Week 3

Week 3


This week was pretty awesome for my tempo runs.
6k: 36.35
10k: 1:03.45
neither of which I know are super fast times, I know many people who can easily run faster, but to me they were fast. And I'm still getting back into the swing of things, especially in terms of speed work, so my times will only improve. Especially after I do hills (which start in a few weeks- ugh. not looking forward to that).
One of the issues I was having this week was diet. I was so hungry that I ate a lot of food, and not all of it was extremely healthy (case in point: last night I had oreos... which, surprisingly, are vegan, but definitely not healthy). When I was training in the summer I started eating, not horribly, I was still a vegetarian, so that limited the greasy-ness of the food I ate, but I also ate a lot of cheese, white breads and grains, chips, etc. My goal this time around, is to experiment with the wide variety of vegan foods/recipes and eat fruits, whole grains, nuts, vegetables, etc. and load up on awesome stuff like that. I actually think it will be very exciting to see what kinds of new foods I discover.
Now the reason for this goal is not because I'm paranoid about my calories or worried about getting "fat" (trust me- when you are training for a marathon, counting calories- not that I do that during the off-seasons- is the last thing on your mind. You need carbs and you need them now!) The amount of calories you burn is insane, plus with constant exercise like that, your body continues to burn calories after the work out at a heightened rate (my estimate is that I eat between 2500-3000 calories a day). For instance, today, I ran 13.6k and taking the speed at which I was running, I burned 990 calories during a run that lasted an hour and a half (this is according to my Garmin!) and I'm only 3 weeks into training. When it gets to the point where I'm doing 32km on the weekends, I'm burning like 2500 calories in one run.
Anyways back to the point of this rant- I want to consume a larger quantity of healthier foods, instead of just anything I can get my hands on, because (one of the things I've learned since being vegan) is that the food you eat directly enhances your recovery time and your performance. That's why many pro athletes (take Brendan Braizier for example) turn to veganism- not because of the ethical issues, but because eating fruits, nuts, and vegetables improves your recovery time like nothing else. When you recover faster and better, you can train harder and more efficiently.
I'm already noticing my faster recovery time and better performance and more energy. For instance, this morning I was feeling a little sluggish. I had my usual pre-long run oatmeal, then remembered that eating dates acts like consuming gatorade- its a natural energy booster. So I ate about 4-5 dates along with my oatmeal. And I don't know what happened, but I was flying during my long run, and this continued throughout the whole run, it wasn't a small burst of energy that ended after 20 mins. Once my body warmed up (about 25 mins in), I was slowing myself down big time, forcing myself to run at 7min kms to keep myself within the appropriate pace for a LSR- and that felt agonizingly slow. Then I just gave up. I let myself go for the last half of the run and I flew- running 6min kms (and below!!) for the last 8kms- up a couple of giant hills too- which didn't even phase me. Now that's the pace I normally run for my tempos and those wear me out so much that I'm exhausted for the rest of the day.
So i'm not really sure if it was the dates that gave me that energy- but that was the one thing that's changed in my routine, so there must be something there. I'm going to experiment this week and try having some dates before my runs and see what happens.
Now traditionally, I don't eat fruit before a run because I found it gave me stomach problems. But I've also learned that fruit moves through your body much faster than grains and especially animals products. So I'm wondering, if I leave a bigger gap between eating the fruit and leaving for my run, it will have already passed through my system before I go out the door. That way I still have the energy but none of the stomach issues.

I'll let you know next week how my runs went with eating the dates before hand... I'm very curious to find out!

Only 8 more days until Nick comes home! so excited!