After wholeheartedly embracing Crossfit, dedicating a good 4.5 years to it, I found myself looking for change. Endurance sports were always my strength, though I never fully developed that potential. During my time going to a Crossfit box, I entered the odd 5ks here and there, running them in around 24-25 minutes. I could jump into those races with little specific running training and still be somewhat respectable, but they were not competitive times, nor do I think they reflected how fast I could get.

Crossfit certainly made me stronger and in better overall shape than ever in my life. The competitive lure of endurance sports still called. Sure, there was this thing called “Crossfit Endurance;” however, I would mostly have to do the program on my own. I wasn’t entirely sold on the premise of it for reaching competitive speeds at long events because in my experience, putting in miles really mattered for me.

Crossfit definitely fueled the desire to be competitive in a sport and taught me that regardless of the fact that I was rapidly approaching “middle-age,” I could still improve and set PRs.

My endurance talents were never fully developed. I have only run 1 half marathon. It was about 15 years ago, and I ran it in  1:42. That always stuck in my head because it seemed like a pretty good pace, especially since I had only trained up to 12 miles on my long runs. That number told me that I had the ability to possibly qualify for Boston some day. But life got in the way and I never trained for a marathon other than the two 4+ hour ones in my early 20s. The first was a 4:29 at the Lincoln Marathon while running with a “marathon club” in college. There wasn’t a lot of serious training and we mostly just ran the long runs together. I can’t recall exactly, but I think I skipped a lot of the mid week runs because of the demands of working and school. The next one was about 2 years later. It was the Big Sur Marathon. I had trained very heavily on hills and ended up with a pretty bad case of piriforis syndrome. That race I was running a 3:35 marathon pace until after mile 18 when I crashed and had to walk quite a bit.

Knowing that there’s more in me, I’ve now embarked on getting my distance back. I also have a “sturdier” body from 4.5 years of Crossfit. This time, I also have thought about dabbling in triathlons, mostly to see if it is something I’d enjoy, and to overcome my swimming weaknesses, and it gave me an excuse to buy a bike.

My plan has several stages and components. First, which I will cover in an upcoming post, is weight loss. Crossfit and the last year of stress in my life have added about 15 pounds of extra weight that impede competitive endurance times. Losing muscle and strength isn’t something I’m looking forward to, and I will work to maintain it by continuing to weight train, but I do need to be realistic.

I do want to mention that during the “losing weight” phase I will NOT be increasing my long runs more than around 10 miles. Contrary to popular opinion, running more doesn’t equate to weight loss. A solid nutrition plan is in order. Eating at a deficit and eating lower carb is essential for me. My specifics will be covered in another post.

The next step is injury prevention. Unfortunately, I think I may have cheated myself out of some muscle balance. I have found that my left hip/glute area is significantly weaker than the right side. So working on single-sided specific glute strengthening exercises is something I’m now religiously doing. I have some ITB issues and minor runners knee, and mild soreness on the iliac crest area. Between too much sitting, running on slanted roads, and “cheating” with two-legged lifts, these little problems have developed.

After I lose the few pounds of fluff, I then need a nutrition and supplementation plan that will help me through the longer miles.

I will also continue to do some weight training and sprinkle in some crossfit workouts here and there. Swimming and biking workouts will also help prepare for a triathlon or two next year.

Can a woman in her late 30s find her distance groove again? Can she avoid injury? Watch this blog for updates to see!

Me, about a year ago.