Running Update

This past weekend’s run was not at all what I thought – it was a beautiful, glorious warm Nov. morning and the nine miles were comprised of a mix-and-match of various length routes around my house. The first five miles were relatively easy, flowing and gentle, and the next mile before I paused to refuel was a bit harder than I expected, which should make the Turkey Chase 10K interesting (Note to self- pick up race packet this evening!). The next three miles were easy again, I barely remember them. The entire time I guess I just tuned out to my headphones and went one foot in front of the other. The yoga I did after was hard from being so stiff, and Sunday I rested my legs except for some yoga, which was much needed. Today my hill run was harder than the last one I did – but I did notice that I was going much, much faster than I expected on the uphills and even grades. I LOVE getting to work, seeing the clock at 10 AM, and realizing I have already run, done my yoga, ate a great breakfast, read, showered, cleaned, and worked for an hour. The day is already successful!

I have been reading a lot about designing training programs and diet associated with it. More specifically, on how NOT to gain weight during marathon training. Apparently this is a pretty big deal. All these long runs and increasing mileage also increases appetite. Go figure. Well, this appetite combined with the knowledge that you have just run all those many miles, allows for increased greasy food consumption, or GFC, such as several pieces of pizza, regularly. This, of course, leads to gained poundage, which is pretty much NOT the anticipated result of marathon training.

Now, I would like to not gain weight. In fact, I wouldn’t mind it if I shed a few pounds for the effort of 40 mile weeks. But a few pieces of pizza aren’t uncommon for a Saturday night dinner. I have taken to occasionally mapping my day’s diet and breaking it up into percentages of fats, carbs and protein to see if it meets the ideal 25-50-25 ratio (don’t worry, I’m laughing at myself too). Just to check, you know? And the result is – I don’t care that much. I think I’m fine. I don’t eat that much, and when I occasionally do eat more than my allotted calorie intake, its in booze and pizza and I’m not about to give that up because I’m worried last night’s fifteen miler won’t shave off the extra pounds I’m not even holding onto. On that note, what if I’m not eating enough and instead I produce a lot of cortisol and start gaining weight conversely? Again – whatever. People don’t die of this stuff. They just freak themselves out.

But I think I am feeling the results of the strength training – knee and ankle are almost back to 100% and apparently I am increasing in speed. Yay! Now, I just have to get through this first wave of training that focuses on building mileage, and I’ll be set to focus more on speed and strength and less on injury prevention. The goal is to remain at or around 35 mile weeks for 2/3 of training, and to build the long runs so that I run one 26 mile run, and a bout three over 20 miles (I know, a lot of training plans say never to run over 22 miles, but I believe that I will hit the wall at wherever I have stopped training, and I am afraid of the wall, and I also believe that if I keep my total week’s mileage around 35-40, then if half of this is compiled in one run, then that’s okay.)

Now, on to doing some work (yeah right…)!

UPDATE: i remember why I started writing this post: i'm hungry.sorry.