Nine miles - my best run so far!
Today was the end of a busy week. Friday night I came home, opened my mailbox and found a beautiful package of Amphipod gear waiting for me. In the shipping box was my wonderful RunLite 4 hydration belt and extra SnapFlask bottles. This is a great runner's fluid carrier which holds your water and sports drinks around your waist without bouncing, in the same vain as Fuel Belt. I'd looked at both and liked Amphipod's offering much better as it allows you to customize the bottle configuration on your hydration belt. That way I can take just the amount of fluid I need with me depending on the length of my run. It also has a pouch where I can stuff my car key (so I don't have to tie it to my shoe anymore and have it interfere with my stretching exercises!) and a travel bottle of Purell - great because none of the bathrooms on the trail have soap!
This was undoubtedly the best run I've had so far! I did just about everything right this week to get through today's nine-mile run. This week's training newsletter included tips from each of the trainers on hydration and nutrition just before run day or race day. The overriding theme was plenty of water and lots of carbs! Just what I love to hear - I get to eat lots of pasta and rice before race day! On the morning before the run, it's good to get 0.5 grams of carbs per pound of body weight into your system for breakfast. That's as easy as a big bowl of cereal.
Of course, everything in moderation! One of the great things about having a calorie counter is that I can figure out how to get all my carbs in while still keeping my calorie intake on track. So I was able to load up on carbs all day Friday and Saturday morning while keeping my calories in check. The only thing is that I did eat a little bit too much for dinner on Friday - one Sbarro chicken parmesan dinner, which was a whopping 926 calories! But I figured it was worth it after being so good the entire week. Still, the Tony of 2005 would've been able to finish the whole thing comfortably in one sitting, while this time around I got completely stuffed and probably should've saved half of it for the next day. I overshot my calorie budget by more than 400 but managed to erase the overage today by carefully monitoring everything I consumed (including sports drinks and energy gels) and eating in moderation. (Naturally, it helped that today's run lavished me with an extra 1,083 calories to play with!)
On another front, I tossed out the knee brace I'd been using for salsa dancing. I was using this second knee brace on the dance floor because it was more compact than my running brace, plus it was a slip-on that slid easily under my pants. Anyway, I figured out this week after months of using the dancing version that it was a little too compact and was doing more harm than good: It was actually pressing my patella into my knee joint and exacerbating my patellofemoral syndrome! So now I've ditched it and am now using my adjustable brace for both dancing and running. (It still does fit under my pants, though I have to put in on in the bathroom!) My knee is thanking me with each and every mile.
Today's seminar featured Jayne Williams, a.k.a., Slow Fat Triathlete. This woman decided seven years ago to take her 270-pound body and get serious about getting fit. It was just a couple of years later that she made the leap to triathlons. She's lost 50+ pounds since she started and yes, she can whip my soon-to-be-skinny butt running 1o½-minute miles. She's great inspiration and motivation - plus she's insanely funny! I bought her book, Slow Fat Triathlete: Live Your Athletic Dreams in the Body You Have Now, and it's a great, entertaining read. She signed our books and wrote good luck with Run for Autism in mine. One of her messages is to embrace the body you're in and do whatever exercise it'll let you do (even if triathlon isn't your thing); her most important advice: whenever you run put a smile on your face and have fun!
So my front-loading of carbs over the last two days, my massive 86-grams-of-carbs cereal bowl and half-dozen strawberries this morning, the rescue of my knee from patella compression and Jayne's inspiring story made my run today almost effortless! "Nine miles? Pfft! No problem!" Our pace was 11:30 per mile - not bad considering two months ago my pace was 15 minutes. Our group leader Deanna gave us energy gels to plow down during the run but I don't think I actually needed mine. I took my Crank Sports e-Gel at around mile 7 just to try it out even though we only had about 20 minutes and change to go. This little handful of super-sweet goo has 150 calories and a stratospheric glycemic index. (Translation: It pumps up your blood sugar like a fire hose.) I probably should've tried taking it earlier because I had an intense sugar rush during my post-run cool-down stretch. I'll keep some energy gels in tow from now on to test them out on various distances, although I'm guessing I won't need them until around mile 10.
