It's been almost a week since my last post, but positive things have been happening, and more milestones smashed; but before that, let me just update you on the food aspect. In thinking about things, Thursday and Friday, after my small gain in weight last week, coming after a very minor loss the week before, I knew my focus hadn't been on what I was eating, though to be honest, I wasn't sure how to flip that switch back on again. I had an idea blossoming on Friday; it formed fully on Saturday, and I ordered takeaway chinese food. I don't think I've eaten chinese takeout all year, and I wondered if I just needed a proper 'blow-out' meal, to get myself back on track. I ordered carefully - if you can do so in this situation, lol - picking chow mein as it's not drowned in sauce and would contain lots of chicken, veg, and noodles. Then I picked a starter specifically for the 'mental' aspect of ordering takeout food and the indulgence involved - chinese ribs. Messy, picky, fatty, delicious. And, because I was treating myself, I ordered a dessert my local takeaway do: basically crisp spring rolls, but with banana inside instead of a savoury filling, and served with a syrup dipping sauce. The food arrived, and I wasn't disappointed. I ate it straight out of the cartons it came in, not even bothering with plates.
Amusingly, after picking my way messily through the ribs, eating with my fingers, dripping little blobs of sauce on my clothes, I felt 'full'. Physically, emotionally, whatever you want to call it, I was stuffed. I left the chow mein for maybe half an hour, before attacking it. It was delicious, and I ate my way through over half of the carton, before calling it a day and tipping the rest in the bin. Again, half an hour's rest, then I turned my attention to dessert - crisp with a soft squdgy inside, with a light syrup to dip into before each bite. Bliss. I went to bed about an hour later stuffed to the rafters.
The scales the next morning showed a very small gain, no surprise, and I very happily got back on track with my eating on Sunday, grilling salmon fillets, and preparing mountains of fresh veg, and snacking on fruit, and high fibre snack bars etc. Monday was more of the same, and yesterday too. A very small weight gain showing on the scales on Sunday morning, but by yesterday (Tuesday)? Let's just say 'Wow'.... I'm not giving numbers, because of course I only officially weigh in and record data every Thursday, so we'll have to wait until tomorrow, but let's just say I think I cracked where my issue lay. I don't know how much of the big meal on Saturday was "kickstarting my metabolism", or whether it was all mental, but it worked. And I have no desire to do it again for a little while. :-)
So, why Saturday instead of Friday, for example? Well, you know the saying "Do not reward yourself with food. You are not a dog." ?? Yeah, so.... woof. :-) Saturday was my 'long run' day, and my last chance to get a long run done before the Half Marathon this weekend. Focussing over the last few weeks on the 10k race, I hadn't actually covered anything more than the 6.22 miles since the 8 mile run/walk I'd done 5 weeks earlier, and I decided that I needed to go out and cover somewhere between 8 and 10 miles this weekend, to feel a little more confident about the half marathon.
I'd now ran the 10k distance without walking twice, beating my previous best attempts at running without walk breaks by some way, so I thought I would try to go a tiny bit further this weekend, before walking - in my mind, I thought if I could run 6.5 miles before adding walk breaks that would be awesome, but 7 miles would be fantastic. I set off fairly slowly and steadily, and within 5 minutes I was trying to decide if I could just give up and call it a day!! lol. But I plodded on, and made the route up as I went along, though I was mostly using a flat section of the HM route. I was listening to an audio-book as I ran, instead of music, and the time just started to slip by. I was carrying a small bottle of water, which I sipped from a couple of times without stopping, and approaching 6 miles I realised I was slow, but still running relatively 'comfortably', and onwards I went. As I reached 7 miles, I realised I was okay to carry on - and as I reached 8 miles, my mind was reeling. I was still running!! I was approaching my car now, so I made a detour, and kept going: I reached 9 miles, with not a walk break in sight, but my watch showed 1:50:55, and a new idea formed. Could I run for 2 hours? By now, I felt my stride getting a little ploddy and laboured, but the prospect of running for 2 hours was one I couldn't take in. I continued running, passing my car at about 1:58, running up the street for another minute, before turning round and running back. My watch showed 2 hours, and I hit the stop button, and staggered to a stop near my car. I gazed at the data: I'd just ran 9.74 miles, without walking once!!!!
To say I was a bit overwhelmed by this is something of an understatement. Just 5 months ago I was struggling to run a single mile without walking, and now, well, I'd just ran for 2 hours. My pace was slow but steady, and still an average pace that would get me a HM PB if I continued! (Average pace 12:20 per mile.) Better still, my heart rate had stayed around 170 for most of the run, peaking at around 183 towards the end - the average for the whole run was 168. I'd smashed milestones aplenty during that run - but going from running 6.22 miles, which had been incredible at the time, to 9.74 miles within less than 2 weeks, was hard to get my head around.
