After long hiatus from intensive running it feels I could start again with a bit more focused training.
I haven’t really set any goals ever after my last marathon in May 2015. Mainly because I still have issues with achilles tendon. I’ve been able to increase weekly mileage now to 40km to 50km for last four weeks without making the pain or functionality of my leg any worse, if not better either.
Yesterday I decided to run to work and then back to home from work.
I think it’s great way to increase mileage time wise basically for free. It took me less than hour to run the 10km route. I would have spent almost the same time in bus and subway if I would have chosen to use public transit instead of running. Sure there is some amount of preparation which have to be done to make everything go smoothly, but it’s worth the effort.
My original idea was to to take subway back home, but I decided to run instead. When my run to work was light, felt fast and warm, voyage back to home was a bit different. It felt chilly and running against wind was not that much fun, but I made it anyway.
Today I decided to take it easier and went for treadmill run during lunch time. Like said, I was supposed to take it easy, but went a bit too fast considering where I stand with my current workout history.
My leg feels pretty ok, but I can certainly feel that it’s still not normal, although it seems I can run somewhat normally. I hope I could stop reporting how my achilles feels in the first place, but I’m not there yet.
Now that Polar has integrated Polar Flow with Strava I’ve started to explore the later more closely. It’s actually great fitness website and network with clubs and a bit more social approach than any other fitness websites I’ve tried so far.
I like especially the goals and challenges Strava offers. As basic thing as setting weekly mileage goal seems to be missing from most of the other social fitness websites.
Since I don’t have courage to put any long term goals for my running, I’m quite happy to go with weekly mileage goals and continue to increase them if it feels like it.
p.s. This website is still Auroran Runner, although is it easy to see that I have moved from Aurora to Toronto almost a year ago.
I didn’t write yesterday, and since I’m supposed to keep daily diary on my recovering from achilles tendonitis, I will cover both Saturday and Sunday on one post.
Saturday. I slept quite late. My wife had to get up early, but I didn’t and kids weren’t going to school, so why not take the advantage of sleeping a bit later. We had a plan to go to Udora to visit our cabin and meanwhile deliver some bakery products to local grocery. I as usual will benefit from this by going to Cedar Park sauna and Pfefferlaw river.
I took my four daughters and the one and only dog with me. First the Udora General Store, and then to our cabin. It was a bit cold. At the morning my right calf was still hurting, so I skipped all the calf strengthening workouts and did just the foam roller and stretching.
My super duper invention is to do sauna and cold river several times. That was my main goal on Saturday. Once we get to sauna, I was a bit disappointed. There were other people, so I could not just go to the sauna and lie on the bench like I own the whole place. I had to sit normally and talk with others. In English, since the other guy was apparently only half Finnish. He was joking about it, and mentioned he can only last half of the time in sauna since he is only half Finnish. He had propably had more sauna endurance than I did.
Since that half Finnish guy went to swim to the river, I had not much other choices to go and follow him. Finns are really proud of being able to swim in freezing water. The whole idea of sauna is to recover from that. And oh yeah, that was my plan for my ankle too. With achilles tendonitis I do think, you should do the transformation from sauna to the cold river and back to sauna as fast as possible. The warmth of sauna is good, and when you get to cold river, that’s good as well, but you should get back to the sauna as fast as possible. That’s probably not good for your heart, but it does activate your blood circulation tremendously. I’m not a doctor, so don’t believe me. I’m just saying, it’s definitely NOT good for your heart the way I do it.
I’ve done it before, and it has been good for my leg as long as I have remembered to keep my leg warm. After cold river I go immediately to warm or rather hot sauna, and it’s going to be good. After having last sauna, I’m not going to the river, but just cool down outside following a warm shower.
The Cedar Park sauna isn’t the best looking sauna in the world. But it is one of the best saunas in the world. It was good for my leg anyway.
Saturday:
Stretching 2x30sec
Foam roller 3x
Calf pain around 3/10.
Sunday:
Stretching two times
I did some calf and soleus workout (two times 3x) since my achilles tendon was hurting, and I figured out it must be because not doing any workouts.
My idea skipping the workouts was to get rid of calf pain.
I admit, recovering from achilles tendonitis is more art than science.
