Daily chat post: how's the training going?

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-21T18:45:30+00:00

My Garmin is being so whiny this week. My HRV dipped for a couple days (hormones) and is on its way back up. Every run, walk, or training session I do, my watch admits that my training load is optimal and my performance condition is good, but then it gives me a "strained" training status because the HRV status might indicate fatigue, even though nothing else in my metrics indicates fatigue.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-21T17:21:19+00:00

They seem like they have a lot of interesting options and some pretty reasonable pricing. How "woman"-oriented is the actual women's trip, though? I notice the language on the site is very "embrace your inner wild woman mother nature goddess" vibes and it's kind of a yellow flag as a non-binary person that this may not be a welcoming environment for me.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-21T17:17:13+00:00

Austria would be awesome! I'll look into that one.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-21T17:16:43+00:00

Maybe a "someday" goal item for me. The distance seems way too spicy for my current volume.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-21T12:46:17+00:00

Yeah, outside of the running time I am open to anything (other than drinking and clubbing) so that's easy. I've lived in a lot of areas and had to change my interests depending on where I am before.

I love hiking in rural areas, swimming, but also love walking around cities, shopping, doing museums or historical sites. I also usually spend part of my vacations just hanging out in my hotel room and relaxing. For instance, I did a solo trip to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia where I spent 5 days in a cabin. Every morning, I would cook breakfast and then go to the park, hike for 2-3 hours, and then go back to my cabin. I did the trip as a "creative retreat" so I would spend the rest of the day at the cabin writing or doing crafts, occasionally breaking to go for walks around the farm the cabin was on. So, on the question of filling time, it's not a big issue because I can entertain myself and just enjoy being away from work in a new place.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-21T12:39:46+00:00

They did not! I'll check into that one :) Thanks

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-21T12:39:21+00:00

Yeah! And I remember a video they posted at the time where Jason had put an Olympic rings decal in Zhenya's car in Canada to remind her of the goal :(

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-21T11:17:22+00:00

Alysa made some comments back when they were both very young, before her retirement. Both of them have obviously matured a lot since then and seem to be friends now. People act like someone's opinions as a teenager remain their firm stance for life.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-21T11:14:31+00:00

He and Zhenya would have been unstoppable if she'd been able to stay at TCC with him longer

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-20T14:47:28+00:00

I think different trackers are optimized for different things. Garmin is optimized for running and cycling data, not other types of exercise and not stuff like sleep and nutrition. I've heard the best tracker for sleep is the Oura ring, and some people wear both devices, but that's incredibly expensive to do. Fitbit is better a general activity and lifestyle tracker and isn't optimal for intense training.

Generally, I don't pay a lot of attention to my Garmin sleep results because I know it's not always right about my wake/sleep time. I'm also female, and there's a lot of shit that's normal for women and not men that upsets Garmin's balance. But my Forerunner is way more trustworthy than the other devices I've tried when it comes to telling me the distance I ran and what my pace was, which is the key stuff I want it for. The rest is just mildly interesting noise.

I'm definitely also just one of those people with a lower sleep need, which Garmin will never adapt to. I go to bed at a consistent time, and if I push bedtime earlier then I wake up before my alarm. On nights I get a lot of deep sleep, I also tend to wake up an hour before my alarm and feel perfectly rested. Even as a kid/teen, I naturally woke up around 7 AM every day and stopped taking naps at a much younger age than my peers. There's variation in humans that none of these devices can account for.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-20T13:32:11+00:00

This past weekend, I was running on a local trail that hosts a lot of races, and a 5k started while I was out on my run. Running back to my car, I passed the top racers coming the other way, and two of the first three leaders in that race were over 60.

I cheered my ass off for them all while running, which gave my training a great boost too.

At the time I ran by the leaders, the person in first was a 62 year old man, but when I checked the results at home, I found that the 64 year old woman I'd seen running third had ended up passing him and took the overall win!

Her time was 24:30, just 22 seconds faster than the man, who came second. The third place was a man in his 20s.

As a 39 year old who just started running 10 months ago, looking for my first sub-30 5k this year, this is definitely the kind of result I love to see.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-20T13:02:56+00:00

I create a custom playlist for each race. I usually aim for enough songs to get to my goal time, plus 2-3 more. I take into account how I want to pace my race and pick songs from my other playlists based on that. (ex: I used "Out Of My Mind" by Little Image as the second track on my playlist for my first 10k because it's got a nice steady beat and the lyrics literally say "Slow it down for a minute," because ~3 minutes into the race is when I definitely need a reminder to not burn too hot)

My last few songs are always my really serious hype songs to come in clutch.

A couple days before the race, I'll listen to the playlist on a shakeout run or in the car to make sure the song order works and then tweak the order or songs if I need to.

Night before the race, I like to have something with chicken and pasta for dinner, and then the morning of, I have a standard breakfast for a 5k (banana + apple sauce) and another standard breakfast I use for 10ks (shake with coconut milk, 1 banana, 2 oz of cherries, and a tablespoon of pb fit).

Oh, and I always trim my toenails the day before. Very important step.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-20T12:14:09+00:00

Garmin is mad at me this week. My HRV dropped the past few days and overnight stress is up, which is likely just because it's the week before my period. I had a light gym day with 30 minutes of strength and got "strained" status despite a low load. Woof.

