Sparrows Experiment

My workouts are going fine. I've had a normal running week although my tempo run was really hard compared to what its been in weeks prior. I didn't even bump up the intensity for it and it was hard enough. I'm a little discouraged at the dip in strength I seem to be experiencing but I know my body rebounds quickly.

I have not been able to easily get cals back to where they were at 1500 but I don't go below 1200 on any given day. Its all about that mid morning snack and usually thats when I'm at the gym so it gets missed. I have been really lax in my food choices, but not terrible. Its hard to be strict right now as the mileage gets further. I frequently have a small bowl of "no sugar added" ice cream at the end of the day and its what I look forward to after a day of good eating.

Tomorrow is my 10 mile long run. I haven't run on the road up to this point in this training at all! can you even believe I'm doing a half marathon and I've been doing it all on the tread?! lol. I did this last time I ran the half too and the race day was the first time I ran on the road in all my training. Tomorrow though I'm giving it a whirl and I'm going to experiment with gel to see if that does anything helpful in my later miles. I mapped out a course today in town and as long as I do it before 7am I should avoid the masses of in town rush hour.

I have gotten back to my core exercises that i put on the wayside for a while too and my belly is SORE today, but tight :) I love being sore in my abs. I use the stability ball for all my core exercises now, besides pushups and pull ups.

Anyway, just a little update into things. I'll post another pic next week, although I doubt there is any change of any kind from my last posting of pics
 
Yesterday I got my butt up at 5am and ran 10.25 miles outside. I was worried first of all because of the dark and second of all because I hadn't run on the road yet in all my 12 weeks of training for this half marathon. It went awesome and I'm encouraged. I found a route that was easy and on busy roads and kept my pepper spray in my hand ;) I only had some difficulty at about 9 1/2 and mostly it was a dehydration issue. I hadn't eaten anything or had a drink before leaving my house, although I did have a late dinner the night before on purpose. At that point I just slowed my pace a bit but I never walked. I finished in about an hour and 30 min which is about 8:45 pace which I consider a good spot to be at this point. In my last half marathon my pace was 8:44 so I expect great things. I had a cheat day because we went out with friends at night and I felt pretty ok this morning as far as soreness. Funny thing is-I'm chompin at the bit to do it again. It was really fantastic. Later today I may do some light "active rest" at the gym, take tomorrow off and go at my regular training stuff on Monday. I only have 3 more weeks till I taper. yippeee
 
I did a little bit of a cardio circuit yesterday just to mix things up and get some movement in my worn out legs from such a long run. It was a good thing. I think today I would have been more sore if I hadn't done it but I have no soreness at all now. Tomorrow is my speed day with intervals. Bring it on. I'm in good space at the moment with running. Thank goodness. I'll do 2 more weeks of long runs (11miles, and 13 miles) before I start resting. My goal for this half is 1 hour 45 or less. Four weeks and counting...
 
ah JP, my optimistic fan. Thanks for your confidence
;)
Today I did my interval run and my interval extremes were 6.7 for "slow" and 8.5 for "fast". Normally I do a 10 min warm up 3 rounds of both fast and slow interval sets and then another 10 min jog before I do 3 more rounds of them to equal near an hour. Today I didn't do that 10 min rest/jog inbetween but instead after the 10 min warm up I did 3 min fast/3 min slow around the clock for a total of 8 sets. I was going to go for an hour but I got called to childcare at 47 min. At that time I'd gone 6.0 miles. Even though half of my workout was "slow" I was still averaging around 7:50 min miles which is pretty good as of now. After that I did bis, tris and back. blah blah blah. this is a boring diary entry...
This week I'm running each day. M/W/F are hard days and Tues and Thurs will be 4 mile recovery runs. Saturday I'll swim.
My diet has still been loose. I've allowed more "cheats" but they aren't full blown cheats, they're controlled. Just a little less strict. Today I ate perfect and then went out to dinner with friends and had bbq chicken breast, white rice and veggies. then went to cold stone ice cream for cheesecake ice cream, pie crust and recess peanut butter cups mix-ins. Ok so thats not really what I'm talking about ;) but normally the cheats aren't so extravegant
:0 I promise ;)
My body fat is still in the 15%'s and I haven't weighed, on my honor O:]
I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life and I'm loving it.
 