My achilles was not hurting yeterday, but today it is.
It’s been more than two months since I’ve been in physio teraphy for my achilles pain. As I mentioned in my last blog, it’s also been more than two months since I did my last real run.
Regardless, today I started with taking dog for a short walk. I was having weird calf pain all day. I don’t think it was because of the yesterdays 2.75k walk run, but it has to be because of the new achilles workout I tried. Can’t figure out any other reason.
The walk was really short. That went ok, of course. Then stretching and foam roller. Couple of times foam roller minimum of 2 minutes. Then 20 minutes indoor cycling. I decided to skip everything else at that point.
I had my PT at afternoon. I removed the tapes. I wasn’t sure how my PT is going to react, since I felt they are not scientific enough. PT went well and I was really glad I booked it. I told about kinesio taping and to my surprise, they actually do have kinesio tapes at the clinic too, but different brand. Maybe I should try another brand, since the one I use isn’t actually that adhesive. They should last for three to four days, but mine starts to wear of after one day.
In summary, I didn’t do much exercise today:
10-15 min walk in the morning, after noon and evening.
Streching 2 x 30 soleus and calves both morning and evening.
3 x 2 min foam roller.
30 min physio teraphy.
Nutrion: pizza and beer :
Polar loop shows 144% activity level.
I booked another PT for next Friday as well as massage therapy for next Wednesday. I’m hoping to get my treadmill fixed next week too.
This blog was supposed to be about running, but seems I have to change the subject from running to recovering from running. The achilles problems which started after my barefoot experiments haven’t still gone away.
I did my last real run in Finland August 21st. It wasn’t bad actually and I felt quite ok during the run and after. My legs felt ok, otherwise it wasn’t ok, since I ran relatively slow less than 6k in 30min while my heart rate was at 85% of maximum. And then day after the achilles pain was back. I haven’t really run after that.
Week ago I decided, that since I’m not runner anymore, better start doing something else. Since I have small home gym at my basement, I figured out that I start from there. After 30min I decided that’s it for now. Then I quickly changed my mind and thought I will do one more bicep workout with dumbbells. When I was getting the dumbbells from the floor, I felt sharp pain on my lower back and couldn’t almost get up.
Ok great, that’s it, now I can’t do any exercises at all was my first thought. It was true for a week. After seeing chiropractic couple of times, I was ok to do another 30min workout at my mini gym today.
And not only that. I went shopping couple of days ago, and bought KT tape. I was so much encouraged how my right leg felt after wearing them one day, I decided to go for a run today morning. Two months no running at all but today I did 2.75km.
I’m taking baby steps. I have read a bit about kinesio tape and how they might help or might not help from recovering injuries. There is not necessarily a lot scientific proof they do anything, but many people seem to have been able to recover from achilles tendonitis with kinesio tape even after suffering from it for years. If it’s not tape what helps with the healing process, I’m ok to use the placebo effect too. I better believe they do help.
My leg has been quite ok as long as I haven’t been walking too much and as long as I remember to do the workouts. The stretching and achilles and soleus strengthening. If I walk too much with the dog (or without), then the pain is back. If I forget the stretching and strengthening workout, the pain is there even when I’m not doing anything.
I’m not sure what helps and what doesn’t. My idea has all the time been, that I should keep diary about the pain and about my workouts. I start it now.
During evening mild achilles level 2/10 and pain level 5/10 at lower right calf.
I skipped mini trampoline jumps at evening because of the calf pain.
Healthy breakfast oat meal and banana. To make it easy to get enough protein (which should help recovering), I went for whey protein both morning and evening. Pizza for dinner 🙂
Polar loop shows 215% activity level.
I scheduled PT for tomorrow and I hope it helps for the calf pain. I rather have calf pain than achilles, but the later usually follows from the first.
It’s been a while since I’ve written here. It’s only nine days till Helsinki City Marathon. I thought I’d have a lot to write between Ottawa marathon and Helsinki, but no, I haven’t been writing anything.
After Ottawa, I thought I’d try something new. Barefoot running. That has been in my mind at least last couple of years. After reading Finn’s “Running with Kenyans”, Jurek’s “Eat and Run” and starting to read McDougall’s “Born to Run”, my urge to run barefoot certainly hasn’t diminished.
