Sometimes you think you are insatiably hungry. Then you’re full and you realize. “I was just thirsty!”

Yup. The title says it all. I could have been succinct and said “Mistaking Thirst for Hunger” but that’s not my style. And I am feeling particularly verbose tonight.

I came home really hungry tonight and managed to contain myself and snacked on pickle slices while making dinner. Then I ate dinner. Then more pickles. Then 5 mini tootsie rolls (2 usually give me a stomach ache). Then, as I went for my fourth handful of hazlenut nut-thin crackers (yum!), I realized that I was really ,really, really  thirsty. Furthermore, I was reminded (because I was getting cold in my still sweaty garb, I was so food-focused, I forgot to shower, or even change!) that I had probably lost about 3lbs in sweat today (yah for double workout days!).

So here I sit. With tummy so full of unnecessary food, that I can’t suck down the water and juice ( I like juice that is cut in half with water) that I so very much want.

Has this ever happened to you?

It’s funny because I pretty regularly tell people who say that overeating, or over-snacking, is their downfall when it comes to weight-loss “when you feel hungry, or like you want a snack, have a glass of water, wait 10 minutes, and re-assess.”

And that is why I am posting this. As a reminder to myself: put in practice what I suggest to others. Don’t take for granted that knowledge equals habit. Have a nice glass of water when you get home.

-AB

 

Just a quick note – trade secrets!

I made a new page (see tabs above) called “tricks of the trade”. This will serve as a reference point for readers looking for support, products, tips, or entertainment related to fitness. Mostly running. But also weight training, nutrition, and other forms of cardio too.

I have the next few posts at various stages of completion, but for the rest of today and likely tomorrow I need to focus on some other things.

I hope you had a great weekend! What was they best part? Did you have any breakthrough workouts?

I had a breakthrough moment as a group exercise instructor this morning and it’s made me feel good all day, I will share it later

-AB

 

 

Lonely Lakefront Long Run: a photo adventure

 

 

The Lakefront path (mile 3ish).

Most weeks I look forward to my long run. It’s a time to be outside, to listen audiobooks and podcasts, to watch other people run (I like to observe form, in the most analytic of ways), it gives me lots of time to work on pacing and control.

But this week I felt rushed to get it in and was still feeling a bit overwhelmed and more tired than usual. So my mood was a somber one. Also, I don’t like either of the audiobooks I have right now, and I need to find some new podcasts to follow because the ones I subscribe to, well, I am just a little tired of them, the way you might get tired of brownies if you had then available everyday.

I have been entertaining the idea of running Boston with a camera, so I took my Canon PowerShot SD600 digital camera with me. This way, I could practice using it without having to stop running (although I did a few times), and it would also, hopefully, entertain me and lighten my mood.

So here’s my run (as it turns out I took 68 pictures! No wonder I barely had time to shower and get to work when I got back). Enjoy!

Time was passing SLOW. About 10 miles to go. I love these markers, I can calibrate my Nike+ Sportband (and my basic math skills) as I go.

I was going slow already, this is just annoying.

I don't like this part, "wacker drive" ? I think.

Downtown Chicago - looking forward to turning around.

The Aquarium = turnaround landmark!

Moving self portrait. I must be exhaling.

Hello shadow...I was really bored by this point. Took about a dozen shadow shots.

Lake Michigan

Castaways. Last summer this meant it was time for a potty-stop. Now it means I have to hold it for another 5-6 miles.

Back on city streets. And suddenly am hungry with heavy legs. Cranberry juice!!!

Yuuuummy.

Hey, I know you! Almost home.

Home. Well, almost, walking up the stairs.

15+ miles. Tired? I was. Thanks for coming along

-AB

Endlessly seeking training knowledge

I am pleased to say I found a description of tempo training that I understand, like, and that confirms, nay supports, my efforts to train often at my goal marathonpace.

The text below is pulled directly from the Boston Athletic Association website.

3. Marathon Tempo Running

One of the most important factors in marathon training is tempo running, which is defined as + 10 seconds per mile from your projected marathon pace. If you’re planning on running 26.2 miles at 7:00 per mile, then do lots of training at or near this pace. This is one of the major differences between elite runners’ marathon training and others training for the event. Most runners or joggers are simply trying to finish the event in halfway decent condition. Elite runners are essentially “racing” the event. That is, they will attempt to run 26.2 miles at a pace faster than their everyday run pace. Nearly everyone else is running marathons slower than their everyday pace. Marathon race pace for elite runners is at an interesting point, physiologically speaking. Many terms are used to describe this level, such as “threshold” and “capacity.” They all describe the same thing. Marathon pace usually uses most of the capacity of the aerobic energy system and very little of the anaerobic energy systems. Traditional road race and track training tends to ignore this marathon pace. Most training is done well above or below it. But the marathon is a unique event, and one of the limiting factors to performance is fuel economy, and training at projected marathon tempo trains your body to use fuel (specifically carbohydrate) efficiently.

