Monday I ran twice. At 6am I did a slow 3 on the Hobo Day 5k route just to get started for the day. Later on with Jenna I ran 5 more. It was a good 8 mile day.
Tuesday up on the WC track I hammered out 5.22 miles at 7 flat minutes per mile. The Garmin is AWESOME for running up there. I have it set where every time around I hit the Lap button it tells me which lap and what the last lap time was. On the display screen I have it set to tell me how many laps I have complete, the average lap time, the total time, and the current lap time.
After the run Barb and I went out to eat since I had a secret shopper assignment. How this works is I signed up at the secret shopper website and they call me about once a month with an assignment. Restaurants pay this company to have people do this. I simply go eat there and check the place out. The particular restaurant I went to this time has very specific things they look for on their evaluation. How are the parking lots and bathrooms? Is the music and temp ok? Is the manager out among the tables cleaning? Etc etc. I have to give a pretty detailed account of my visit, including estimated time spent in line, how many people were before me, etc. I get reimbursed on my meal up to $10.00 and another $5.00 for doing the survey after the shop. There is no way to make money off this but it accounts for a free meal once a month, not too bad :)
This made me laugh. As I was waiting outside the Union after the run for Barb to pick me up some student walked by me and said something like "if I ran as much as you I would be in amazing shape!" I believe I have seen him before, but pretty sure I have never spoken to the guy in my life. I have found that people whom I do not know at all recognize me and will talk to me, just from seeing me running at the Wellness Center so often. Barb pointed out, it was a compliment after!
Again Tue I went to the WC after finishing up my microbiology lab report and did 3.5 more miles. The half was just a warm up. Here is the speed session I did, remember each lap is 178m, not 200...
1x3laps w/ 2 lap recovery after each
3x2 laps w/ 2 lap recovery after each
6x1 lap w/ 1 lap recovery after each
I missed a recovery lap midway through so did one extra fast lap at the end to get 27 laps in. The average pace for the three miles was 6:36 miles. I may try to do more speed work on the treadmills since with the track being such a stupid distance and having the tight corners it makes getting any speed difficult.
A speed session here and there throughout the week or maybe a mile or two of strides at the end of a run are my only main training changes for Boston qualification. The title of this post is something I read once on SlowTwitch, one poster to another. I think I have the cake, so do not feel bad adding in a little speed. I also find that running inside, I go faster but it is much harder to go as far. On the track or dreadmill there is no "Ok I am 7 miles out of town, time to turn around...". However with people around, or others running with me on the track, you tend to go faster. I can pace myself off someone running a bit faster then me. No worries though, if I ever get past, it is by someone who is not running as far, or probably just sprinting a lap or two.
One thing I regularly notice doing real fast speedwork is my calves actually get quite sore. This is from planting more forward on the foot, and harder.
Wednesday I woke early, at 5:54am. I literally laid there for 20 minutes trying to decide what to do. Not to get out of bed or go back to sleep, but if I wanted to run or lift or what. I decided to go lift at the WC since after my classes later in the day I had a couple meetings that ended at 6:30. After which I planned to run and swim. So at 6:30am I get half a step out the door and decide to go for a run. So I turn around and take my Brooks off, put the Vibrams on, and do a quick and cold two miles to get started today.
For the first time ever, I sat in one of those blood pressure chairs you see near the pharmasies at Walgreens, Hyvee, and Walmart. Here is what came up:
Pretty good. 51 is actually a bit on the low side.
Here is one of my new favorite foods. It is tuna fish but I sliced up avocado, celery, radish, carrot really finely and mixed that in with the tuna fish and mayo. Few slices of toast, imitation cheese, piece of spinach. Yum!
Also this week my Vibram Five Fingers got to 500 miles! They are holding up pretty well. The left has a slight one inch separation of two fabrics and the right has two small wear marks on the bottom. I have heard about the fabric separation before, and I believe it can simply be stitched if it gets bad. I expect to get another 500 out of these babies. If I ran on something other then road I could probably get 1500. The two wear marks on the bottom only developed within the last 100 miles.
Here is a larger picture.
Wed was also the first time in six months I have swam. I did a third mile and it felt like I died and went to hell. Michelle wished me a good swim when I saw her up on the track. There is no such thing as a good swim. I do have a 2.4 mile swim for my Ironman next summer to train for, so I figured I should get on to training.
Last I want to talk a bit about The Paleo Diet for athletes.
THE PALEO DIET
The basic premise of Dr. Cordain’s research on paleolithic nutrition is that certain foods are optimal for humans and others are nonoptimal. The optimal foods are those that we have been eating for most of our time on Earth—more than 4 million years. Only in the last 10,000 years, a mere blink of the eye relative to our species’ existence, have we been eating nonoptimal foods. Unfortunately, these foods comprise the bulk of what western society eats today and include such foods as grains, dairy and legumes. Given that our bodies have not changed, we are simply not well adapted to these nonoptimal foods and they moderate health and peak performance.
On the other hand, we have been eating optimal foods – vegetables, fruits, and lean animal protein – for hundreds of thousands of years and we are fully adapted to them. Science tells us that these foods also best meet our nutritional needs. Eat these and you will thrive. Avoid or strictly limit them and your health and performance will be compromised.
