My First Marathon
It’s still surreal knowing I completed a full marathon—26.2 miles—another dream of mine that I can cross off the list. It wasn’t anywhere near easy, it was the most challenging experience of my life but every second was worth it & I will definitely run another (Cory, I WILL top your number of marathons! Mark my words.).
Deciding to run the marathon was a long time coming, I BS’d for quite some time but in 2019, my mindset & my process of executing what I put my mind to was different. July 2019 is when I mentally committed to running the Miami Marathon in 2020. I became obsessive, especially when I researched only 0.5% of the U.S. population has ran a marathon. Once I saw that, I most defffiinniiteelyyy stepped my game up & made sure I would enter the 26.2 Crew! Enjoy the video recap below then scroll down for more insight of: Training, Nutrition, the Runner’s Expo & Post Marathon.
Woohooo after I received my medal!!
Ya see those quads?!
Training
The number one habit I cut-back to start my training was alcohol & beer (by the way, my tolerance hasn’t been the same siiinccee—I’m a lil puss now lol). If you’re a drinker, stop for 30 days & I promise you will feel & see a significant difference. I also stopped brunching. I took a moment & asked myself what benefits was I acquiring by attending brunch every Sunday to guzzle bottles of champagne & eat outside of my diet. There was no beneficial gain at all, unless you consider dehydration, wasted money & a lost day of productivity goals. Sure it’s glamorous when you see it on the grraaaammmm but ya can’t allow that to cause a decline in your strive to accomplish goals.
July is when I decided to run the marathon, but I didn’t have a specific training plan set. July was also a busy month—I went to Orlando & Cali then stayed on the beach for Swim Week. So I just continued with my pre-marathon running schedule: 3 miles every other day; gym/weight training & spinning on Wednesdays. Early on, I realized I needed to decrease my weight training to increase my cardio. It’s tough to merely walk after leg-day, so running is nearly impossible. I noticed taking off two/three days of running during the week because I was sore from weights wouldn’t be ideal in the long-run, so I slowed down on weights & eventually stopped mid-September. When I did, I immediately noticed I was leaning out more & my stamina increased. In August, I began creating my official training plan by increasing my weekly mileage, i.e:
Sunday—5 miles; Monday—1 mile sprint; Tuesday—5 miles; Wednesday—1 hour of Spinning; Thursday—1 mile sprint; Saturday—3 miles.
I also ran my first 10 miles in August, which was to the Yellow Green Farmer’s Market!! I actually had zero intentions of running that far. I thought the distance was only eight miles… until I hit eight miles but I wasn’t at the market. I searched the address & was exactly two miles away; I yelled: “Today is the day!! 10 miles I’m cominggg!!” Once I made it to the market, I gained more confidence in myself, knowing that I was definitely going to complete the marathon. This day, I also learned the importance of monitoring & knowing what to eat before a long run to avoid digestion issues. I didn’t think about what I should or should not eat the night before & let me tell you…I almost lost my mind trying to find a bathroom (thank you Publix & shout-out to my Mom for keeping me distracted on the phone)! While I was in the bathroom, I told myself this absolutely CANNOT happen on race day because 1. gross porta-potties & 2. I’d waste time! So I immediately made a rule to not eat anything (especially new foods) after 7/8PM the night before the race & the morning of I would keep it simple with a banana & peanut butter. I know it may seem dramatic to have planned what I was going to eat six months in advance, but I never want that bathroom experience again, especially during a run.
