Amy Reinink

Plan A was to start training for the Virginia Beach Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon early this summer. A family emergency left me scrapping my long runs and scrambling to put together Plan B, putting together a makeshift training schedule that would have allowed me to finish the event rather than race it.

My highly structured Plan B half-marathon training schedule.

Long story short, I am now scrambling to put together Plan C, which I’m happy to unveil today. I’m not officially counting myself out for the half in September, but I am starting to shift my energy and focus to the Daiquiri Deck Tropical Splash 5Kopen-water swim on Oct. 6. The race, held in Siesta Key, Fla., has been the happy highlight of my open-water swim season since I first discovered it in 2010.

That drink tasted every bit as amazing as it looks.

During my training swim yesterday, my mind was flooded with happy memories of white-sand beaches, turquoise-blue water and frosty drinks that taste like Smarties. As I train for the event over the next two months, I’ll also recall my dad’s voice at the finish line, yelling “Go, Amy, go!” as clearly and proudly as he once did when he waited for me to finish the 25-yard breaststroke in my beach-club swim meets as a little kid.

Today, I’m motivated by the sound of my dad’s cheers, still clear in my mind. I’m also motivated by the knowledge that by developing the ability to adjust your goals and expectations on the fly when things don’t go as planned during a race (please see Marine Corps Marathon 2009, ski-patrol S&T last year, etc), you’re also developing the mental toughness to move on to plan B or C quickly and without judgement when you encounter obstacles in life.

Pictured here: On bottom, the outdoorswoman’s version of “Fifty Shades of Grey” (in that it’s an insanely popular bestseller that everyone seems to be reading, talking about, splurging on hardcover copies of, etc.). On top, my rough-hewn, sloppy-looking half-marathon running schedule (which will be supplemented by swimming and strength-training) for now until the Virginia Beach Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon over Labor Day weekend. Yep—one 4-miler is already crossed off!

Last time I posted a couple weeks ago, I referenced a family emergency and a homecoming from deployment. I’m back home now, and rather than spending much time yammering on and on about what kind of effect those two things had on my emotional life (in short: updownupdownupdownupdownUPUPdowndownup), I’d like to share some of the things that kept me motivated to keep my workouts somewhat steady during the emotional rollercoaster of the past few weeks.

Endorphins: The antidepressant effects of aerobic exercise have been well studied and widely documented. During the first stressful days in Colorado, when we fought feelings of anxiety as we sorted through Steve’s stepdad’s estate and searched for new homes for his beloved hunting dogs, a daily swim or run would leave me feeling calm and energized for hours after the workout ended.

Natural beauty: Obviously, it’s a lot easier to get motivated to run on a beautiful trail overlooking the Flatirons than it is to suffer through mile repeats on a treadmill. I made sure to take advantage of the natural beauty surrounding me in Colorado, to include a few nice trail runs and a couple of lovely swims in the spring-fed pool in Glenwood Springs, where Steve and I escaped for an evening.

The Olympics: How can I skip my regular swims when I spend my evenings watching Missy Franklin and Ryan Lochte? How, I ask you?

My race schedule: Sadly, after weeks of consistent training, I missed the Allen Stone Run-Swim-Run on July 21. But I’m still signed up for the Virginia Beach Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon over Labor Day weekend. I didn’t get in any long runs while I was gone, but the knowledge that I’ll have to start those up again soon kept me motivated to head out for breathless 3-milers at altitude in Colorado.

What’s motivating you this week? How have you used regular workouts to cope with life’s emotional rollercoasters?

I have two things to share with you today. The first is a story from The Washington Post last week about a war widow who has used running to cope with the loss of her husband, and to make sure that others remember service members like him. It is lovely, and anyone who has used running to cope with anything will identify with it (regular readers know I got into distance running solely to  escape the anxiety and loneliness of deployment). It is also important, because, as writer Greg Jaffe says, “Now the war that claimed (her husband’s) life is increasingly an afterthought, (she) is one of thousands of widows from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq trying to get on with their lives.”

The second thing I want to share with you: It is with great joy, gratitude and relief that I tell you that Steve is due home today after three months of being deployed on a boat in the Middle East. I’m sorry I’m just telling you now that he was gone. There are a multitude of reasons I didn’t want to share that information here, from the practical (i.e, Not wanting this blog to serve as notice that there’s a little lady living alone whose home is ripe for the robbing) to the selfish (i.e, I wanted this blog to serve as one place where I simply didn’t have to talk about it, which isn’t the case at most social gatherings). At three months, this was Steve’s shortest deployment. But thanks to the unfortunate timing, it was the hardest one for me to cope with.

A homecoming from a previous deployment.

Steve is home a little earlier than expected, but for a sad reason—we’ll be leaving for Colorado almost immediately to deal with a family emergency. I’ll probably be posting sporadically during that time. In the meantime, please send us your warmest and healingest thoughts.