So I did like many other do. I went and checked where to get Vibram Five Fingers. It seemed to be hard to find any from traditional stores, so I end up ordering pair of VFF EVO Bikilas from Amazon. I also started to investigate barefoot running more deeply, and found Xero Shoes. I ordered pair of those too. What a deal, shoes with 5000 miles warranty for $30!
Vibrams
Bikilas came just in few days. I had read a lot about how to start slowly and not to run too fast and too much in the beginning. I especially liked Xeros Shoe’s founder Steven Sashen’s writing “How NOT to start barefoot running“. My favorite sentence there is: “which part of 200 yards was confusing to you?”. Steven makes it very clear: you should start with short distances.
I was thinking after reading that, ok, good understood, now I will wear my VFFs and do 10k really fast, and that’s what I did. It felt great. I was running faster with lower heartbeat than normal. My Polar told my Running Index was 60, which was highest running index I ever achieved (edit: actually no, 61 is, which I got on my second VFF run. 60 I’ve done before too). Must be because of barefoot running and not because I was tapering last two weeks from Ottawa marathon.
With or without Vibrams. Notice lower heartbeat on blue – with Vibrams.
My calves got really sore next day and I barely could walk. I was expecting that, since I knew I ran too fast and distance was all too long. I rested a couple of days, and did 5k with Vibrams. Rested couple of days more, and did another 5k with well cushioned running shoes. My feet were still quite ok. Little soreness.
Xero Shoes
Then I got my first pair of Xero Shoes. I did the laces and instead of running with them, I just started to wear them. They were nice. Nice to walk with, nice to drive car, nice to go to pub and have few. Great sandals. Next morning I got anxious, and I had to try to run with them. They were nice to run with too. Totally different compared to Vibrams. Xeros give you instant feedback if you are doing something wrong. They do the flapping sound. Seemed I had hard time to get my right foot not to make the sound. I tried. I ran 10k, 5k and sometimes there was less noise than others. I figured out, that my muscles are too sore, so I thought I will take a break for one week or so.
Xero Shoes after muddy 10k run
After one week, my feet were ok. No soreness everything felt good. I decided to do a run with Vibrams this time. 10k. Immediately when I started running, I noticed a little pain on my right achilles tendon. Usually my left foot is the problem child, but now first the flapping sound, and now pain! Maybe similar pain I noticed just before Ottawa Marathon. It eased during running, but after run it was still there, and made me really worried. I had read a lot about achilles pain, and to be honest, I was freaking out that I had been able to create my self chronic achilles pain. I decided to stop running totally till there was no pain.
The pain just didn’t go away. Not after one week. After two weeks, ok, no pain. I did indoor cycling and weigh training, but did not run. Then I started to do a bit longer bike rides. 50k, 10k, 30k. Not much pain. In the morning, no pain. Another 50k bike ride and boom, pain is back.
Physiotheraphy
That’s when I scheduled an appointment for physiotherapy. The PT trainer created me a program how to strengthen and stretch my calves and soleus. I got also interval training program for running. First run: 5min walking then 3 x (1 min walk + 1 min run). 25 days to Helsinki City Marathon and my runs are about 2k including walking. Eh!
After couple of weeks PT, I did my first continuous 5k run. My aright chilles hurt after run, which was depressing, but it did get normal just in couple of days. I don’t think I’m going to run marathon in Helsinki, no way. Even if my achilles would be ok, I haven’t been running almost at all. Last weeks I have been cross training even less. So yes, it’s not going to happen.
The dog
We got dog, a copper nose beagle, a week ago. We have been wanting a dog for a longer time, but this one came without no thinking or planning at all. We went to look for dogs. Rescued dogs. We met Carter, and kids thought oh how cute he is: “Daddy, please!!!!”. Ok, yeah, why not.
When the lady came to do house visit before the signing of the adoption papers, I asked about how about jogging. Yes, but start slowly so dog gets used to it. Gradually! Yes sure, I know all about that. Start slowly, that’s my middle name.
So we did first 20min run between normal walk. He did great. Certainly he can do more than that. Next time 30min and about 5k plus walk before and after. No problems. I went and checked beagle forums. I learned beagles can run easily 20k and much faster than any people can run. Oh wow, this just might be an excellent running dog. We did 5k in the morning, so sure we can try 10k in the evening.