As far as general well-being, my only big problem is how intensely sore my hip flexors get after each run (otherwise I'd be out dancing right now!). I plan to work in some stretching exercises I learned today to get these important muscles in form. Other than that, all the elements came together perfectly today. What a difference a week makes! Next week, we stagger down to 7 miles, then the big 10-miler.
More and more, I'm starting to truly believe I can do this!
This was undoubtedly the best run I've had so far! I did just about everything right this week to get through today's nine-mile run. This week's training newsletter included tips from each of the trainers on hydration and nutrition just before run day or race day. The overriding theme was plenty of water and lots of carbs! Just what I love to hear - I get to eat lots of pasta and rice before race day! On the morning before the run, it's good to get 0.5 grams of carbs per pound of body weight into your system for breakfast. That's as easy as a big bowl of cereal.
Of course, everything in moderation! One of the great things about having a calorie counter is that I can figure out how to get all my carbs in while still keeping my calorie intake on track. So I was able to load up on carbs all day Friday and Saturday morning while keeping my calories in check. The only thing is that I did eat a little bit too much for dinner on Friday - one Sbarro chicken parmesan dinner, which was a whopping 926 calories! But I figured it was worth it after being so good the entire week. Still, the Tony of 2005 would've been able to finish the whole thing comfortably in one sitting, while this time around I got completely stuffed and probably should've saved half of it for the next day. I overshot my calorie budget by more than 400 but managed to erase the overage today by carefully monitoring everything I consumed (including sports drinks and energy gels) and eating in moderation. (Naturally, it helped that today's run lavished me with an extra 1,083 calories to play with!)
On another front, I tossed out the knee brace I'd been using for salsa dancing. I was using this second knee brace on the dance floor because it was more compact than my running brace, plus it was a slip-on that slid easily under my pants. Anyway, I figured out this week after months of using the dancing version that it was a little too compact and was doing more harm than good: It was actually pressing my patella into my knee joint and exacerbating my patellofemoral syndrome! So now I've ditched it and am now using my adjustable brace for both dancing and running. (It still does fit under my pants, though I have to put in on in the bathroom!) My knee is thanking me with each and every mile.
Today's seminar featured Jayne Williams, a.k.a., Slow Fat Triathlete. This woman decided seven years ago to take her 270-pound body and get serious about getting fit. It was just a couple of years later that she made the leap to triathlons. She's lost 50+ pounds since she started and yes, she can whip my soon-to-be-skinny butt running 1o½-minute miles. She's great inspiration and motivation - plus she's insanely funny! I bought her book, Slow Fat Triathlete: Live Your Athletic Dreams in the Body You Have Now, and it's a great, entertaining read. She signed our books and wrote good luck with Run for Autism in mine. One of her messages is to embrace the body you're in and do whatever exercise it'll let you do (even if triathlon isn't your thing); her most important advice: whenever you run put a smile on your face and have fun!
So my front-loading of carbs over the last two days, my massive 86-grams-of-carbs cereal bowl and half-dozen strawberries this morning, the rescue of my knee from patella compression and Jayne's inspiring story made my run today almost effortless! "Nine miles? Pfft! No problem!" Our pace was 11:30 per mile - not bad considering two months ago my pace was 15 minutes. Our group leader Deanna gave us energy gels to plow down during the run but I don't think I actually needed mine. I took my Crank Sports e-Gel at around mile 7 just to try it out even though we only had about 20 minutes and change to go. This little handful of super-sweet goo has 150 calories and a stratospheric glycemic index. (Translation: It pumps up your blood sugar like a fire hose.) I probably should've tried taking it earlier because I had an intense sugar rush during my post-run cool-down stretch. I'll keep some energy gels in tow from now on to test them out on various distances, although I'm guessing I won't need them until around mile 10.
As far as general well-being, my only big problem is how intensely sore my hip flexors get after each run (otherwise I'd be out dancing right now!). I plan to work in some stretching exercises I learned today to get these important muscles in form. Other than that, all the elements came together perfectly today. What a difference a week makes! Next week, we stagger down to 7 miles, then the big 10-miler.
More and more, I'm starting to truly believe I can do this!
posted by Tony Le at
8:12 PM
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