OK, triathlete friends: Can we talk about transitions? I practiced my first-ever transition on Sunday, when I did a trial run-swim-run ahead of the Allen Stone Run-Swim-Run on July 21. I swam in my Nike two-piece suit, which worked brilliantly. I laid out my least chafe-prone shorts with my running shoes, a gallon of water and towels to wash the sand off my feet, and some baby powder to dab on my feet to get rid of remaining moisture, all of which made me feel completely comfortable on the run. The only problem: The process took me five minutes. Gah! Is that just how these things go? Are there any tricks to make it quicker? Am I missing anything from my “transition kit,” pictured below? Help!

Whenever my dad woke up feeling extra-tired thanks to an earlier-than-usual wakeup call, he’d say: “Early came early this morning.”

That’s the first thought that popped into my mind Wednesday morning, when I woke up at 5:30 a.m. ahead of the Mount Trashmore Family YMCA’s 28th annual July 4th We Build People 5K. I’d gotten enough sleep, having gone to bed at 9:30 p.m. in anticipation of the early wake-up, but I felt that familiar drag of my body saying: “Oh, not today. Maybe next time.”

I’d had this race on my radar for weeks. A bunch of people from my Tuesday-night running group were planning to be there, and I knew I could use the tune-up ahead of the Allen Stone Run-Swim-Run on July 21. But when I woke up on Wednesday, my body was tired, my broken pinkie toe was sore from something I’d done in TRX class the day before, and by 7:30 a.m., the heat index was already 86 degrees. Oh—and I hadn’t run since breaking my pinkie toe two weeks ago.

Still, I headed over to Mount Trashmore determined to try my absolute best, and to run the fastest race possible given the circumstances. In the first mile, that meant a breezy, happy 8-minute mile. By the second mile, it felt like there were heating pads trapped underneath my skin, and that someone was holding a wet, warm washcloth over my face. I started repeating a mantra I use for occasions like these: “You feel like you’re gonna pass out or puke? Fine. Run ’til you pass out or puke.” When I actually felt like both of these events were a real possibility with a full mile left to go, I backed off. I finished in 26:29, roughly 8:30-minute-mile pace.

I felt only a brief rush of disappointment at the fact that I ran 30 seconds per mile slower, pace-wise, than I usually run on my Tuesday 4.2-miler. I pushed the pace the entire race. I finished feeling 100 percent certain there was nothing left in the tank. I tried my absolute best, and ran the fastest race possible given the circumstances. And it was still a great training run for the run-swim-run—like a speed workout completed in a sauna. An additional bonus? My toe felt fine both during and after the race.

Plus, aside from the pass out/puke phase of the morning, it was fun! I hung out with my running-group friends before and after the race, and even ran into a couple of friends from my TRX class, including a woman who had temporarily colored her short blond hair with red, white and blue stripes for the occasion. Together, we bitched about the heat, compared plans for later in the day (I went blueberry picking, and went to a barbecue at a TRX-friend’s house) and checked out other patriotic costumes (none of which topped my friend’s hair).

When I got home Wednesday evening, I checked my race results online, and got a big surprise: I came in third out of 38 women in my age group! I’m not sure how this happened. It’s not like the entire field was slower than usual for a race of this size: All the other age-group winners in the women’s categories finished in 19 or 20 minutes and change. Not the 30 to 34-year-old women—the top finisher crossed the line in 25 minutes! After a brief period of confusion, I settled into extreme, unearned pride.

Here’s how the rest of the week shaped up:

Saturday: Swim 30 minutes in Bay

Sunday: SUP for two long, hot, hard hours. Swim 35 minutes in Bay.

Monday: Group swim in Bay with Final Kick. Got lost and swam much more than the 1,600-meter course, for a total of about an hour. Shoulders still sore from SUP on Sunday!

Tuesday: TRX.

Wednesday: Mt. Trashmore Family YMCA’s 28th annual July 4th We Build People 5K.

Thursday: TRX, swim 30 minutes in Bay

Friday: Speed workout on treadmill?

A dear runner-friend came to visit me in Virginia Beach last weekend. We ate seafood nachos, drank wine out of a box at the beach and generally enjoyed a relaxed weekend during which our plans revolved not around a road race, but … well, things like drinking wine out of a box on the beach. We were also reminded over and over again that even in the midst of a weekend like this, we were still, as the guy we rented stand-up paddleboards put it, “health nuts.” Some examples:

3 p.m. Saturday, on the beach:

Me: I’m gonna go for a little swim. I’ll go to the end of that beach and back, and it should take me about half an hour.

Friend, without looking up from her book: OK. Have fun.

7:30 p.m. Saturday, at my favorite seafood restaurant, after splitting seafood nachos:

Me: Do you want to get the giant cookie in the skillet for dessert, or go home and eat blackberries for dessert?

