Week 3: Training vs. working out

Also: Samosadilla vs. samosarito

I’m training to run the TCS NYC Marathon this year! This newsletter is a weekly recap of the highs and lows of training, and my best efforts to stay mentally and physically healthy through it. This is week 3/36. 

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This week was a weird one—a lot of pent-up energy, but also feeling overwhelmed with work and life and the present, and the future, etc. etc. Very normal winter-on-the-cusp-of-spring feelings. I would’ve loved nothing more than to listen to an unhinged playlist and go on a long-ish run where I could get out of my head. Instead, I did a yoga class that was maybe 68 percent as satisfying. Here’s a melodramatic Tumblr post (derogatory) that would’ve resonated with me as much at 13 years old as it does today. 

shoutout to the algorithm for knowing about my posterior tibial tendonitis

How I’ve Been Training:

I’ve been thinking a lot about the kinds of fitness classes that I enjoy, and the kinds that I have a really hard time with. I’ve talked about this ad nauseam with friends: I dislike HIIT classes. Anything with rotating stations in a group setting—annoying. I only tolerate cycle classes because I can’t run right now, but I feel like a hamster on a wheel (if the wheel was in a dark room with seizure-inducing lights, and I was forced to listen to Uptown Funk on loop). 

I wasn’t an active person at all until I started running in college, and it was that first half-marathon that changed my relationship with exercise. Instead of aimlessly tinkering with gym equipment, or running the same distance every couple weeks on a treadmill, I had a long-term goal that lended itself to real progress instead of getting stuck in a rut. It was the first time I could say I was “training” for something, instead of “working out.” 

It’s also why I got so sucked into MMA: I was getting better at Brazillian Jiu Jitsu and kickboxing in tangible ways. I was getting stripes on my belt, getting ready for a competition, or sparring to pressure test the skills I was gaining.  

It’s why I love training Muay Thai, but found the Studio Boxing group fitness class this week so frustrating. It was a great workout—my arms are still sore—but the class itself, even if I go regularly, isn’t getting me any better at real boxing, or fighting, or self-defense. 

This is not to disparage fitness classes, say that everyone needs to train like an athlete, or to be this guy. But for folks who dread exercise, or find it boring and discouraging, “training” instead of working out has been huge in finding space for movement in my life that feels empowering, exciting, challenging, and consistent.

• Monday: Vinyasa yoga (flowy)

• Tuesday: Leg day (gainz 😤)

• Wednesday: Upper body day (embarrassing) 

• Thursday: Cycle (good playlist)

• Friday: Studio Boxing (see above)

• Saturday: Leg day part 2 (a struggle)

What I’ve Been Eating:

Plenty of smoothies. Lots of fun test kitchen food: a samosa-inspired cheesy wrap that we can’t decide whether to call a samosadilla or a samosarito, strawberry choux-cake (a riff on strawberry shortcake, but with choux pastry instead of shortcake), a lemon blueberry loaf, tahini chicken salad. 

I also had a lovely cheese board and some turkey meatballs at a hotel bar, waffles at Buvette, cookies from the bakery across the street, and after a rough day at work, a slice on my walk home. I made these Rice Krispie Treats to bring to an Oscars party. 

My favorite meal was Saturday when I had friends over for a cookbook potluck where we each cooked through a recipe from My Every Day Lagos by Yewande Komolafe. My friend lugged syrup and cocktail supplies on the PATH train from New Jersey to make us hibiscus spritzes. There were beans with pepper paste, fried sweet plantains, chicken and rice, “pumpkin” (butternut squash) cooked in a tomato-peanut sauce, savory wheat fritters, and we had cherries and mango with whipped cream for dessert. 

What I’ve Been Writing:

I wrote a lot this week, but nothing of note that’s been published! All I’ve got up is a bitsy blurb in this weekly roundup of “What BA Editors Cooked” where I talk about the noodles I made last week.