It's left me musing on my strategy for Sunday's race. If I'm running at a faster pace, can I still maintain a no-walk run? Can I run past 10 miles? Should I focus on speed and put strategic walk breaks in to 'recover' during the race? Will I make it to 13.1 if I try to run the whole thing? What if I ran the whole thing, but got slower and slower, and missed my HM PB as a result - would running the whole thing feel as much of an achievement? ....lots to think about, lots to panic about, and lots to try and put to the back of my mind if only just to survive each day without driving myself mad!! :-)
It's difficult being 'achievey' when you're really not used to it. :-) x x
Here's a race plan you might like to consider, maintain a smile, enjoy being there before stressing your pace, keep an eye on it but keep it comfortable, let the time take care of its self. You will be amazing. xx
ReplyDeleteThank you Fiona. x x x
DeleteInteresting little experiment with "over" eating and base metabolism. Your body has been working on a calorie deficit for so many months now that your base metabolic rate has lowered to conserve the bodies reserves. Lowering of resting heart rate, lower body temperature, being less physically active at a micro scale i.e. less fidgeting, etc. are all ways the body can dial things down to use less energy at tick over.
ReplyDeleteThe other side of the coin is that your now far lighter so the amount of energy that your require to move around will be significantly lower - a good chunk of your improved running times and being able to run longer is down to this benefit of being lighter. So your base metabolism will be lower even without the body dialling it down further to conserve reserves. So a calorie intake which previously was a significant calorie deficit might now be calorie surplus.
There are some foods that can tilt the body in direction of increasing metabolism - protien is thermogenic (the body generates heat what processing it) so protein calories you consume don't directly equate to energy available to the body. MCT fats such as in Coconut oil is also known to be thermogenic. Foods high in fibre require lots of work from the large intestine to process so again burn lots of calories relative to the amount that they are labelled. The later is why most vegetables (non starchy one) often have close to a zero carb calorie load - what carbs you absorb in the small intestine and then burnt away by the large intestine afterwards. This is also why very low carb diets can, and should, contain lots of non starchy vegetables.
Enough about foods... back to the running...
Yes - I don't measure my macros, or record the protein/carbs/fat/fibre breakdown etc, but I suspect if I went back over my food diary and worked it out, I probably have had less fibre and protein - I know I upped fibre this week, for sure. I haven't gone for low carb, or low anything really, just eating 'normal' food, and trying to be sensible with snacks etc. This week's 'refeed' has had a nice effect, and may be related to metabolism, or not. :-)
DeleteMy comment got too wordy for blogspot... so here's the second half..
ReplyDeleteFantastic to hear of your 2hr non stop run. I've been expecting such a break through for quite a while, and had been wondering whether to suggest trying to run the whole half marathon this weekend. Speed wise I don't think there is much in at when you are looking at 12 to 13min/mile pace.
Walking breaks do slow the average pace down very rapidly so it doesn't take much of walking for a little too long and little too slow to significantly bring down your average pace. So if you did plan to use walking breaks then you'd need to be disciplined, keep them short, and make sure you're walking is focused and brisk.
If you did start walking for a little too long then you might be tempted to try and get the average pace back up by running harder when you do run, but running too hard will burn you out quicker and in the end you'll need longer walking breaks to recover so would be self defeating.
In some ways just running all the way is simpler, there isn't any need to worry about how long or how fast the running/walking sections need to be. I believe you are now capable of running a half marathon without stopping, the adrenaline of race day can do wonders for motivation to keep going.
The challenge would be starting easier enough that you can manage the same pace throughout the race, this is a lot harder to do during a race as the vast majority of the field head off at too fast a pace and then end up slowing significantly - ignoring the herd is tough, especially when the adrenaline’s pumping and you're feeling fresh. This is where using heart rate monitor as a gauge of actual effort level can be useful, it tells you directly how hard the body is working, rather the how hard you think your body is working.
--
Finally, I know how much you want to do well in the race, so it's tough not to get a little panicked about how to tackle it, but I'm with Fiona, going out to enjoy the experience and worrying less about times and pace, might well be the best approach. Your fitness is in so much better than it's been for so long, perhaps ever, you don't need to stress, just turning up, running, smiling and you'll find yourself running a time that you wouldn't have thought possible just a few months ago.
Running for 13.1 miles will be a PB in itself. Covering 13.1 miles run/walking faster than you've ever done before will also be a PB. Choosing to chase both PB's in one race is a tantalising prospect, but there a little risk with being so ambitious.
Personally I'd go out with the intention of running all the parts of the route that make sense to - all the flats and downhills, but if the uphills are too steep then walk them to keep the effort down. Walking uphill with a HR of 170 wouldn't be slacking any more than running on the flat with a HR of 170. Sure it's break the chance of doing a longest distance running PB, but it'd be great practice for when you eventually run an ultra ;-D
There are pretty much no uphills in the Edinburgh half marathon (or full, for that matter....) - one of the best elevations for a half, lol.
DeleteIt's difficult to know how things will go. I'm not experienced enough running long distances to know what my body (or mind) can handle on the day, so I'll be going out fairly blind and seeing how things go. And I will undoubtedly start off faster than I'd like, swept along with the crowd!! I'm pretty much going to go with how I'm feeling on the day, and see what I achieve, as much as I'd like to be on the start line with a definitive plan in mind, I suspect on the day, I'll just be winging it. :-)