Friend: Either’s good with me.

Me: Me, too. (Pause). If we go home, we can watch the Olympic swim trials.

(We get up and leave).

10 a.m. Sunday, with the guy we rented SUP boards from, after he asked what we did for work, and we told him I write health, fitness, travel and outdoors stories, and my friend is a registered dietitian.

Him: How did you guys meet?

Me: We’re in the same running group. She’s here visiting for the weekend.

Him: Cool! (Pause). Well, you’re obviously health nuts who are in pretty good shape, so you should pick this up pretty quickly.

How do your “health nut” tendencies creep into your everyday life?

I’ve been talking a lot recently about the difference between regular base training (i.e., moving your body in ways that offer challenge and progress that are not associated with a particular race) and training for an event—namely, the Allen Stone Run-Swim-Run July 21 and the Virginia Beach Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon over Labor Day weekend. A major difference is the way the latter requires you to try a little harder to stick to your training plan when life gets in the way.

And did life ever get in the way this past week!

There was a broken toe. Yeah, I know. I was holding off on mentioning it until I was pretty sure I’d screwed it up. A week later, it’s definitely screwed up. How did I break my toe, you ask? I essentially kicked a curb as I rushed out of a Panera Bread last Friday. SO dumb. I felt debilitating pain, screamed, saw it swell and turn purple, and calmly decided to skip out on running for a week and focus on swimming instead. I called my doctor to make sure the treatment would be the same whether I came in or not. His physician’s assistant told me all they’d do is take an X-ray to confirm the break, then advise me to stay off it for a week. I’ve been icing and elevating ever since, and think I might be able to try running on it again next week.

There was a tropical storm, and a flash flood. I was determined not to let the broken toe stop me from swimming and lifting. The atmosphere had other plans. This week of bizarre, inconsistent training is brought to you by Tropical Storm Debby. Thankfully, my mom’s house didn’t see any major damage, and we came out of the storm relatively unscathed.

Here’s how training ended up looking as a result. Not bad, considering!

Saturday (June 23): Swim 3,000 yards at Bethesda. Felt amazing! Swimming is really starting to feel good again.

Sunday: Lift/plyometrics/agility stuff at COR fitness in New Port Richey. Flash flood.

Monday: Off. Lift sandbags to ward off floodwaters due to Tropical Storm Debby.

Tuesday: Lift 1 hour at COR fitness, whose parking lot is dry again. The outdoor lap pools near my mom’s house are still closed, sadly.

Wednesday: Rec center pool opens at 1 p.m. Swim! 3,500 yards. Enjoy the unusually cool water brought by more than a dozen inches of rain during the storm.

Thursday: Swim 3,500 yards, including a few 200 IMs.

Friday (today): TRX at Bethesda, swim at least 3,000 yards. Considering the insane heat wave, which had me sweating when I walked 10 steps to my car, I’m not particularly sad that I can’t run.

I got in a workout on Sunday.

Why is this mention-worthy? Because I am visiting my mom, who lives about an hour north of Tampa, where Tropical Storm Debby decided to stall for a few days and drop nearly a foot of rain before moving northeast. My workout at the gym near my mom’s house came during what seemed like a break in the rain on Sunday afternoon. The joke was on me: So much rain fell during the single hour I was in the gym, it created a flash flood that stalled my mom’s car when I attempted to drive it away. This is what the parking lot looked like when the tow truck came to get me and the car, a couple hours after the incident:

I never thought a cycling class could be meditative.

That is, until I took Gabriella Boston’s Revolution/Yoga class at Results Capitol Hill last Friday. The class, which starts with a 45-minute cycling session and ends with 45 minutes of yoga, combines the energy of cycling with the contemplative peace of yoga in a way that makes the sum greater than the two parts.

Instructor Gabriella Boston teaches an hour-and-a-half class at Results the Gym in Capitol Hill that combines indoor cycling and yoga into one workout. Photograph by David Johnson.

According to Yoga Journal, the spin-yoga combo trend started a few years ago, when a fitness and yoga instructor named Noll Daniel happened to teach back-to-back spinning and yoga classes at his New York City gym. Many students doubled up, touting the greater flexibility they felt after warming up on the bikes, leading the gym to create a single combo class. The class has since been replicated across the country, including in Washington, DC.

Boston’s class begins with an easy warmup on the bike, the first of several instances when she gives us cues about our effort level, gear level, and RPMs (revolutions per minute). After a few minutes of slow cycling in a low gear, we start the first of several hill and interval drills, set to a soundtrack of pop and hip-hop music.

Finish reading this story on Washingtonian Magazine’s Well + Being blog’s website.

(Editor’s note: Take a minute this morning to stop by Run This Amazing Day to congratulate Katie for her incredible Ironman finish yesterday.)