My endurance took a drastic change in September, so much that I began running to my spinning class on Saturdays. That was roughly 5-6 miles then an hour of spinning. By this time, I completely stopped weight training at the gym, so I wanted to ensure I was still challenging & strengthening my body by doing different types of cardio. Aside from that, there wasn’t much of a change in my training:
Saturday—6 miles & 1 hour of Spinning; Monday—1 mile sprint; Tuesday; 3 miles; Wednesday—1 hour of Spinning; Thursday—Yoga; Friday—2 mile 30 second sprints
October is when I became more strict with my diet due to the upcoming holidays; what I ate was the main focus this month. You guys know, during the holiday season, food looks & smells as if it was cooked in gold & desserts & alcohol are almost impossible to escape. So I meal prepped more than ever (see details below in the nutrition section). My running was the same with a slight mileage increase & a focus on yoga for more flexibility:
Sunday—Yoga; Monday—Yoga; Tuesday—5 miles; Wednesday—1 hour of Spinning; Friday—1 mile sprint
I don’t know much about the technicalities of running or working-out in general. I just listen to my body & felt the need to widen my hips more, focus on balancing & loosen my hamstrings. I also sprained my toe this month, so my training schedule changed to yoga & arm workouts from October through mid-November. By 11/29, I was running again & it felt great! My toe wasn’t bothering me at at all but I didn’t want to apply much pressure on it & risk a major injury, so my routine for the end of November & December was the same:
Sunday—6-8 miles every other Sunday; Tuesday—Yoga; Wednesday—1 hour of Spinning; Saturday—6 miles & 1 hour of Spinning
December is the month of my annual White Elephant Getty, I was all in on the marathon & I’m proud to say I only had two shots… if that?! At this time, I was close to being a month out from the big day, so I was playing nnnoooo games!! I began doing more research & many articles elaborated on the importance of resting the body more the closer to marathon day. I understood but it was ssaaooo difficult to do, I was concerned but knew I had to allow my body to rest. Sunday, January 26th was my last 10 mile run, my toe started bothering me again as I walked the 11th mile, so I was ddeeffiinniitteelllyyy keeping an eye on any increased pain! After, I focused on icing my toe & applying pressure to know exactly where & when the pain occurred.
Sunday—10 miles every other Sunday; Wednesday—1 hour of spinning; Thursday—1 mile spring—Saturday 3 miles
A week before the marathon, I was on a Bachelorette Cruise that sailed to the Bahamas (home sweet home). I thought multiple times of not going on the cruise because I didn’t want to lose focus on my training but I was excited for my friend & didn’t want to let her down. So I made a plan in my head of my drink & food limits. It wasn’t until I was on the cruise, I realized, this is the time to do a mini-carb load & increase my meat consumption (see more details in the Nutrition section below). I worked out on the cruise as well: treadmill sprints; medicine ball routines; arm routines. We returned the week of the marathon & I followed protocol by not working out at all.
Tuesday-Friday—Yoga flows/stretches
As you see, I never ran 26.2 miles during my training. A man from my spinning class gave me great advice: “You’re training for the last 6 miles. You’ve already completed 20 by making the decision to run the marathon. That’s the easy part. Train for those last 5/6 miles & you’ll be just fine.” After speaking with him, I understood it was all about mental preparation. After my last run on January 26th, I told my parents I know I can finish the marathon. I process things differently than others, I knew during the marathon, I would hit 10 miles easily then get excited to know the other miles are what I was training for.
Nutrition
Just as I don’t know the technicalities of running, I don’t know the technicalities of nutrition either. I’m not a licensed dietitian, everything I share with you all is solely based on my personal experiences. I’m a firm believer that food is our fuel & medicine, so my focus of the foods I allow into my body is important to me. I’ve been a meal prepper for quite sometime now & knowing I would be logging more miles than usual during my training, I had to increase the portion of my meals. I also decided to include more meats & carbs. I’m not a vegetarian, I just prefer to not have a high amount of meat in my diet. So my main focus was to add the following:
Chicken
Rice
Bread
Beans
I honestly had to get accustomed to eating more meats & carbs, it takes sssaaaooo much longer to digest; HOWEVER, I needed the nutrients to fuel me. I won’t load you all with what I ate everyday, but here’s a list of my top five rules to maintain a healthy lifestyle:
Drink at least 1L - 1G of water a day
Limit caffeine & alcohol
Limit dairy products
Avoid fast foods (I love fries though)
Avoid processed foods
For more details to clean-up your lifestyle click here! I know it seems tough at first, but you can do it. Most importantly, forget the scale & your meaning of the word diet. Contrary to popular belief, the word diet, does not pertain to a strict plan of eating two ingredient salads to lose weight. It’s merely the foods one regularly eats—many people think I’m a vegetarian because my diet (or the majority of what I consume) are vegetables & fruits.
My last meal at 7PM, pre-Miami Marathon! Fresh Kitchen four bowl: sweet potato noodles, wild green rice, broccoli, citrus chicken, tomatoes, pesto & kale sauce.
