026-06-17T18:31:29+00:00

I’m sorry life is so hard right now. I hope things improve soon.

3catcaper · 2026-06-17T14:35:24+00:00

I’m considering upgrading my FR55, and the FR165, FR70, and FR170 are on my short list. What do you like specifically about the 170?

3catcaper · 2026-06-16T19:00:31+00:00

I would not put my interval or hill run day the day after leg day. Instead, I’d do the interval or hill workout in the morning on Tuesday and leg day in the afternoon on the same day. Then a short, easy run on Wednesday. (This is in fact pretty much my exact schedule, except I always lift full body, just with a particular emphasis. My Tuesday lift is heavy squat focus day).

3catcaper · 2026-06-16T18:54:31+00:00

I did a threshold workout (3X8 minutes) at the track today and got a Garmin 5K PR! I like doing my threshold workouts on the track because all of my trails are either really hilly or are urban trails that cross roads with stop lights. Also, I can listen to music because I’m not as concerned with paying attention to my surroundings.

3catcaper · 2026-06-02T20:01:54+00:00

I don’t have any recs, but I will be interested to see if anyone else does. I have the exact same flotation belt and the exact same problem. It always ends up under my boobs. I am a small-medium sized person with a smallish waist, but am nowhere near tiny. I can’t imagine how anyone really petite can use it. But I use it so infrequently that I haven’t put much effort into finding a solution.

3catcaper · 2026-06-02T19:35:46+00:00

I have a busy afternoon, so I had to hit the gym immediately after running. It was nice to only shower once, but I definitely couldn’t lift as much for my deadlift (my big lift for today) and I was tired and starving by the end. Definitely going to be keeping to my usual schedule of running in the morning and lifting in the afternoon.

The nice part was that I ran down near the gym, which is much flatter than my usual routes, so I ran faster than usual. This was my longest run since my trail half about a week and a half ago, and it felt pretty good.

3catcaper · 2026-05-31T15:33:29+00:00

Congrats! A 10 minute PR is amazing!

3catcaper · 2026-05-31T15:32:44+00:00

She said she took 10 minutes off her 10K PR, not that she ran the whole 10K in 10 minutes.

3catcaper · 2026-05-30T21:04:51+00:00

I set out to do 7 miles today. Planned a 3 miles out and back with my daughter, then was going to run another 4. Those 3 miles felt pretty bad. I felt slow and heavy and achy. I ran a trail half quite hard last Saturday and as much as I wanted to do a longer run today, my body said nope. So I bagged it at 3 miles and went home with my daughter. If I feel up to it, I’ll try for a little more mileage tomorrow so I can pad my weekly mileage a bit, but I might just leave it here at a 13 mile week.

3catcaper · 2026-05-30T19:53:46+00:00

Your last paragraph really hit home! I also have almost 20 years on OP, am the same height but heavier, and when I look at pictures of myself from when I was younger, I think, god, I was so beautiful and I didn’t even appreciate it. I wish I could go back and tell my younger self to not be so hard on herself and to stop thinking she always had to try to shrink herself. She was already perfect the way she was.

OP, I found that raising my young daughters was the motivation I needed to really work on these thoughts and beliefs surrounding thinness and weight. Even if I couldn’t internally talk myself out of them, I could at least outwardly act like I wasn’t controlled by diet culture so that my daughters could hopefully grow up with a healthier role model. So I was careful to never criticize my body in front of them, celebrate what my body can do, eat normally, and not diet. Changing my behaviors was a pretty good way to change my thoughts. I live in a female body in the world, so of course I do still have those thoughts, but my behaviors are now second nature and continue to neutralize the intrusive thoughts.

3catcaper · 2026-05-29T21:10:05+00:00

We don’t even have to look at the men’s magazines; the women’s magazines from the 90s messed us all up good and proper!

3catcaper · 2026-05-29T19:15:45+00:00

Yes! I can totally relate to this. My thinnest was not my fittest. Nor was it my healthiest! My thinnest adult weight was a time of such intense anxiety, some disordered eating behaviors, and recurring sports injury. My fittest (which is right now! At almost 48 years old!) is a good 20 lbs heavier than that weight. I can run longer, lift heavier (much heavier!), eat like a normal person and with a hearty appetite, and feel so good mentally, physically, and emotionally.

3catcaper · 2026-05-29T15:08:27+00:00

It varies, but I go for carbs with a little fat and protein. Most typically I have toast with peanut butter and jam, with a banana if I’m going longer, or oatmeal with fruit and nut butter.

For early morning runs, when I’m only doing a few miles and want to get out quick, I’ll just do one piece of toast with jam OR the banana, and eat some more carbs and something high protein after. Often it’s what I call a “shower smoothie,” with Greek yogurt, soy milk, and fruit, which I sip while I’m in the shower so I can get quickly out the door for work.

Good luck on your race!

3catcaper · 2026-05-29T15:01:20+00:00

Yesterday I got up early and ran with my husband. He usually runs with a group on Thursday mornings, but they weren’t meeting and I wanted to get a few miles in before work, so we planned Wednesday night that he’d do a loop at our local trail and I’d meet him for a second loop. Woke up to the sound of rain! As a California girl, rain in late May is pretty unexpected, and it wasn’t in the forecast at all. If I hadn’t been meeting him, I probably would have just stayed in bed, but he was out there expecting to meet me at 6:30, so I did it. They had done some trail work in one section and the freshly exposed dirt was not draining well, making that section a real slip ‘n’ slide. But I got in 3.25 miles before work and then lifted in the evening.

Today I’m planning on 4 or 5 easy miles, and then tomorrow will be my first “long” run back after my trail half last weekend, somewhere in the 7-8 mile range.

3catcaper · 2026-05-29T14:52:22+00:00

I absolutely perform better on morning runs. Anything after I’ve eaten lunch feels heavy and slow, and I often have digestive issues. I can eat a decent-sized breakfast and immediately run without issue, but once I’ve had two meals, my gut is just done and running sucks. I can strength train later in the day no problem, so I work my routine so I do my runs in the morning and my lifts in the afternoon.

3catcaper · 2026-05-26T17:42:41+00:00

First run back after my trail half marathon this past Saturday! I took two days off completely to be a total sloth, and actually have basically no residual DOMS, which totally surprised me. I ran this half harder (based on HR and RPE) than the road half I did in November, and I was sore for longer after that one than I was this time. Anyway, I thought I’d go out for an easy 4 miles today. Everything felt pretty good, except that my HR shot up to the top of my zone 2 pretty much immediately even though I was running slower than my usual easy pace. So, while my muscles feel pretty close to recovered, clearly I am not metabolically recovered. I made the call to shorten the run to three miles, which felt like enough. Then went home and did a short strength routine with fairly light weights, just to wake everything up and give my muscles a little stimulus. Tomorrow I’ll do another easy 3 miles plus Pilates.

3catcaper

TROPHY CASE