I had not run more 6k for over month now. Dog, I don’t know. This was yesterday. I didn’t know how my achilles was going to react, and will I have to carry the dog last 5k, but that’s what I decided to find out. First we walked the hilly sections of the route. That way dog gets his chance to do the sniffing and stop on every tree and so on. And I didn’t need to run on hills, which my PT instructed against in the first place. Besides, walking for first 15 minutes is a good warm up.
Carter
We started to run. Between 6’00” and 5’40” pace. First 5k went really well. I had some pain but dog was doing fine. Then till 7k still fine. I noticed that hiatus from running is easy to feel. With very moderate just a bit faster than 6’00” pace and I feel it everywhere.
We managed 10.3k in around 1 hour. My achilles was sore after the run, so I did the stretching, skipped the strengthening exercise and put some ice to ease the moderate pain. Today morning I had no pain which is really good sign. Some stiffness though. Dog was also doing great, so the distance wasn’t too much for him.
10k with Carter
This morning we also did 40min walk and 10min run just to warm up my calves and soleus before morning stretch. He likes to pull the leash a bit, so mainly we actually concentrated on that. To get rid of pulling the leash. While running he actually does not pull, but while walking he does, so still some work with that.
Helsinki City Marathon
Anyway, no Helsinki City Marathon for me. That’s reality, although mentally I’m still thinking that maybe if I can do 20k this weekend, then I could at least think of doing 10k run 1k walk, but I don’t think so. I’m not in shape to run, and I don’t think it would make any good to my achilles tendon, but we will see about that.
It’s been almost three weeks now since the Ottawa marathon, and I still haven’t written a race recap. Time to start writing now…
Day before the race
Me, my wife and our four children left Aurora around 10:30am and headed to Ottawa. It was around four and half hour drive to The Health and Fitness Expo at Ottawa downtown. When we finally got near the expo around 3pm the traffic was really bad. I decided to run to the expo, so that my wife could then continue driving slowly along with the traffic and pick me up from the expo.
When I started to run, I also made a decision, that this one and half km run will be my final run before the race. I made little sprints to make it more credible even though I was running with jeans. I have to admit, I felt a bit better than day before. I wasn’t still feeling optimal, but not terribly bad either.
Finally I got to the expo with printed email I had received earlier in my hand. Turned out, that the email didn’t have my bib number, so I had to turn back from the desk, and find it from list of all participants in printed papers on the wall. No problem, I did find it fast, and there was not a lot queuing. Once I had my bib, I continued to validate my chip and pick my race T-shirt from 2nd floor. I was certain, that if I were fast, I still had time to buy some energy bars from the expo and then head to downstairs to wait for my drive.
My plan worked well enough, so next step was to find the “hotel”. It was a bit further away. I had reserved two room apartment from local college dormitory, since all hotels were sold out when I decided to register to Ottawa Marathon. Once we finally found our hotel and were able to check the rooms, it was time for last real meal before the race.
I wanted to have some pasta, so I launched Yelp smart phone application and read few reviews for nearby Italian restaurants. We decided to go to Tony Capone’s which was 10 minute drive from the hotel. I’m not an expert with Italian food, but I wanted to have something with a lot of pasta in it. I ordered Cannelloni con Salsa and small glass of wine. Well, there was a lot of cheese, but not as much pasta as I hoped. Wine wasn’t very small either and made me wonder if a big glass of wine is such a good idea less than 12 hours before the race. But I enjoyed the dinner.
I wasn’t still feeling 100% in shape and while checking next days weather, I noticed it’s going to get to 28C (82.4F) during the day, so I was already thinking, that sub four-hour finish time is certainly not going to happen. I mentioned this also to my wife and kids. I said that they should not get to the finish line much earlier than 11am, since I will not be there before anyway. Race was scheduled to start at 7am.
I decide to set my watch to get to the goal anyway. I did read some of the marathon mistakes people do, and one was to dump the goal just before the race. So I kept the goal as is, untouched. I set the distance for 43k and time to 3:57. That way, even if there is a lot of turns, and the running distance is longer than 42.2k, I’m still able to make my goal. Pace was set to 5:33min/km. Oops, I thought, that’s 7 seconds faster I have been training. Luckily I ran most of my marathon goal pace runs at 5:30min/km pace, so I was still quite well prepared.
