Will power and the cleansed brain

In my previous post, I mentioned that the refresh of cleansing, in addition to habits lost and found, helped me avoid the typical binging I commit when I'm stressed (and January tends to be a real doozy for me at work).

Apparently, I get a pat on the back. According to NPR, it's not easy.

A few questions hit about the story, so here it is — Will Power and the Slacker Brain: Why is it so hard to do the right thing? Turns out your brain gets tired sometimes and just can't fight the power... of chocolate cake.

And Now Back to Food Week…

One of the advantages to my obsessor’s mind is that it’s pretty easy to wrangle myself free of one object when I’ve found a better object over which to obsess. Case in point: the recovery meal.

Did I mention the power of the recovery meal? Well, let me just tell you about the power of the recovery meal.

Lately it’s been some combination of bagels and protein smoothies or Teahouse Noodles’ pad thai with chicken, tofu and fresh veggies. Whatever my recovery meal, it’s light and delicious, chock full of antioxidants, lean protein and carbs. We’ll call it the magic three.

Because eating (actually, I should say enjoying food) has long been a huge motivator, it was only a matter of time before I found a new way to use it in my training. Sure, the dessert goal helped me reach my first 30-mile month and the cupcake bar pushed me to break my first 8:00/mile race. But what could be next?

Now it’s not about reach singular goals. It’s bigger carrot this time. And a tad more advantageous that some of the sweets I’ve craved in the past.

In a previous post I mentioned that I bring a “runner’s lunch” to work on days when I plan to run. And I can only eat the lunch if I am, in fact, a runner that day. There’s no “I’ll run after work” or “I’ll double up tomorrow.” I have to earn my recovery meal with something from which to recover. Like a quality workout.

So far it’s worked every time.

The downside, of course is that it might work too well. My training plan calls for Mondays off, which works perfectly with my schedule because I always have meetings galore on Mondays and feel weeks behind by Monday afternoon. Sad, huh?

But I worked my butt off to get a bunch of work-related things done this weekend and hit Monday feeling just as burned out as they say you should when you over do it.

Two morning meetings later: BOOM! No motivation to do anything at all. Let alone get a day ahead in my training schedule. Shame, too… it was such a perfect day. Sigh.

What did it? Well, it wasn’t the bag of running gear staring me in the face all day or the sunshiney weather. No. It was the normal lunch in the fridge. Where’s the motivation in that?

So, I made it home and took a nap before hitting the bike for 20 lazy minutes. Obsessing over adequate sleep should be my next goal.

Then came Tuesday morning—rainy, dark, miserable Tuesday morning. I couldn’t drag myself out of bed for my morning pilates and laughed as I packed my recovery meal. “As if…” My brain was hardly functioning and, again, motivation to do anything was pretty low.

Then lunchtime crept around. I had an everything bagel in my drawer just waiting to be warmed and enjoyed while a vanilla-almond protein smoothie was chilling in the fridge. And the only thing that stood between me and the goodies: running.

It was a no-brainer! I got up, changed and ran into the rainy day!

But I wasn’t outside for long. I ran to the rec. center track where I covered 4.5 miles at 8:50/mile, followed by various drills including 2x20-second skipping, bounding, high knees and no arms. And I had plenty left at the end of the workout to run an extra mile roundtrip to get a work bud a chai to sweeten her crappy day.

Six miles down, I settled in with my warm bagel and smoothie. Totally worth it.

Will Run for Food

One of my favorite parts of the recovery-eating obsession is picking out the healthy foods I’ll eat after a run. Granted, I get consumed in it sometimes during a run, but it works in other ways too.

Runner’s lunches, for instance, have become bigger carrots in my training regimen than the old cupcake trick of 2007.

What’s a runner’s lunch? It’s a delicious but healthy recovery meal (like everything bagels and green antioxidant-rich protein shakes or seduction bread with pomegranate and grilled chicken) that I take to work and can only eat if I run during lunch. Works like a charm.

I’ve worked my new job since early January 2008, and I never ran during lunch until October! While I had been content to train after work or in the mornings, the month off after Akron and the time change really threw me for a loop this year. Because I’ve never run during this time of year, I wasn’t prepared for that shift. Lucky for me, I have the option to make a change.

It took many attempts to get my butt out of the office during the day. Finally, I brought a bagel-and-shake combo, which I could only eat if I ran my workout, to put me over the edge. And it’s worked ever since. It helps that I don’t bring a backup lunch—so it’s either run or starve—and love the stuff I bring to eat. What can I say? I’m all about incentives.

And Thursday’s run was chock full of rewards. Not only did I have a healthy Whole Foods bean burrito and bialy bagel waiting for me, I trucked up Cedar Hill for 2x30-second hill repeats and through the Heights for a 4.5-miler that ended running down Mayfield hill in Little Italy (I intend on remembering the feeling of running down that hill next time I do 6x60-second repeats up that thing!).