The week before the marathon, I was on a Bachelorette Cruise to the Bahamas. I had access to ALL of the foods I didn’t eat & didn’t have to purchase or cook a bit of it—GOLDEN! Because I was consuming more foods than usual, I made sure to keep as active as possible to help my body digest. I took advantage this cruise as my time to carb-load.
The week of the marathon, my focus was hydrating & eliminating meats. I increased my water consumption to 1.5 gallons a day. It was intense, especially because I wasn’t exercising but passing out from dehydration was something I refused to allow during the marathon. I wanted to eliminate meats the week of the marathon to make sure I felt lite & free. Again, just listen to your body & you will know exactly what to do; I was still eating carbs, just no meats.
The day before the marathon, I made sure to eat throughout the day so I could rest on a satisfied stomach & be fueled the following morning:
6AM—Breakfast: oatmeal & 2 boiled eggs
11AM—Lunch: salad (kale, quinoa, green beans, croutons, zucchini & chickpeas)
3PM—Snack: banana & peanut butter
7PM—Dinner: Fresh Kitchen four bowl (see image)
8PM—Last chug of water!!
The day of the marathon, I only ate a banana & peanut butter for breakfast to fuel up! During the marathon, I didn’t get hungry until my 24th mile & I didn’t get water until the 10th mile. Everything went exactly as planned… except my foot.
After the marathon, I. WAS. STARVING. I definitely underestimated the amount of food my body would need. At the food tent for runners, the volunteers gave me a box to take as many meals as I wanted. I took 12-14 of the meals provided & oh my ggoossshhh I needed every bit of them!! Three hours after the race, I was 4/5 meals in, had two bottles of Gatorade, almost 2 gallons of water & I was ssttiiilll hungry! This lasted for about two days, I was surprised but totally understood & gave my body everything it wanted & needed.
Miami Expo
The Marathon Expo was held Saturday, February 8th. My friend & Dentist, Dr. Latoya Joseph, went with me & it was definitely an experience. I don’t think either of us expected it to be so huge yet organized! There were nnuummerroouuss vendors there. If you’re prepping for your first marathon & unsure where to get accessories, snacks or gear, the expo will be your one-stop-shop! I had to tell myself multiple times, “Jazzy, you don’t need anything aattttt all!”.
Once I picked up my kit, it aaallll hit me, I was prepping for my first marathon!! The kit included:
Bib Number (I was 821!) to pin on the shirt for race day
Miami Marathon shirt
Six nutrition bars
Bracelet for free beer after the race
Other freebies I can’t recall
Marathon
One of the best days of my life!!! Enjoy the video!!
Post marathon
Ahhh man, if it’s one thing I underestimated, it was the aftermath. When I tell you all I was ssttuuuccckk! I was on such a high, it didn’t cross my mind of how I would feel the following day, heck, I was planning to go to work! I woke up the next day, trying to hop out of bed & OHHH MMYY GOODNESS, I barely moved a millimeter & felt the pain electrify through my body.
I’m usually all for stretching, even if I’m sore but man, that wasn’t happening. I was so sore, I took extra food back to my room, each time I went to the kitchen. It takes me four seconds to get to my kitchen; after the marathon, it took me a whoolleee 29 seconds! So I spent the day in bed, trying to fuel my body—as mentioned in the previous section, I could not get fuulll!
By the third day post-marathon, I was moving easier & I was able to stretch. Ice was my best friend but I was so sore, I couldn’t tell ya if it sped up the recovery process or not.
I mentioned in the video, I had to get my toe wrapped during mile 23. I had a black wrap on my foot for about two weeks. I was limping for three days & I was relieved after I was able to comfortably apply more pressure on it but it wasn’t until two weeks after that I was able to take the brace off! I didn’t run again until March 7th & it felt great! I took it easy, as I was still closely monitoring my foot but I’ve been back out here ever since!
Thank you to everyone who sent their words of encouragement! I appreciate you taking the time to send love & peace my way. Whether you came here to learn about my experience; preparing for a marathon or merely looking to change your lifestyle, don’t hesitate to contact me.
Love & Blessings!
xoJR