There was a little grocery at the hotel, or college campus to be exact, so I went there and bought big jug of orange juice for a small high carb evening snack as well as sandwich for my breakfast. Then it was time to check I have everything ready for the race day and try to get some sleep.
The race day
I had my alarm clock set to wake me up at 5:45am, so I had enough time to have something for breakfast and to drive to near the start line of the race. I had my sandwich I bought yesterday and small glass of orange juice. I wasn’t feeling bad at all, and I managed to get around four five hours of sleep, which was ok.
It was around 15 minutes drive to the downtown of Ottawa. I left car around 1km from the start line and walked rest of the trip. While walking, I had my pre-race energy bar, as I always do. I also drank just a little water.
When I finally get to the start line around 6:45am I went to look for 4 hour race bunny. I went in front of her, and just behind the 3:55 race bunny. I was on the corral I had chosen while I registered to the race. I felt I’m in wrong corral. I have always overlooked people who go to faster corrals they belong. Now I was doing the same, I was thinking. I decided not to judge people ever again for setting their goals and actually trying to achieve them by choosing corral accordingly.
I started to go through my strategy. I didn’t see 3:55 race bunny while making my plan. I saw 3:50 race bunny. I decided to stay good distance away from her, and try to keep the 4:00 race bunny behind me. I also decided, that for the first half, I try to keep my average heart rate below 158bpm. That’s 80% of my max heart rate. If my heart rate goes above, then it is a good indication of running too fast. Sounds a bit like a plan, I was thinking.
I don’t usually listen to music during races, but this time I decided to give it a try. I checked my phone has everything set and that I could pause and start music just by pressing the only button on my ear phones. My phone was packed tightly in arm band. Music wise everything seemed to work. Just couple of minutes to the start. Phew!
Adrenaline starts to flow. That’s good, this is good, good, not nervous at all. Then start. Everything starts. First walking to the actual start line, and then I start to run with all the people around me. There’s a bit of a rush, and I’m not able to run my goal pace in the beginning. I have to bypass too many people, since they don’t know how to choose correct corral darned. I’m almost getting annoyed, but then I remember, that I’m probably in wrong corral my self. But then, at least I’m trying to run the correct pace for this particular corral. I’m trying to run at 5:30min/km pace.
When I cross the 5k and check my watch, I’m a little ahead of my goal time. It took about 26min to get there, and my heart rate is 158bpm. It doesn’t feel bad, so I decided to continue with the same pace, which was around 5:30min/km. The 3:50 race bunny was closer to me than she was at the start line.
Before the 10k lap time, I notice that there is something wrong with my music settings. First of all, this confession is going to ruin my highly valued street credibility. I had Killers album in my playlist. For whatever reason, that’s the album my phone choose to play first. It played whole album, and then it began again. I was pretty sure at the moment, that this is going to be the only album I’m going to hear during the whole race, since I don’t have time to take my phone off the arm band. Well ok, I decided to stick with that as long as I could tolerate it. Great, great music!
At 10k my heart rate is still a bit below 160bpm and I have actually been able to run a bit faster. Also now I’m running just behind the 3:50 race bunny. I’m feeling excellent. Maybe it’s the music. Maybe it’s the carb loading. I don’t know, but I’m flying. At 13k water stop, the 3:50 race bunny slows down for a drink, so I just decide to left her behind. I start to run faster. My heart rate is at 160bpm, but I’m feeling dangerously good. A little uphills don’t bother me at all, on the contrary. Whilst seeing people’s backs coming towards me, it gives me more self-confidence.
At 15k my pace is 5:21min/km and I feel just better and better all the time. I start to run even faster, so when I get to 21.1k, I’m very close to running my half marathon PB. I keep the 5:16min/km pace all the way up to 25k. I’m still feeling good, but it’s getting a bit warmer now. I have to stop listening music. The same album over and over again is making me sick. My heart rate is way above 160bpm, but at this point it doesn’t matter anymore. Last time I bonked around 26k, so I’m trying to keep the pace at least till 30k. That way I would most likely get to my goal and I would be celebrated sub 4 hour marathoner!