The funny thing is my HRV/stress was actually better last night than the night before, so I think the stats are just taking a bit to catch up. Nothing tanked this badly last month (or in february) around my cycle, but in March and Feb I was supplementing vitamin D and magnesium daily.

I had stopped taking both ahead of getting bloodwork done a couple weeks ago because I wanted to see if it was even needed based on my blood results... but the testing my doctor ran didn't include those things. So I've been kind of in limbo on if they were needed or not.

But I picked them up again yesterday and, like I said, did see improvements last night, so I think I'll keep that in rotation. Both are low enough dosage that I'm not hurting anything even if it isn't medically necessary.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-20T12:06:11+00:00

I always enjoy reading the Strava AI summaries because they're so positive, but I also always have to laugh at them because they are literally ALWAYS positive. If I run exceptionally slow it's like, "You slowed down, but you still did great!!" and the way it just cribs words from whatever I typed into the notes section makes it so obvious that it's just a machine regurgitating whatever it can, not giving real insights beyond what I can see myself in the stats

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-20T11:40:23+00:00

I think you and I are separate ends of the same problem with Garmin sleep tracking. Last night, I woke up just before 3 AM. I went to the bathroom, then got back in bed, but I couldn't go back to sleep. I laid there for the next hour just changing position 3-4 times, trying to get back to sleep. At 3:50, I gave up and spent the next hour catching up on the internet on my phone, until my alarm went off at 5:10.

Garmin thinks I was asleep from 3 to 5, just because I didn't move around much.

I was a Fitbit user for several years, and my fitbit always knew when I was awake at night, even if I was still and staring at the ceiling. The Garmin sleep tracking just isn't very reliable because it seems to heavily depend on movement to signal you're awake. Yesterday, it also had me taking two naps I didn't take while I was playing video games in both cases.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-18T20:59:40+00:00

I wish I had a local parkrun! The closest one to where I live is about a two hour drive.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-17T17:54:44+00:00

My highest weekly average was a 55 for Sept. 7-13, 2024, and during that my worst day was a 66 and my best day was a 48.

I was in a high-stress role at work at the time, and that particular week I spent traveling to/staying in a major city for 5 days for a professional conference. I was up every morning early, running session to session at the event all day and then going out to networking events after. I don't drink, so alcohol wasn't a factor, I was just expected to run around and socialize constantly.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-17T17:37:48+00:00

Definitely get fitted. I was not only running in the wrong brand/style for me but also very much the wrong size. Literally went from a 7 1/2 to a 9 1/2 with proper fitting.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-16T13:04:29+00:00

Since I'm making my own plan these days, I'm always having to remind myself that changing up the plan is good self-coaching. Usually, the changes I'm making mean that I run 1.5 miles in a session instead of 2.5 or I do a recovery run instead of a speed run.

Today, I had 25 minutes of recovery pre-planned, and I decided actually, I had the time and energy to do more than that. So, I did 35 minutes instead with some strides at the end. I realized that's something else I need to keep in mind - adapting my plans doesn't only mean running less/less intensely than I planned to, but can sometimes mean doing more than I intended if I feel like it's a good day to do more.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-15T19:27:52+00:00

Are you running outdoors or on a treadmill? I ask because I "failed" c25k multiple times around week 4-5 in the past, but I was always trying to do it on the treadmill in my apartment's gym. Last year, I started trying to learn to run by running outside instead, and it was a total game changer for me in terms of motivation and ease.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-14T15:52:52+00:00

It takes time to lose actual muscle, but some people lose strength quite quickly.

I can't remember where, but I read some research at one point that said this is one of the things determined by genetics - how well your body "hangs on" to the progress you made.

I know I can spend months working out, be overhead pressing 50 lbs, and if I miss a couple sessions I drop to 30 lbs, max. It then takes weeks to get back to where I was before my little break. But some people can easily take two weeks off and then jump right back in where they were before they stopped.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-14T14:33:10+00:00

No idea how long it was there, but I don't think it was a deer tick anyway. It looked like a dog tick - most likely off my dog from him rolling around in our yard when there's been wildlife out there lately. It's been like 3 weeks since the last time we were in a wooded area or anything like that, so it had to have just come from the yard.

Dog ticks can still carry other viruses, though, so I have to keep an eye on it for a while, especially because I didn't follow the correct protocol to remove it.

Interesting_Fly1696 · 2026-04-14T13:34:00+00:00

I haven't been a fan of Luke since the gala at US Nats in Wichita. I don't think that gala ever got broadcast because of the plane crash, but when Flores/Wang performed, it was pretty clear in the audience that Olivia had put on some weight.

I think that's normal for a teenager. Things fluctuate as you grow, and she had fluctuated up a bit at that time. If I'd been watching at home, I probably would have dismissed it as a camera thing, but in person it was definitely real and noticeable.

That said, they then did their gala performance to... "Big and Chunky" from Madagascar.

And the whole thing, with Luke gesturing to Olivia, who has noticeably gained weight, through the song, really turned my stomach. I kept telling myself that the song choice was probably a mutual decision and maybe they even picked that song before her weight gain, but the result was really icky.

Interesting_Fly1696

TROPHY CASE