Chicago Marathon & Beyond

Welcome to Life on Mars - the space where I share .. well everything . When I say everything I mean everything about my life experiences , thoughts on latest wellness trends and wellness culture, music and my life as a Peloton Instructor.

Chicago

Ok friends it’s the second week of July and my training for the Chicago marathon has officially begun . Albeit, a little tardy but I’d rather be a little tardy to the party than not present . (So them be the breaks as they say. )

My initial plan was to kick off marathon training on June 1st , but there was Hyrox on May 30th and then traveling to France and Seoul for 2 weeks. ( As a girl from South Memphis I would like to openly acknowledge that I will never get tired of talking about my love of traveling so you may indeed get sick of me. )

Anyway, I am a firm believer in pivoting and not quitting, adjustments not excuses therefore shuffling down the street this morning for my 50 min run seemed like the only natural course of action .

Life Has a Sense of Humor

I remember my early days of running . I would dodge morning runs for ROTC . I remember the discomfort, the constant wanting to quit , my body seeming to itch all over and my legs burning up, like they were on fire. But now, I am training for my second marathon and I help thousands of people around the world get into running. So let me tell you this running initial sucks for everyone.

I don’t recall much about how I felt during my first marathon . I can’t remember the time to save my life, or how many gels , or jelly beans I ended up consuming. At this moment, many of those details feel pretty f-ing irrelevant to be honest. But there is one moment from mile 17 that I distinctly remember. It was the moment I really wanted to quit. I remember the way I started negotiating with myself. I had to cut my music off because those thoughts were just so loud. I started singing a cadence from my military days as a grounding technique to remind myself that I am capable of handling difficult situations. I used a tool my college coach taught me and started focusing on one mile at a time. I would tell myself if I still wanted to quit after this mile then I would think it over. A mile would come and go and then next mile and then the next.

By mile 25 I was moving at what felt like the slowest pace I’ve ever run in my entire life and I simply reminded myself that no matter how slow or fast you run, if you just keep moving you’ll finish this race as a marathoner.

I know for sure that life has a sense of humor because this girl that once despised running indeed ran all 26.2 consecutive miles and that makes me feel pretty badass.

My Training This Time Around

How blessed am I to have the one and only Bart Yasso , former chief running officer of Runners World Magazine training me for Chicago. Bart has run on all 7 continents , competed in over a 1000 + races , published 4 books on the sport including his latest book for National Geographic, “100 Runs of a Lifetime” and has even been inducted into the Running USA hall of Champions . Bart is an icon and a legend in the running community and someone I am lucky enough to call a friend. I met Bart in Virginia Beach at the Shamrock Marathon back in 2023 . If you’ve had the opportunity to join me during Shamrock Weekend you know that even with the 20,000 participants present it still feels like home. So when I told Bart that I would be running my first marathon since tearing my ACL he volunteered to help me train. Bart has seen it all in running . From women entering the sport , to the first black runners to enter a marathon to the explosion of Kenyan runners dominating in the sport. Bart has traversed it all and has continued to share his love and knowledge of running with new runners . I can’t wait to have him on my podcast when we return this fall so you too can get to know him better but for now I am just happy to be in good hands .

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Latest Reads and Class Drops

So after finishing off “ Finding Me” by Viola Davis. I’ve picked up “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell . I can’t remember who recommended this book to me but it came in right as I was finishing Finding Me and I can’t wait to finish it and share my thoughts .

Latest Class Drops

Two class drops last week and I have class playlist rec for you. I’ve had tons of people give feedback on my latest 45 Min Outdoor Walk + Run . It’s a mostly gospel playlist but also it’s just very encouraging in general. I think that you will love this one even if you treat it as full walk or a full run. If you haven’t taken it yet I recommend you check out .

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📌Newsletter Trivia

I am so excited to announce our new weekly newsletter trivia game . I polled some of my community over on instagram about doing weekly newsletter trivia where I hide clues throughout the newsletter and you have to provide me the answer based of the clues you find. Think Jeopardy meets Wheel of Fortune .

This weeks trivia Question

This track __________ released on ___________ by __________ was revolutionary to hip hop and helped catapult hip hop into the mainstream after it became the first HH record to reach gold status .

Provide your answer and all of the clues that you spotted above in the comments in order to win . The first person with the correct answer and all of the clues wins .

The winner from this week will be noted in the upcoming newsletter

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📌 Keep in Touch

Instagram @offialmarcelfit

Listen to Podcast : Take The Hill Podcast

Take a class with me: 30 day free trial her

Let’s Work Together : https://marceldinkins.komi.io

YouTube : @officialmarcelfit

Thanks for reading Life on Mars