At 27k I can see other runners running towards us. These are the faster ones. I see 3:00 race bunny.I wonder how long does it take for me to get to where he’s running now. How far do we run away before we turn back. Kilometers between 25k and 35k are usually the most boring ones. Maybe it’s not the route or the race, but the feeling and fatigue. This time is no different.
At 30k I’m still doing relatively well. My pace has fallen to 5:42min/km, and sun is playing her role extremely well. It’s definitely not 28C, but it’s getting all the time warmer. I’m starting to struggle. Even worse, 3:50 race bunny passes me. I’m trying to keep up, but at 33k she’s gone. I never see her again. At 35k I check my watch. It seem I’m going to make it. I’m going to get to my initial goal. My goal #1. Sub four hours. My goal #2 was to get to 4:15 and goal #3 to at least make new PB finishing in less than 4:25.
Every meter is really painful at this point. Just to get 100m ahead is a struggle. My pace is still below 6:00min/km, or even 5:40min/km. I took a small empty bottle with arm band with me. I decide to fill it on next water station. I also decide to make a pit stop, although I could most likely survive without either one, but when I check my watch, I was six minutes a head of my goal. I could afford a little luxury without sacrificing anything. It seemed possible I was getting finish time below 3:55 which is so much better than I would have ever imagined.
40k and there is only 2k left. Well, two very long kilometers, but even if I drop my pace to 7min/km, I’m going to finnish in less than 4 hours. For the last kilometer I’m able to run just a little bit faster and my pace was a little less than 6min/km where as my heart rate went over 170bpm.
I crossed the finish line. My official finish time and my PB is now 3:54:50. After the race I of course first drank a lot of water and sports drink. There was a plenty of refreshments including bagels, bananas, protein powered chocolate milk as well as yogurt. I took everything what I was offered, and then started to locate my wife and kids.
I have run in Ottawa before during business trips, so I knew how scenic the route was going to be. The route was relatively flat with just some smaller hills. The weather was also perfect before the sun really came up and started burning, but that’s something I just have to be ok with. The weather was still so much better than I was expecting. It was almost optimal. Atmosphere was really great, and the spectators made their best to make runners feel welcome.
It was definitely the best marathon I’ve ever run, but of course, it must have something to do with the fact, that I was also able to reach my number one goal and finish sub four hours.
Next
I have already registered to Helsinki City Marathon which will be held at 15th of August. I’m thinking setting my goal to 3:45, but we will see about that. I have also started barefoot running. It would be really cool to run my next marathon with minimalistic shoes, but I don’t think I have enough time to do the transition.
This article by TrainingPeaks highlights my thoughts on the subject: “We don’t need to choose one OR the other. We can have BOTH and this will allow us to develop our fat metabolism as well as carbohydrate metabolism.”
That’s what I try to do. Improve my ability to burn fat, while my normal diet consist of 40%-50% of carbohydrates. Before long runs I tend not to eat anything. Also, anything less than 30k, I try not to use gels or any other extra energy during the run. This has worked very well for me on long runs, but I don’t know how it will affect my next marathon. I run my long runs on mornings. I do eat carbs the night before the run, but I don’t spend time on having breakfast before the run. This way I also feel extremely light during the run, and I haven’t really felt my energy levels being low. On the contrary.
Other than that, I think I eat carbs moderately in general. I wouldn’t say I follow high fat diet, but I try not to demonize fats or specifically choose low-fat products either. I don’t think fat is a big problem, or at least not as big as white wheat and sugar. I also do believe, that the ones following low carb high fat diet have a lot of good points.
I’m now trying to get all possible carbs I can get. I started carb loading yesterday. Now I have three days to do the loading before the race. I find that much more difficult than I thought it would be. Getting more than 400g carbs a day seems to really require some what concentration. I find it a bit weird, since I always though I eat a lot of carbs. I eat porridge for breakfast, and a lot of rye bread. Bananas after workouts, and with porridge and/or greek yogurt I have oranges, apples, blueberries or strawberries, for instance. I consider all of these as healthy carbs.
I haven’t really done any carb loading previously, if the pasta dinner prior the race day isn’t counted. Carb loading is definitely something I need to concentrate more, if that’s something I see I could benefit from.