-AB

Ratio Strain or just tired?

So far the contingency set by my thesis chair (see this post) has really helped me to stay motivated to work on my thesis and meet deadlines. Today I have rearranged my training schedule a little because a)I am working for about 15 hrs today, and b) every part of my body, including my brain, is tired.

Anyway, I am at work right now thinking about how I need to “earn” about 2.5 to 3hrs worth of running today and tomorrow to stay on track. But I don’t want to move, I don’t want to think, I don’t even feel like talking (which, if you know me, is very strange).

I don’t think I am overtrained, I think I am just truly tired. I haven’t gotten enough sleep since the semester started and my free time at home doesn’t exist. Well, I try to plan for some, but I usually waste it doing something stupid like rearranging junk or channel surfing mindlessly.

Anyway, as I sit here, thinking about how I have the opportunity to do school work or thesis edits now, so I should because then I will be able to run tomorrow, my reaction is one of resentment. Training for the Boston Marathon for me is my outlet for stress, it provides me with a sense of ease, it helps my concentration on other things, it helps me to fall asleep at night, it makes my colitis symptoms more manageable,  it makes me feel connected to some highly focused and successful people….the list could go on.  I would venture to say that most of my peers, and heck, most people in general, derive these same things from going out to bars a couple times per week, or from partying on weekends, from having all sorts of regular social plans.

I have chosen to forego a vibrant social life in exchange for structured training because, well, I tend to be more productive and less anxious that way. I like people, a lot. But this is just what is working for me right now, and today, I feel rather entitled to it.

**I just got interrupted for a few minutes and realize that having typed this out. I feel much better, and I even feel like studying.

-AB

 

 

A little tempo for the sub-zero

It was really cold outside on Friday! A lot of people I say this to don’t understand what I mean: city cold is harder to tolerate than country cold, or even suburban cold. Maybe it’s because when I am in the city and it is below zero all the other things that make running in the city an often pain in the ass, become magnified. I can taste the car fumes more, I trip over more curbs, have more near misses with distracted drivers and cyclists, I make more wrong turns and myriad other things that never would happen if I had safe access to a trail in the woods.

My scheduled long run this week was only a 10-miler , which happens to , usually, be my favorite distance. It was -3 degrees out when my scheduled running time arrived. If I put off the run until later, well, there would just not be enough time, so I had to use the treadmill. Again.

Since I was stuck inside I figured I should make the time pass faster by making the run more challenging. There seem to be a lot of different definitions out there about what a tempo run is. For me, because I really have no clue what my lactate threshold is, and I do not have the financial means to hire a coach, a tempo run means that I:

1) Warm Up

2) Run at my goal pace for a while

3) Run at 15-45secs. faster than my goal pace for a while

4) Run easy to cool down/wind down/assess any damage done.

In this case that broke down to: 1 mile @ 8:34, 3 miles @ 8min/mi, 3 miles @ 7:40/mi, 1 mile @ 8:34.  Next time I do a ten miler I would like to shoot for the middle section to go 3 @ 7:45/mi and 3 @ 7:30. I ran a 10k last summer and my pace was about 6:55/mi, so really this should be no problem., except that if memory serves me right I was in a lot of pain after that race.

Which brings me to a thought I had this morning, a huge part of trying to train to a performance goal, or even to optimal fitness for it’s own sake is, in large part, a practice in injury management. More on that another day.

Well, I am a month into training for Boston. The first 2 weeks were really rough, I didn’t enjoy the workouts. The 3rd week I had the flu, but got all my miles in. This week, at the 1-month mark, I finally feel fit and confident, not just during running workouts but also in strength sessions. The next hurtle is to feel fit and confident BETWEEN workouts.

I haven’t mentioned it before but I also hope to lose weight by this Spring. It’s happening, but very, very slowly. I am averaging almost 1 pound of loss per week so far. I don’t feel any different. Except, as I said, while I am working out. To hit my goal I need to drop an additional 9 pounds. I have made some changes to how I was eating between the Portland marathon and now, but I will need to focus more and eat cleaner in order to have success here.

Cold, wet, injured, tired, and FINISHED!

