An Indian Summer Sunday

TG Kate O's blog ticker tape reminded me that it is has been two weeks since I last posted. I wish I could post about all kinds of exciting things, but the truth is, nothing much worth blogging about has transpired.

Much of my focus the past week has been on nutrition and running. The nutrition is finally starting to come along. I've gone back to keeping a food journal and have really been trying to track the ratios and servings of fruit, starch, protein and fat. The good news is that I feel like I'm eating all of the time and am certainly not going hungry. Good nutritious food, really has much fewer calories. My energy levels are up and hopefully I'm beginning the process of changing my body composition. The bad news is that there is not much room for vino.

As for the run. . . I still feel like I'm making progress at the track (last week's 800s were on 8 minute pace), but am a little frustrated with the pace of my long runs. Last week's 14 miles averaged in the 10:20s and this week's long 16, while at much lower heart rates and more enjoyable, averaged around 10:45. Both, however, are way slower than where I need to end up come race time and well above my spring half marathon pace.

This weekend we've been enjoying a little bit of an indian summer. Temperatures during the day in the upper 70s and some of the bluest skies of the year. Hope everyone is enjoying it!

Congrats to all of the amazing folks who finished Kona yesterday in what appeared to be blistering conditions. I continue to be amazed by Chrissie Wellington - she has such fire and spunk and best of all, when she races looks like she wouldn't want to trade what she is doing with anything in the world. I can't wait to see the TV version this fall.

The whole package

It doesn't make sense in this sport to try and get better if you are not going to pay attention to the whole package. It doesn't make sense to log hours and hours on the bike, pounding the pavement or swimming in the pool or even time in the weight room if you are going to ignore other aspects of our sport like getting enough sleep, proper hydration and eating right and of course, believing.

I know this.

Yet, again this week I expected results and improvement on my long Saturday run but completely ignored part of the package -- proper hydration and nutrition. As I suffered through my 12 miles today, I got angrier and angrier at myself. I know I called myself stupid many times. I had showed up to run, with all my nutrition and hydration for the day, I was mentally ready to put the tough effort in, but I hadn't followed any semblance of proper pre-run fueling.

Let's see... my last two days started their precipitous dive on Thursday night with a salad, loaded baked potato (cheese, sour cream, bacon), a cheeseburger (no bun) and, to top it off, a half bottle of wine. Thursday night I slept like crap (bc of the half bottle of wine) and woke up tired and likely dehydrated too. So, I slept in, missed my swim workout and recovery run and headed to the office. I tried to get myself back on track with breakfast - some buckwheat waffles, toasted plain with a fruit protein smoothie, but then chose poorly again at lunch with too many chips and salsa to go with my fajita fillings, rice and beans. I repeated Mexican for dinner (I could eat it every meal if it were healthy) with some more rice and beans, chips and cheese dip, and shrimp fajita filling. I added my salt for the evening with 2 margaritas. My dessert, a 200 calorie gluten free peanut butter cookie from Trader Joe's that I've been craving since last December when I had them last. Then, rather than going to bed early to get some extra sleep, I stayed up late baking my unhealthy cookies, watching the presidential debates and then reading, get this, Nutrition for Endurance Athletes.

As I was berating myself on the run today, I counted my fluid intake from yesterday.... 2 margaritas, 1 cup of coffee, 10 oz fruit smoothie, and only 24 oz water. Pitiful. Is it any wonder my legs felt like lead, I suffered dehydration symptoms and in general had a crappy run?

I know better.

If I really want to improve, I need to commit. . . not just at workout time, but also throughout the day and week. Wanting it and believing will only carry me so far, I need to pay attention to the whole package. Its time to start!

Back to School

Even though I haven't been attending classes for quite a few years now. . . the last week in August still signals that school is right around the corner. With my triathlons completed for the season, I decided to take a "back to school" approach with my fall training. My study? Three of my triathlon weaknesses:

1. Running
2. Strength
3. My weight

My extra-curriculars for the fall semester will be some fun easy time on the bike and some technique work in the pool.

Yesterday I started my new "running focused" plan. My ultimate end goal is the Richmond Half Marathon on November 15th. Coach Michael is gearing all of my run training over the next two and a half months towards getting me across the finish line under the 2 hour mark. Yesterday's workout was a nice break in post 1/2 IM - a half hour run on the grass field focusing on technique with 5 minutes in the middle of barefoot running.

Today I started my second class - my weight. First, I've made major progress over the past year and a month that I've been seeing my nutritionist, Tina Shiver. Not only have my stomach issues decreased substantially (after figuring out my gluten intolerance) such that now they seem to be infrequent rather than every day and are usually associated with a meal eaten in a restaurant, but I've also lost about 15 pounds and gone down almost 2 clothing sizes. That said, I still have a few tires around my stomach and more wiggle in my thighs than I'd like. So, we are aiming for another 10 to disappear.

In anticipation of my appointment today and refocus for fall, I took last week completely off (i.e. drank lots of wine, ate a few more sweets and didn't really pay attention to portions or nutritional content) and celebrated my "last meal" last night post workout at Casa Grande with a large margarita, lots of chips and salsa and our usual fajitas texacanas. This morning as I faced a new day, I got a good chuckle at pro Elizabeth Fedofsky's very timely blog this morning about she and her husband's grocery shopping habits. It reminded me of the difference between Bart's and my grocery lists - mine usually full of locally grown produce, organic fruit, alternate grains and "happy" meat and Bart never letting the jar with the dark chocolate Hershey kisses get empty, loving his hot dogs with cheese whiz and finishing off many meals with either a cookie, some ice cream or a big glass of chocolate milk. To his credit, he now also usually has bananas, salmon, organic strawberries and V8 on his list.

Today's visit with Tina as always was helpful in getting me prepared for my next goals. We talked through my successful nutrition and hydration at Timberman, designed some new bars for me to try from You Bar and then got down to business - my new eating plan. In essence, the next 3 weeks are going to be an attempt to trick my body into losing weight again by mixing things up and giving me enough protein to repair my worn muscles. We rarely talk calories (I have a hard time counting them) and instead talk in servings. My new plan is going to be tough - a lot more lean protein than I'm used to (a whopping 12 oz a day) and a super tiny allowance for fat (between 35-38 g a day). Since today I learned each ounce of protein from meat averages 2 g of fat, that means if I get at 2 oz of my protein from non-meat sources, I only have 15 g of fat left to spend during the day. Not much if you consider that a teaspoon of olive oil or butter has 5 g fat and most of our starches have some fat content - even if only 1 or 2 grams. Essentially this means I have to make some hard choices these next three weeks and eliminate most of my "luxuries" that I've been allowed to enjoy this past triathlon season - i.e. chocolate, mayo, regular salad dressing, butter, potato chips and the most disappointing of all, wine. Yes, wine must be counted as a fat and so most nights (thankfully not every night) I will have to go without.

So. . . if I'm a little grumpy the next few days as I adjust to my new plan, I apologize. The grumpiness will disappear soon and hopefully this will be just the jump start I need to get me back on track and losing again.

Tomorrow - I tackle the start of my final class - strength training - with a 6 am core endurance class.