Recovery or not, Friday hit me hard. It had much more to do with a stressful month than running, but I crashed hard at the end of the day. I took a much-needed nap and didn’t do much else Friday but crab and eat. But I did celebrate the 21st Amendment anniversary with my brother, Neil and Greg at Willoughby Brewing Company at night. And I was reminded why I don’t drink alcohol anymore.

No quips here about people drinking; it’s just never been for me. I spent a few months in college becoming an Irish whiskey expert, but alcohol has always hit me hard for days no matter how much or little I drank.

Like the ¾ pint of IPA I drank last night. Blah! The beer was fine (as was the bread pudding with turkey butter I ate with it) and didn’t affect me much last night. But I woke up today feeling groggy and way too yuck. My head feels heavy and my body’s so bloated.

It was a struggle to push through my 5-mile Fartlek (which didn’t get started until some time around noon) and I kept damning myself for doing something I knew was bad for me. Even if I was totally responsible about it. I guess the 21st Amendment just isn’t for all of us. Some people should be bound to their own prohibition.

Good news is I welcomed myself back from the run with another burrito-and-bagel recovery, complete with antioxidant-rich tea and a probiotic shake. So, it may be all mental—the alcoholic downside, the recovery-meal upside—but it all works for me.

Food

Imagine my surprise almost two years ago when I first started running and a friend said, “now that you have your training started, let’s work on your diet.”

My diet? WTF is wrong with my diet?

Well, if you’ve been around my blog long enough, you probably have a few suggestions. And that friend did too. Plenty of people had plenty to say. I’m better for it now.

Obviously, the first to go were cupcakes (at least they were the first things to go on my should-not-eat list; they didn’t necessarily leave my diet) and all the tarts and tortes that make me smile. In sum: sugar was a problem.

Before I started training (running, in particular) I paid little attention to what I was eating as it related to how I was running or swimming. I was the healthiest eater I knew. Unfortunately, relativity doesn’t count here. Instead, my diet was very backward: I ran or swam or cycled to eat, not the other way around.

That food could actually help me do these things better never crossed my mind.

For years I spiked and dropped on blood sugar, ever skipping breakfast, sweetening up lunch, crashing every afternoon and overstuffing dinner. It was almost impossible to make it through a day without fighting the nappies or needing coffee to think about mounting an elliptical for a shamefully short time.

The more I talked to fit people, though, the more eating right for training made sense. Even if it did take a year and a half to really take hold.

I listened to vitamin stories and checked the magic of nutrition bars. I heard about the “hour after workout” rule and the secrets of Ensure shakes. But it was the training runs after a high-energy meal (antioxidant-rich fruits, lean protein, good carbs) that made it all dawn.

But what really brought it home for me? Recovery meals.

I was reading about the damage we do to our muscle fibers, ligaments and tendons during average and intense workouts. And all the memories of how my vitamin- and protein-deficient body let my leg fracture and my muscles ache from overuse. Sure, I was overtraining for the most part, but I wasn’t giving my body the resources to rebuild and recover at all. Like proper nutrition and rest.

While the brain-training book provided some background on nutrition, one piece of advice really stuck: you must become fanatical about eating in recovery! And if there’s anyone who can become fanatical about eating, well, that would be me.

It helped to understand a) how our bodies are damaged during exercise; b) how our bodies rebuild and improve in recovery; c) how antioxidants, lean proteins and carbs consumed within an optimal one-hour period contribute to that rebuilding effort. Perhaps it’s all a mental game (but I have been brain training!), but that knowledge somehow makes me feel better when I eat and feel lighter when I run.

And there’s so much more to learn. I just picked up a book about running nutrition, and I’m emotionally prepared to learn how bad my diet used to be and how to cope with all the guilt I feel next time I fall for that cupcake.

Pop Quiz; Plus: Running With Others

Stop your worrying: this isn't another one of those tagging games (to which I'm admittedly not opposed). Just a pop quiz about everyone's favorite person: YOU!

If you have a moment, I'd like to get your take on the following questions; you don't have to answer all. Because I'm new to running, I love nothing more than hearing other people's stories. What's yours?

1. How long have you been running or tri-training?
2. Why did you start running or tri-training?
3. What's your most memorable race?
4. What's your favorite race to run (distance and/or specific event)?
5. What's the best advice you have ever received?
6. What's the best advice you never followed (that you should have)?
7. Where do you train?
8. What are your long-term goals?
9. What's your favorite pre-race meal?
10. What's your favorite post-race, PR or goal-meeting reward?

Landon and I were out in that 5 p.m. sludge anyone near NEOhio experienced yesterday. But there’s something about running with someone else that makes getting hailed in the face more bearable. Not that I would have really known that.

As we pushed off from John Carroll, we both not-so-shyly admitted we had no idea what we were doing running with someone else. I still don’t know if I ran too slow or if I talked too much or if Landon wanted to punch me in the face for leading him down every single slush-flooded street (sorry, man!) in University Heights.

