Getting In Touch With My Inner Caveman

After listening to this podcast:

http://trailrunnernation.com/2012/04/aerobic-vs-anaerobic/

I decided to incorporate more of the paleo aspects into my diet and work on reducing refined sugars and flours.  I want to make myself more efficient as a runner and increasing my aerobic capacity will help do that.  For me it was a bit of a paradigm shift to think about increasing aerobic capacity not just in terms of exercise, but also in terms of diet and stress factors in my life.  Reducing carbs in my diet from refined sugars and flours will help on the diet end of things.  I won't be a pure caveman, but I will be working some of the ideas into my daily life.

Something else I need to do is slow down my long, slow distance run a little.  I've been running them a bit too fast which takes me into an anaerobic state which is exactly where I don't want to be.  I want to become a lean, mean, fat burning machine.

Reducing stressors in my life will be more difficult.  We all have work to get done, kids to take care of, places to go, deadlines to meet, etc.  The best I can do is try to manage it better so things don't stress me out.

So, what does a plate look like for me?  Last night for dinner was stir fried chicken and vegetables.  We went out for Chinese to celebrate Mother's Day.  I avoided the rice, eggroll and crab rangoon.  Lunch today was a cheese omelette and some beef jerky.  Breakfast was my normal steel cut oats with a banana.  Not paleo, but I like my oats.  I just want to get away from a diet dominated by carbs.  I also won't be taking any Gu or Gatorade with me.  Just water.  Dinner tonight will be fish and steamed vegetables.  No rice, pasta or potatoes.

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Checking back after today's 13 miler.  Dinner ended up being tuna + avocado with steamed veggies.  Yum.  Run went OK other than around mile 10 my legs just didn't want to go anymore.  I kept going, slowly, and by mile 12 the feeling passed and I was OK again.  Weird.  I think it's directly related to downing a Gu at mile 6.5.  The Gu spiked my sugar, then the sugar crashed, then normalized.  I'll try the long run next week without the Gu and see what happens.

It's still too early to say if I feel any different with reduced carbs.  In a couple of weeks hopefully I'll have some meaningful observations.  For now all I can say is that everything I want is high in refined sugars.  I'm sure that feeling will pass with time and then ice cream, pizza, etc will truly be the once in awhile treat it's supposed to be.

Foodie Friday

It's Friday.  There's a holiday coming up, so I decided to just have a little fun today.  This is marginally running related as I am highlighting my favorite post-race foods.

First up:  Pizza.  Chicago style or New York?  Chicago for me.

Absolutely perfect to induce a nice post-race coma on the couch :-)

Next up:  Wings.  How do you like yours?  Hot, mild, bbq?  Mild for me with a side of bleu cheese dressing.

Not exactly coma inducing, but definitely hits the spot after a hard race.

Last, but not least:  Pancakes.  What's your favorite toppings?  Mine are bananas, pecans, walnuts, peanut butter, strawberry jam, blueberries, chocolate chips and/or real maple syrup.  Not all at once, but some combination of the above.

What's your favorite post-race refueling choice?  Feel free to share in the comments.

Running Again

So, this is it.  Back to running today.  I am planning on 3 really easy miles this evening to see where my knees are at.  They feel really good right now.

In other news the quad strengthening exercises and hamstring stretches seem to be doing their job.  I want to get into a routine of doing them 5 days per week and see where I'm at in a month or so.  I also need to be more diligent about stretching after my runs.  Hopefully this little setback will be a good learning experience for me and I gain some better habits because of it.

Hope to be back with more later.  Have a super day!

Back for more...

The run went well.  Once my muscles got warmed up it was pretty darn nice.  The sun was out, the birds were chirping, I was in a pair of shorts and a (GASP!) cotton t-shirt.  Don't tell anyone I wore a cotton t-shirt.  I'll be labeled a jogger.  Everyone knows runners only wear synthetic tech shirts  ;-)

I'm not ready to pronounce my knees fully healed or anything, but they feel good enough to continue running at reduced mileage.

For dinner we had chicken roasted on the grill.  It was awesome.  Thanks honey!  The smokiness was perfect.  Recipe is basically 1 chicken, butterflied.  Put chicken on the grill with the charcoal pushed off to one side.  The chicken goes on the side without the charcoal.  Put a handful of maple or apple chips on the charcoal.  Put the lid on the grill.  Roast the chicken until done.  On our grill it takes about 45 minutes.

That's all for today.  Have a great night everyone!

One more rest day

OK, one more rest day.  The knees are feeling much better.  Rest and stretching seems to have helped them calm down quite a bit.  Tomorrow I will try an easy 3 mile run and see how things go.  I'll be sure to walk all the downhills to minimize the stress on the patellar tendons.

We made salsa chicken in the crock pot yesterday.  Served over brown rice it is all kinds of awesome.  The next day, served rolled in a tortilla it is awesome with extra awesome sauce on top.  I have no idea what the recipe is as my wife is the keeper of that one.  I know it involves chicken and salsa.

Tonight's plan is to stretch the hamstrings using this stretch and then do the leg raises farther down the page.  After that some side leg raises, lateral step ups and step downs.  Whew.  That should be enough for tonight.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Today is a rest day.  Whew.  After two nights in a row running in January-like temperatures I am ready for a break.  My nose is still cold from last night.

This morning I went to work for a bit.  Had to get some stuff done.  While I was gone my wife made some awesome homemade cinnamon rolls.  Yum!  Thank you sweetie!  You're the best.  I'm going to have to run some extra miles next week to work those rolls off.

Last night I tried the Subway buffalo chicken sandwich on flat-bread as pre-run fuel.  It actually worked pretty well.  I wasn't getting an encore performance of the flavor while I ran.  I'll put that in the "OK before a run" category.

Tonight I think will be movie night so I can watch my latest arrival from Netflix (Casino Royale I think) and be lazy on the couch and fuel up with some kettle corn.  Tomorrow I have a 15K (9.3 mile) run planned.

What sorts of random stuff do you think about while running?  One would think with all that time alone a person would think of some pretty interesting stuff.  I find most of what runs through my head is pretty mundane.  It might go something like this:

Me:  "Say, how's it going?"
Myself:  "Meh, fair to middlin'.  Kind of tired."
Me:  "Yeah, me too."
Myself:  "How about this weather?"
Me:  "No kidding.  I'm freezing.  Where's spring?"
etc.

On clear nights I've taken to looking at the stars.  I like to check http://earthsky.org/tonight before I leave to get a feel for what to look for on any given night.

Are you dealing with this early spring cold snap?  Any special weekend plans?