Food and Fitness for Living Better

Fitness has been a lifelong journey for me so far, and I expect it will continue to be. I started, or really my mom started me, when I was a tiny human playing M&M soccer (named so because we were in bright t-shirt uniforms that made us look like mini M&Ms running around the field). Shortly after I was also signed up for swim lessons and swim team so that getting down the full length of the pool was our biggest objective in the 8 & Under age group (imagine little 6 year olds wiggling their way down the full length of a pool!) These two sports carried me through middle school and I also added cross country since I had an open season, and I was looking up to my mom who was a cross country coach at the middle school at which she taught. 

By the time I entered high school, my interest shifted more toward cross country and away from swimming and soccer. I wasn’t interested in morning practices required in swimming since I was NOT a morning person in high school (what high schooler is?), and I didn’t have a lot of friends in soccer anymore given the team at the time. With a heavy focus on my academics as well, I was happy to let go of a couple extracurriculars and keep cross country in my life as a way to stay in shape and see my friends every day. Luckily, my coach was GOOD. He taught us foundations to make us runners for life, and let us grow into fast runners if we were so inclined… I was not. But, I still learned some great lessons in my 4 years in cross country: 

• Heels up, knees up, toes up
• Run the hills HARD and don’t slow up until you’re ten paces over the top
• Hurdle drills are your friends; keep those hip flexors happy
• Strength training is important for every sport
• Hydration is key
• Friends make it fun
• Stretch before, during, and after your runs

I’ll share our regular schedule so you can get a flavor for what I consider “ideal distance (5k) training” 

• Monday: strength training, stretching, long run*, striders, drills, core work, more stretching
• Tuesday: stretching, speed work* with warm-up and cool down jogs, hurdle drills, hip & core work, more stretching
• Wednesday: repeat Monday
• Thursday: repeat Tuesday, but with hills* instead of speed work
• Friday: repeat Monday/Wednesday
• Saturday: trail run with a Snapple treat 🙂 
• Sunday: rest day

• Long runs started at 30 minutes and increased 5 min per week to 1:20 or so by the end of summer
• Speed work started at 4 x 400m with 1:00 rest for every 400m followed by 4 x 400m sprints and the first set increased by 100m each week. My pace was 28s per 100m. (7:32 mile). 
• Hill work was running around to whatever hills my coach had in mind that week, sometimes repeating it, sometimes moving on to the next, until he figured we had enough (maybe targeting distance or time or total elevation but it sure felt random to me). 

So high school cross country built a fantastic foundation for my future of fitness, and I am so grateful I had that experience. Running has been a constant thread across all my fitness adventures that I continue returning to as my default mode of staying in shape. The running portion has evolved over the years. I increased mileage on a long run each week for the summer I spent in State College to hit my longest run record of 17 miles, which prompted me to run my first official half marathon later that year. A couple years later, I got my boyfriend to join me on runs, which turned him into a reluctant distance runner as well, so he ran a half marathon with me while we were co-ops in Wisconsin.

I’ve trained to hit goal paces and got shockingly close to my aggressive goal of 1:45 half marathon by hitting 1:46:30.

I’ve run triathlons — and placed even though it was my first triathlon, but I was in generally good shape and had that strong swimming background!

When we moved to CT, I gave up road running on the twisty, turny, dangerous roads of small town New England for trail running. Although my pace slowed waaaaay down, I fell in love with the serenity of the trails.

I was ready for my first ultramarathon (lol forget the regular marathon) but then woke up with a fever and COVID the morning before my race. Obviously I had to skip the ultra that year (although I considered still running it – but opted to not find out what happens with COVID + ultra), but came back in the next year with a marathon which included a psuedo-ultra training run where I knocked out 29.5 miles as my last “long run” for the Philly marathon in 2023. Wanting to find out what more I had in me, I signed up for my next official ultra with the Macedonia Brook 50k, which is a brutal course with over 7000 feet of climbing in Connecticut of all places! I sure do love that course in a weird way though, so it’ll forever hold a special place in my running heart. I’ve had quite the journey so far with pushing the distance, and I sure hope I get to keep adventuring! 

Over the years I’ve had several running injuries, from knee pain caused by IT band syndrome to foot pain by increasing mileage too fast to knee pain that I still haven’t figured out, which has made me look harder at how I was (or wasn’t) training so that I could build back in foundations I learned in high school xc. After IT band syndrome, I accepted that I wasn’t stretching enough and made my motto “if I don’t have time to stretch then I don’t have time to run.” After my foot injury, I accepted that I increased my mileage too quickly (and maybe my pace too). 

Last time my knees started hurting was after I’d been doing some hard speed work to get closer to my 5k goal of 22:00. On one hand, I was worried it’s the beginning of arthritis that has affected both of my parents, and on the other hand I figured I was not doing enough cross-training and drills to support my knees properly. So, I slowed my pace down back down (hello, trail running!), sprinkled in  hurdle drills (with imaginary hurdles), and got more serious about strength training to focus on knee support. Most of my internet searches on “how to prevent arthritis in knees” said to keep doing what I’m already doing: keep using them for walking and running if it feels good, strength training, and stretching. Okay! Carry on! 

To me, fitness looks different for everyone. Each person will take a journey to discover what parts of fitness suit them best, from personal preferences to past injuries that require extra focus to keep in good condition. You may be surprised where your path takes you, but stay curious, keep your mind open to new things, and have fun!! 

My current chapter of running looks like more road running with the run club at my local gym, which has changed my running game! I am also training for a 3:45 marathon this year at the Sugarloaf marathon in May 2025, and then who knows what’s after that since we are planning to start growing our own little family this years!