I like the Paleo Diet For Athletes because it not as strictly restrictive as the regular diet. Because athletes put more stress on their body those carbohydrate nutrients are needed more so. The book is less of a diet book and more of an instructional book on how to best optimize your nutrient eating and timing. Instead of your typical distance athlete carb loading....well all the time, the book shows that there are better and worse times to eat carbs, and when and how this should be done. The best diet advice I can ever give a person is to "Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants" (In Defense of Food). This takes that one step further and says, "and this is how and when you can best eat that food."
The book breaks the athlete's day into several stages. I love how this was done, very easy to understand.
Stage One: Pre Workout.
Before a long or intense workout it is recommended to eat a couple hours before hand, and some carbs that are lower on the glycemic index. Everyone knows to to not eat too close to your workout or race. This is a good way to get a sick stomach or to see the food a second time.
From, www.glycemicindex.com,
Not all carbohydrate foods are created equal, in fact they behave quite differently in our bodies. The glycemic index or GI describes this difference by ranking carbohydrates according to their effect on our blood glucose levels. Choosing low GI carbs - the ones that produce only small fluctuations in our blood glucose and insulin levels - is the secret to long-term health reducing your risk of heart disease and diabetes and is the key to sustainable weight loss. |
The glycemic index of a food item shows how quickly the carb's sugar gets into your blood stream. A fast release of sugar causes insulin to be release by your pancrease. this cases a rapid decrease in blood sugar levels, also causing hunger.
By eating something with a low glycemic index, you give your body more time to process the carbohydrates.
Stage Two:During Workout
During a long or hard workout or race you will mainly be fueled by GU and liquid. Higher glycemic food will get that sugar into you faster so you can utilize it quicker. Of course this depends on the length of what ever is going on.
Stage Three: 30 Min Post Workout
This is the most critical time for recovery, your body is sucking up nutrients like crazy. The goals here are to rehydrate, replace carbohydrate stores, and provide protein. As most athletes know, liquid is the easiest and quickest to digest, so that is what is recommended. A smoothy with a 4:1 Carb to Protein ratio is what I see recommended the most often. The book recommends a mixture of fruit juice, protein powder, glucose and a piece of fruit thrown in and blended.
Stage Four: A couple hours post workout
This is when they recommend eating those pastas, bread, etc etc. To replenish those glycogen stores that you tapped into during your workout. A quick and easy one that I like to make is the tuna fish sandwich shown above.
Stage Five: Until the next Stage One
This is the regular Paleo diet again. Basicly avoid carbs and eating lean meats, fruit, and vegetables.
Well Desi will be here for the weekend so I thought I would go ahead and update today. I also have two exams next week and all of my end of the semester projects are coming up so I need to finish/start those. It will be a busy rest of the semester.
Thanks for reading everyone, and until next time :)
4 comments:
Right, I have also heard that eating within an hour of exercising reduces your performance as well, this from my ultra-biker friend (6000 miles last year). Way to go with your training! You are going to rock to Boston!
Finally, for the swim, as you get to a point where you feel comfortable swimming, get a wet-suit to swim in. Very different feeling. C always uses one and bought a wetsuit this year for his tri. I don't know where your Ironman is, but you will want to practice swimming in open water also - there is major creep factor involved that may throw you without a test run or two. Way to go! :) I admit, I was pleasantly surprised to see you update so close to your last entry. I was checking my follow log, and surprise!
Oh - you can rent wetsuits, and get a kayak buddy to hang with you in your open water swims. A cramp can do you in. :(
This past year I started to mix in some speed workouts on the treadmill. Being someone is very opposed to running inside nevermind inside and in-place, this was a drastic departure. I do see the benefits in terms of leg speed. You still need the regular track workouts or TEMPO runs to be used to running on solid ground at a quick pace. My personal favorite speed workouts to do are Fartleks (speedplay) or time-intervals. The beauty of these two workouts is they don't require a standard track. You use them on a regular running route.
I like to run outside to keep my body adjusting to the weather which is critical for those spring races where it can be cold or hot, rainy or sunny, windy or calm. Of course there are going to be those impossible days where running outside is purely not an option.
Yeah eating certain types or amounts of food pre workout can definitely make your performance suffer, I know that all too well.
I actually have a Blue Seventy wetsuit and have probably done 5-7 open water triathlons. The Ironman I do will be wetsuit legal, I am simply not a good enough swimmer to do 2.4 miles w/o one. It can be done, but I just do not want to do it!
Two summers ago I was not horrible at swimming. Not good, for sure. But not horrible....ok maybe I am in denial. But after that first tri season where I did something like 6 sprints, 1 oly, and 1 HIM I did not swim until a couple weeks before the triathlons last summer. I swam less then 7 miles last summer, and that was the last time I swam up until this week.
Haha Joe. What's worse then running inside? Running in place, inside :p I have never done Fartleks before. However I have heard good things so will give them a try. It has been sooo nice lately, above 50 for a high for maybe the last few days and for the next three or four more.
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