So far I’ve done my trainings and races following traditional approach what comes to carbs. Well depending on how you define the term traditional. If we go back to stone age, maybe carb loading wasn’t that popular.
Who knows, maybe I try a bit longer period on low carb high fat diet before my next marathon, but let’s first try to get through the one this week with high carb diet.
Today is perfect day to start carb loading. Recipes and macros provided in this RW’s article doesn’t really look at all like my normal day. My everyday macro goal consist of 40% carbs, 30% protein and 30% fat. That macro works when you are on calorie restrictive diet and want to lose weight, but for normal diet, amount of proteins would be all too high. When loosing weight, I think, you should try to keep protein intake high (1g protein per pound lean body mass), so you are rather loosing fat instead of muscle. But then, instead of looking for the macros and percentages, I’m usually looking the absolute number of grams of protein intake.
In real life my macros varies in great deal too. Here’s how I did yesterday:
Macros
Although the above picture is very close of my macro goal, yesterday was actually not normal day for me. I wasn’t feeling well, so I tried to get much more proteins and C vitamin compared to normal. For me it means some extra greek yogurt with raw oranges. That usually helps, and it did this time too. I’m feeling much, much, better now.
Ok, back to carb loading. I have never really done it before. I don’t do it before long runs, unless you count a couple of extra slices of rye bread I might take a night before early long run.
I think RW’s article is a good baseline for me too. I’ll probably increase the amount of carbs close to 60% and also try to get at least 3000-4000kCals per day for now. Proteins I try to keep in minimum of 150g as I usually do. Fat I’m not really that concerned about.
I read few blog posts about tapering. To be honest, I don’t even know what that word means or how to use it correctly, but I think that is what I should try to do now. Both, taper and to use the word correctly. Marathon will be at this Sunday and I have six days to… taper?
Ok, so I’m trying to take it easy what ever the proper term is. I have understood that I should not stop running totally few weeks before the big event. I have one week left. Better rather train as I normally would, but with half effort. That’s exactly what I did today morning. Instead of running 10k, I did 5k. That was an easy decision.
I wasn’t really feeling well at all anyway, so that sounded like a good idea in the first place. Even if I would have never heard the word taper. I thought first running really easy 5k and even better, running easy 5k without GPS and HRM. That strategy I had to reject. Without my watch I feel like I’m not actually running at all. If the training gets stored only in my memory, I’m afraid it never happened. I decided that I will have my watch and HRM, but I’m not going to check the watch during the run, so it is almost like running without the watch.
Instead of running easy 5k I ended up running tempo run at 5’33″pace. A bit faster than my marathon goal pace. Since I wasn’t feeling well at all, I was seriously thinking about my goal marathon pace once again. I was also thinking, does it really matter what have I set my goal to be. In the end, I will run as well as my current fitness level is, so does it really matter what goal I have set? I’ll start of course with certain pace, but unless I’m really stupid, I would assume, that if it feels all too fast, I would do a corrective action and slow down. Right, that’s what people normally do?
Morning 5k
But then, when I did my two first marathons, my goal was set too high, and I couldn’t get even near the goal. Or is it just something I thought happened, and the end result really did not depend on my goal, but on my past physical training. Enough thinking I thought.
I stopped running after 5k about 300m to home. I checked my average HRM, and it was 158bpm which is 80% of my max HRM. I knew it, since I wasn’t feeling good at all. At least the course had 51m ascent and only 21m descent, so it wasn’t actually that bad. Still, pretty good indication of my current well-being. My nose is running and I have a bit sore throat. The usual feeling before marathon, of course. Feeling 100% healthy would be too easy.
Monday – Long run 21.1k@5’27@164bpm/83%
Tuesday – Steady state 10k@6’18″@142bp/72%
Wednesday – Goal marathon pace 10k@5’40″@154bpm/78%, Gym 30min , Indoor cycling 10k@26min
Thursday – Swimming 1000m@29:57
Summary: 41.3k@5’43″@153bpm/78%
14 weeks of training
Not a bad week, but I have been feeling much better previous weeks. I was supposed to do one 10k till end of week, and Sunday would have been perfect day for that.
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