Finally, this morning I got the digital copies of

Stopping my watch. Really finished.

photos from Portland, here are two from the finish. They really capture how I was feeling. In the first I was actually holding my breathe, afraid I would fall down before crossing the line. In the second shot I am about a millisecond from bursting into tears (I really did…3 times that morning).

Seeing these pictures reminded me of one of my goals for Boston: to finish in (far) less pain than I experienced in Portland

Session lesson for today (Sunday): know when to back off. I wanted to run 6 miles this morning after teaching my Spin and Body Blast classes. I ran a 1 mile warm up, then 3, 1 mile repeats @ 7:45. I wanted to do an additional pace mile and a mile to cool down, but my body started to hurt and my legs got really heavy. So I ran an easy mile and stopped at 5 miles total, stretched for a awhile and took a hot shower.

I have felt tired all day. I think if I had forced that additional fast mile, I may have risked injury. I also think I waited to long to eat after over 2 hrs of high intensity exercise, and then, really didn’t have any high quality food today. So, good sleep tonight and a good breakfast are on my to-do list!

-AB

Time trial #1

6:32

I like to schedule a challenge into my training plans that I can repeat and compare results over time. For marathon training these challenges come in the form of 1-mile “time trials”. This serves a few functions outside of just being fun and (hopefully) offering encouragement. By testing my speed for 1-mile I can more realistically plan my pacing for the marathon,  and I can check to see if I can run economically under pressure (speed and fatigue). When I say “economically” I am referring to maintaining a running form that allows me to go fast without a) getting injured or b) wasting energy. I have been working on my form for the past six months. It initially has caused me to slow down but I think I am finally now gaining speed. I only had to make a couple of corrections during the fast mile yesterday. Once I complete a time trial with zero corrections, I am going to try some fast mile repeats. I am waiting because I don’t want to “practice” poor form.

Additionally, it feels really good to just let go and run as fast a you can once in a while.

Yesterday was my first time trial on my Boston schedule. I warmed up for a mile, timed a mile, then cooled down for a mile. I ran a 6:32. If that time sounds fast to you, take the following into consideration. In order to qualify for the “A” standard for the Olympic team trials for the marathon, you would need to run a 6 min. 4 sec. mile 26.2 times in a row. A 6:04 pace is no joke, for a 5k, but a marathon! That’s truly remarkable, and most of the professional women run substantially faster, routinely! Phew! If you aim for the “B” standard you can slow down to a 6:20 pace. Gee, thanks.

No, I am not trying to qualify for team trials. I just like to keep some perspective

It’s been rainy and icey for the last 24hrs or so in Chicago, so I opted to run on the treadmill. This presented several pro’s and con’s:

Pro’s:

-lot’s of control for pacing, could warm up and build into my fast mile

-control of incline

-no turns, no hills, no slippery patches

-mirror so I could check and correct form

Con’s:

- Mirror. Every time I looked left to check my foot strike, (still learning not to overstride) I whacked one of both hands on the rails. This is good because it means I am using my arms during hard efforts, but bad because it means I wasn’t very well balanced.

- All that control certainly doesn’t mimic real running conditions.

- Outside I may have done a faster mile (as I have in the past) because I would not build or risk underestimating how fast I can go, I would just go fast and try to hang on.

Like so many things in life the pro’s and con’s are hard to separate

I am happy with a mid-6 minute mile for my first effort. 5:45 would make me really happy.

After the run I did my weekly leg-focused workout. I think I got a nice adrenaline surge from the run because it was the best leg session I have had in a while, and this morning I am feeling the kind of  sore that makes you look forward to the next workout. (In fact, Spin class felt extra good this morning)

Some numbers (for entertainment value):

6 exercises, 18 sets, 264 reps, 45 mins, 2 lbs lost via sweat, 16 oz. of water consumed.

-Yes, I often weigh myself before and after a workout to see how much I sweat out. Not for any good reason other than I it’s amazing.

-AB

Contingencies and Puppy Apnea

Week three is complete.

I didn’t work out yesterday. In fact, I hardly left the couch. I didn’t go to a doctor but I certainly had some variety of flu-ish virus this past week. To be honest, right now, about 1hr after running, is the best I have felt since getting up on Tuesday morning. I had to stay home from work yesterday because I was sincerely afraid to be more than fifty feet from a bathroom.

I was concerned that I wouldn’t have the strength to make a 12 mile run outside today. Jorge cautioned me against it as well (always the voice of reason). But the thought of falling behind on training and having a schedule that it too busy to fit in “make-up” mileage.

