When Life Gets in the Way of Your Training Plans

Good evening blog friends! I hope that your weekend has been fun and restful. Today has been fairly low-key for me; I've been running through my presentation, updating some blog stuff, reading blogs and eating. :) I added a link to my exercise log in the right-hand column of the blog, and figured out how to import my 14k training plan. I'm going to add an "About" page in the near future too. They are one of the first things I look at when I first stop at a blog so I should probably get on it!

Today started off fantastically (is that even a word?) with homemade blueberry pancakes topped with chobani pomegranate yogurt. I love adding greek yogurt atop pancakes- it makes them nice and creamy and gives you an added 14 grams of protein. Yum!


I also added a bit of organic maple syrup. I cringed at the price while purchasing this at the grocery store. However, the ingredient list sold me:Pure maple syrup. None of the HFCS badness. Do you pay extra for better quality foods? Or can you not justify the cost? It's frustrating to me that the items that are better for your body are more costly.

Today marked the start of week 4 of my 14k training plan. The 14k is only one month and three days away! I am hopeful that I will be able to do well (IT Band, I hope you're listening... stop acting up) and think that I am capable of reaching what once seemed like an impossible distance because I have following my training program consistently. With that being said, I have only finished three weeks of training and have already had to alter my schedule each week. By way of example, my training schedule provides that every Friday is a rest day. However, this did not coincide with what my "real life" schedule called for; my New Year's Day 5k was on a Friday morning! Instead, I swapped Friday's rest day with Thursday's three mile run. This past week I had my hair appointment on Thursday night (which I could NOT miss, Kisori books months in advance) so again, Thursday was my rest day and I ran 3 miles on Friday and 4.5 on Saturday.


I have missed one training day, unfortunately. Last Sunday I was going to cross-train at home (elliptical) once I got back from Virginia Beach. Instead of taking 8 hours the trip was delayed to a little over 13 hours, so by the time I got home at 11 PM I literally could not muster the energy to jump on the elliptical machine.


This week is a busy one for me. I'll be traveling a bit for work (hello Long Island), so I'm forced to take my training to the road. Tuesday is typically my yoga class (essential for stretching out my tight muscles), but I'll be driving and then checking into my hotel that evening. I adjusted my schedule and am prepared to practice yoga in my hotel room- I am packing my yoga mat and downloaded a new class from YogaDownload. Sure, I'd rather be at my class, but sometimes life gets in the way.


I think the key to any training program is flexibility. As long as you are getting in the requisite miles and aren't lumping all of your long runs together (so as to avoid injury), moving around your workouts isn't going to hurt you. Another key to training are scheduled rest days. Rest days are essential to allow your muscles to recoup and give your mind a chance to rejuvenate. Rest days are also good in the sense that having them in your schedule allows you to finagle it around a bit when something comes up.

Have you followed a training plan? If so, do you follow it to a "T"? What works best for you?

This afternoon I made it to one of my favorite places- Saratoga Coffee Traders:

I love this place. All of the coffee is fair trade and organic, and they have amazing lattes and delicious breakfast sandwiches. I pulled a little breakfast for dinner action and had egg and cheese on a bagel.


The counter in the coffee shop is really cool- it is covered in old coffee bean bags. Very green and somehow pretty chic too! I'm thinking of getting individual servings of the coffee to put into the out of town bags for the guests at the wedding. My co-worker thinks a gift card to the 'bucks would be better. While I get the appeal of the convenience of just grabbing a coffee with a gift card, I think it is more fun to get unique coffee that you wouldn't find elsewhere (plus, it goes with my Saratoga theme!) What would you do?

Lastly, I noticed that Target was having a sale on their champion sports bras, so I hightailed over there to pick some up. Anything to delay the doing of laundry (more sports bras= less need to do laundry) is A-ok in my book. The damage:

Okay so I have some beef with Target. The C9 bras that I usually buy were not on sale. I still bought one anyway (the purple one) but that was some misrepresentation in the flyer! I guess I shouldn't complain, because the polka dot sports bra (lovessss) was only ten dolla. I also snagged a yoga tank (17.99) to work out in. Hi, my name is Katie and I'm a gear junkie.

The rest of the evening will be spent prepping for tomorrow. I have to give presentations in front of large groups fairly regularly for my job. If you had told me in law school that this is what I would be doing I wouldn't have believed you; public speaking truly terrified me. Thankfully, I got over that fear (perhaps because I was forced to do it so much in law school?) but I still get on edge. Some of the tips I've learned in the past few years:

• Encourage audience participation. If you just sit there and talk at them, people are likely to get bored. During my presentations, I stress the point that if anyone has any questions to just raise their hand and interrupt me. The questions generally get a good dialogue going and gives you a chance to regroup.
• Know your audience and use real life examples to demonstrate points. In my line of work, I answer legal questions from our members on a daily basis. Oftentimes situations come up where while it may have only happened to one of our specific members, it may happen to another in the future. I use the past problems our members have encountered and explain how they dealt with it. Because, let's face it- the law is the law and all, but sometimes what happens in real life situations may, um, differ from what the law suggests. By the way, how many times can I saw real life in this post...yikes.
• Try to focus on each member of the audience at a different point. When I feel my eyes darting about the room I start to get stressed. Instead, I tell myself to relax and look towards a friendly face. If there are no friendly faces, run from the room screaming (kidding).
• Fake it. If you appear confident, people will be more receptive to what you are saying and are more apt to see you as authoritative.

Have you had to present in public recently? Do you enjoy it?

I'm off for some cross-training- have a great evening everyone!