The Five Emotional Phases of Marathon Training, Phase 1: Honeymoon

It’s the weekend!!! And I haven’t posted since Tuesday. I vowed to never apologize for not posting because I think it’s weird and pretty self-absorbed to think that anyone’s life would actually be negatively affected by not having a daily post from one of the blogs they read! But it’s been a crazy week for me, with some school stuff and a bunch of JOB INTERVIEWS (real world! Duh duh duhhh!) going on. But here I am.

Digging this Saturday. I was just driving around with my moonroof open and the temp gauge in my car read 71. WOOO! And I set a new PR for a 5K this morning. Life’s goooood.

I loved reading comments on my last post about the Vegetarian Kitchen Challenge and so I’d like to give some VKC updates. It’s going pretty well! I’m on a Veganomicon and quinoa kick this week so the recipes I chose reflected that. First up was a chickpea-quinoa pilaf, recommended by Jess over at Healthy Exposures. This was my first time EVER cooking with quinoa (!!!) and it was AWESOME. I dig.

BLOG CLICHÉ ALERT!!!! Check out my new bowl from Sur La Table. Isn’t it just like OMG the cutest bowl everrrrr?!?! at least I’m not so cliché that I posted a picture of it with my morning oatmeal.

Whoops.

I couldn’t cook much during the job-app days (more like eating my way through San Francisco yet again) but I tried to keep the veggies up. Remember that weirdly deformed sweet potato I got at the farmers’ market? It finally got cooked. This baby was so weird looking that I had to make a smiley face on it out of dried fruit. Don’t ask why. It just seemed right…

I continued the challenge with my new favorite grain, using a recipe that really caught my eye: quinoa salad with black beans and mango. Basically this was a ton of mango, red bell pepper, green onions, cilantro, quinoa, and black beans all tossed with some oil and vinegar.

It was good but it needed a lot more vinegar and some salt added to it afterwards to suit my tastebuds. (But the original recipe also called for red wine vinegar, which I didn’t have, so that’s probably why. Improvisation.) I also think my mangoes weren’t very flavorful, which was weird because they looked and felt PERFECT, and I had a lot of experience picking out mangoes after my days in the Moz. Oh well, still good!

And dinner last night was something I had been excited about trying: lentil sloppy joes, or snobby joes! I would definitely recommend this recipe. I’m not so veg that I preferred it to the ground beef version (though Lord knows when I last ate that!) but it was great. Open face all the way.

Just like the real sloppy joes: nasty looking in the pan, DELICIOUS on the bun.

I’m continuing my VKC through the weekend by making black bean burgers either tonight or tomorrow, and creating a delicious (vegan) super bowl feast with green pea guacamole, white bean aioli, spinach and asparagus dip, and black bean/sweet potato tortillas. More on that later.

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So for any of you actually reading this post you might be wondering what the title has to do with anything. Here’s the explanation.

For those of you who have been reading my blog, you know I can be a bit sarcastic, and it’s the way I deal with difficult things, such as marathon training (and you all know that my marathon training started without me. Devastating.) So here I present my analysis of what I am calling the Five Emotional Phases of Marathon Training. “Is this a real thing,” you ask? Of COURSE it’s a real thing! I have a BLOG, therefore everything I spew about in this little corner of the interwebs must be 110% accurate and true. I’m ashamed of you for even asking.

Thus I present the first of the Five Emotional Phases: the HONEYMOON phase. (What are the other four? Couldn’t tell ya. I haven’t made them up yet.)

For me, the honeymoon phase lasted through this Monday. Three and a half solid weeks. Marathon training, for many people, starts in a flurry of excitement. You’re motivated and positive because you’re working towards something AWESOME! “I’m training for a marathon,” you say, shrugging slightly in a false show of modesty, loving how cool it makes you feel to say that you are TRAINING for a MARATHON even though your longest run at the time had been six miles. (Almost a quarter of the way there, right?)

Your ego is soaring. You are okay with the fact that you are sweaty and gross half the time. You are more often in workout clothes than normal clothes because you have no life. (That last part could just be me personally… whatever.) You convince yourself that that’s a better look for you so you don’t have to spend more time primping.

You prioritize your runs as an important part of your day, not wanting to miss one, feeling convinced that with each and every run you’re getting faster, and stronger. And you are! In my third week of training last week, I set PRs at the 5K and the 10K just as a part of my normal training runs. You buy cute exercise clothes and new gear. You feel strong and empowered. You are TRAINING for a MARATHON and that is BAD-ASS and everyone knows it!

You start completely normal and healthy traditions like celebrating the end of each long run in a hot tub with a beer. You may or may not spend the last few miles of said long run trying to pick which beer you want.

You love the way it makes you feel. You love the excitement of trying something new. And you ARE feeling better. For me, the honeymoon phase culminated on Monday morning after I ran 9 miles and felt like I could have run 18. Not once was I sore, not once did I want to stop, not once was I not happy.

And that’s not the reality of marathon training.

That, my friends, is the honeymoon phase.

Guess who’s NOT in the honeymoon phase anymore? Stay tuned to learn about phase two. Someday. Happy Super Bowl Weekend, everyone!!! GO STEELERS!!!

Who are you rooting for in the game? And more importantly, what are you cooking??

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• Marathon Training Emotional Phase Two: Apathy. Plus, a Green Giveaway!
• My Non-Meat Existence and the Vegetarian Kitchen Challenge
• Sidelined No More and Sweet Potato Fries