When I headed out I decided that I would just go until I felt tired, and then I would turn around. Of course, to be honest, I knew I wouldn’t not turn around until mile 6 because the schedule said 12 miles. And that’s how I operate. I made a point not to look at my watch other than to get mileage now and then. Normally, I watch my pace so hard you’d think I would go blind. It was a real challenge for me to not calculate splits and to try to speed up. My body felt so heavy that I knew if I put on any pressure I would probably either 1) get sicker 2) get injured or 3) not make it home.

I was pleasantly surprised once I got back home to see that my pace had been 8:45/mi on average. Only 20 to 40 seconds slower than I would have tried to run if I were watching my splits.

So, lesson learned on this run: it would do me good to ease off on my use of monitoring in-session.

I had to set up make a contingency this week in order to facilitate staying on track with my thesis (that is to say, to catch up on my thesis) and also get my training time in. For the foreseeable future, I am only allow to run for the total amount of time I spend working on my thesis. I think this will really work, because for myriad ridiculous reasons I have not been as motivated or focused as I should be with all things regarding school.

In other, unrelated news. Can dogs suffer from sleep apnea? I am rather positive Penelope have been either, waking up because she stops breathing, or is choking in her sleep. She keeps waking up and making the most horrible sounds.

Yeesh!

-AB

 

 

Snow, school, and the sickie-ickies.

I am not supersitious generally, but I jinxed myself:

Yesterday I said “I have only been sick once in the last year”. So of course I woke up with a sore throat and stuffy nose today, I thought it was just from the dry air, but alas it is afternoon and I can feel the tell-tale throat tenderness and heated feeling in my nose and eyes that signals a cold that will make me miserable in 24 to 72 hours from now.

The good news is that you can usually workout just as hard with a cold. It’s a fever that usually will knock me down. The bad news is that I tend to be prone to fevers. I should have realized I was going to get sick, my joints (jaw, shoulders, hips, and knee’s) have all been aching the last week. I chalked it up to colitis because my stomach has also been bothersome. I also brushed it off because the first few weeks of a new training schedule are always rough!

It snowed all morning so the noise outside is dampened, I love that. I am heading to the gym in about 10 minutes to do a leg workout and 5 miles on a treadmill before I head downtown for classes.

Today is the first day of my last semester of graduate school!

Since I don’t buy into any cold remedies, I won’t ask for any. I will however, ask for tips of how to blow a snot-rocket with discretion. I might need that info. when I take my runs outside Thursday thru Sunday!

-AB

Session Lessons

I think a lot about the transitions people make in their approach to exercise. Lately, I have been thinking within the framework of Behavior Analytic mechanisms, because that’s what I am trying to apply to my services as a trainer. Typically, the explanation of a person’s increase in exercise frequency, duration, or quality becomes something like; the activity becomes a source of reinforcement, rather than a means to a source of reinforcement.

I realize also, that within each session of exercise, each workout, your approach can change. For example, yesterday, finding myself lacking in enthusiasm for my scheduled run (9mi.) I moped around for a while, then looked over my (completed-scribbled all upon) training schedule from Portland, read a few blog entries from professional runners, and watched a 20 min. segment of the 2010 Boston Marathon (still saved on my DVR!).

This succeeded in getting me excited about the race in April, but still didn’t have me too jazzed about heading out to the cold, windy lakefront, and the car fumes I would  inhale en-route.

Then, in an attempt to gain perspective, I set about planning mile splits, casually, for the run so that I would have something small to focus on. My thoughts, of course, soon left the present and went to mile splits for the marathon itself. Predictably, I started freaking out about the hills again. So, to entice myself to get off my behind and out the door, I ordered custom pacing bands for Boston and also for the St. Louis Half (which I hope to run the week before). After laying down $15, I was suddenly ready to go on my training run.

Weird, but this technique works, without fail, for me. That is, present me with a contrived reinforcer, and viola! My mood changes. 80% of the time I fall into the “exercise as reinforcement” category, but that other 20% I need some other motivator. Usually, flooding my mind with running related or just athletic-performance related stuff will get me excited to train. Sometimes, going to the gym with my boyfriend does it, knowing someone else is working hard will get me to work hard too, other times, the promise of a really yummy treat (like brownies, or lasagna) will work, and yet other times I want to shop!

No matter what the end-goal for working out is, I strongly believe that there is a lesson within every single session. Yesterday’s lesson was a reminder that sometimes you need to go through a little bit of trial and error to put the flame back into your training, and that motivation may ebb and flow, but the low points are not a reflection of how much you desire to achieve your goals.

-AB