Ditched the running idea and just went with an hour on the eliptical. It was actually kinda challenging today! I was pretty bored. That machine is so boring, even with TV. No weights today. Those are tomorrow. I have this new challenge. I feel like I'm at the place where its hard to eat a lot again so I'm back to my force feeding. The issue, or challenge is that I do fine getting my protein up. I end up with about 140g a day. I have a hard time getting in veggies :O I know, weird but to me they are so low calorie and fill me up so much that I find it hard to get up to my calorie requirement if I add them in significant ways. What do I do about that? I can tell I'm suffering from lack of fiber and that "healthy" feeling you have when you have good stuff in ya. Right now its a lot of protein and healthy carbs in the ways of rice and oatmeal. But without a TON Of water you can get in some real trouble with that combo ;). I think I'll post this in the nutrition forum and see what I get back.
 
Dang today was hard to drag myself to the gym.

Tempo Run:
1 mile 6.0 warm up
1 mile 7.0
1 mile 7.5
1 mile 8.0
1 mile 6.5 cool down
stability ball for push ups/reverse abs, hip pikes

I had to play happy mental games with myself in order to get through that 8.0 mile. That was hard today. I need a good day of rest tomorrow before my stinkin 11 mile run Friday. whoo hoo. ugh
 
Today is my day off and I'm basking in it. I've only had 3 days heavy in a row but I swear I need this day to rest. I've been really pushing it trying to tear down as much as possible so when I rest for that race I get supercharged. There is that fine line between wearing yourself out...and wearing yourself SICK so I'm trying to be careful.
Tomorrow I'm going for 12 miles. I think I can handle it as long as I get to bed at a normal time tonight. I'll go at 5am to avoid rushour in town. Today my legs are very tired but regardless, tomorrow will be a good run.
I've eaten extremely clean today, more than normal so I'm feeling virtuous at the moment :) I go higher carb on Thursdays. I have been able to get away with murder food-wise since running so much and so hard. I'll post some pics soon since it has been a month but really, nothing much has changed-to me at least. I think if anything I look softer due to less weight training. ah well. thats not my goal :)
After this I'm not sure what I'll do. suggestions? The international marathon is in Sac in Dec. but I really doubt I could EVER pull of 26 miles. thats just insane...plus...I like to think I DO have a life ;) I will probably take a week or two off after the race and kinda see where I sit. I don't really want to keep up the routine i have going. My ultimate goal was not to get rock hard with no body fat, it was to get out of starvation mode. I still am not sure what my body is doing with that. I know I can eat as little as 1000 one day and as much as 2000 the next and call it good. It takes too much of my time to figure it out everyday, so I don't. I just generalize. I know food and i know calories in my head.
Anyway, this is a longer post than I intended.
 
Look for charity events and walk/run in those? Doing something for someone else always makes the experience that much better.
 
Good ideas
Long run today. I so didn't want to get up. It was windy and cold this morning..and DARK and SCARY. I ran with pepper spray :) Went my same route I did last week at 10.25 miles because I slept through my alarm (apparently everyone else did too?!) and had to be home to get kids ready for school. However, last week I did my route in 1 hr 30 min and today I shaved off 10 minutes! Thats a 7:51 pace. I'm really proud of that! I'll need to go 8:01 pace if I want to reach my goal so thats great although I'm not sure I could have gone 3 more miles after getting home...maybe with adrenaline and music :D

I have eaten over 1500 ALREADY today. haha. I'm so starving, even right now I'm starving.

breakfast: 1 serving oatmeal, 2 scoops whey, 2 T pb 550
snack: smoothie with whey protein, milk, oj and strawberries 450
lunch: hoagie chicken breast sandwich with light mayo, melted moz. cheese, turkey bacon and carrots/celery dipped in nonfat ranch dip. 700

yipes. I dunno whats up today but I cannot get full. Fridays are cheats anyway, on purpose :) so I don't really care too much.
 
So you've gotten your metabolism back on track?

Good on ya for your pace today - it's always good to pass a goal/milestone.
 
Took the weekend off and had a disappointing workout today. I do intervals for an hour on Mondays but I could only hack 30 min of it and then did 25 on the eliptical just cause I felt guilty. lol. I did bis, tris and back today too but not as many exercises as usual. I didn't eat too well over the weekend and drank a bunch of diet soda yeseterday at a picnic we went to (they had NO water!) so I think it was a little bit of sabatoge on my part. ah well. As She says "tomorrow is another day" :D
 
Like you said, you go through that post-cheat period where you're not exactly up to snuff, then your body kicks in and actually improves. Just wait it out.
 
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