But it couldn’t have been too bad: I believe we ran for 45 minutes and walked a cool down for close to ten back to our cars and off to Whole Foods (where I picked up a wheatberry salad mixed with multigrain tabouleh for dinner and a chunk of cornbread the size of my face).

For the past year I’ve been apprehensive about running “with” people. Now I’m not. I think we’re going to make this running date a regular thing. And you can’t beat that.

You're already getting a sense that this will become one of those things — like yoga, cupcakes or commuting — that I obsess over and can't write enough about, aren't you?

Next up: Monica!

Sometimes it’s just easier to swim…

Would the Titans-Colts game end already? I’d like to get to sleep so I can hit the rec. center for the last time before my membership ends and I’m without a pool again.

But I took advantage of the pool and track today, after morning yoga, with a slightly bricky workout: a 4,100-yard swim...

• 1,000 yards IM drill
  (25 fly, 50 back, 75 breast, 100 free;
  25 free, 50 fly, 75 back, 100 breast;
  25 breast, 50 free, 75 fly, 100 back;
  25 back, 50 breast, 75 free, 100 fly)
• 10 x 50 free sprints on 1:00
• 4 x 250 yards alt free and IM kick
• 10 x 50 free sprints on 1:00
• 1,000 yard IM (sub. one-arm fly)
• 100-yard cool down

... followed by a 2.5-mile run: the first was 10:15/mile, followed by a 9:25/mile, and then halfway through the third mile I felt the gentlest twinge in my left calf. It was so slight that it may have even been a mental pain, but I didn’t want to test it. I stretched it out, walked a few laps and went home. Today's swim was the first time I've done such a long, fast set of sprints (20x50 free) in at least ten years. Talk about pushing it! At least I was able to finish the swim. Sometimes, I suppose, it's just easier to swim 2.5 miles than run...

Surprisingly, I made it through the entire day without a nap. I didn’t drag because I had a wealth of things to do… and an even greater wealth of things to eat. When I was food-reading in the bible last week, I hit on that tip about eating carbs and protein (and little to no fat) within an hour after training, and it was all I could think about on the ride home.

OK, I honestly would have chowed on a fried basketball if one had presented itself, but my actions/intentions ended up much better with this quick (less than 5 minutes) meal:

• 1 cup cooked cous cous (150 cal, 0g fat, 30 carbs, 5g protein) cooked with jasmine green tea, cayenne and green onions
• ½ cup chilled organic black soy beans (120 cal, 6g fat, 8g carb/7g fiber, 11g protein)
• 1/8 cup pumpkin seeds (85 cal, 7g fat, 2g carb, 5g protein)
• 2 tbsp reduced fat sour cream (47 cal, 4g fat, 2g carb, 1g protein)

And I followed it with a crisp, tart Granny Smith apple. Quite tasty! It was a little more fatty than perfection, but I'll work on it.

The weather over the next week seems conducive to outdoor running—just in time for no-more-rec and my new job in Cleveland. I’ll be checking out all the recommendations I’ve received from everyone. Thanks a bunch!

No Browns in the playoffs. Sigh. At least now I can go to sleep while you check out Lance Armstrong in Dodgeball...

Run, Eat, Rinse, Repeat

Ugh. I’ve been missing my protein targets for the past couple days. So when I came in from tonight’s 8-mile training run, I passed on a simple bowl of cereal (just cooking for one tonight) and went for a lump of protein instead.

For the past 2.5 weeks, I’ve been tracking my diet—and I mean everything I eat—using nutridiary.com. Ever since I upped the training ante, I’ve been concerned about my nutrition. I’m not eyeing any weight-loss goals, but I have learned that I need to eye some calcium and protein goals. Two weeks ago, it wasn’t pretty.

Nutridiary.com is a neat tool that allows you to track your mouth’s every move using data you input from your typically eaten foods, as well as a vast database of more common eats. It’s one of the most high-maintenance and time-consuming things I’ve ever done, but it’s also the most honest and enlightening.

My calcium in take, for example, is embarrassing. You can see from the Nutridiary graph of my calcium intake since Aug. 20 that aside from the Aug. 25 wedding I attended (there was a cheese tray with plenty of smoked gouda, muenster, cheddar and jack!), my calcium is shameful.

The blue line represents my targeted calcium value… which is higher than I generally get. So, I have to make my way to the store soon and get my hands on some Viactiv calcium chews. I should have known my mom was onto something when she force-fed me those things as a teen. Although I imagine I could kill two birds with a glass of milk. If only I drank milk.

My protein chart is even more tragic, so I took down a serving of organic kidney beans, mixed nuts (pepitas, pine and almonds) and a sweet potato. Granted, the sweet potato isn’t exactly packing the protein, but it tastes good! Unfortunately, I was packed with the rest of my vitamins today, so I didn’t require the 438 percent Vitamin A in that baby.

Despite feeling more ready for an all-night nap when I came home from work, I put on some running clothes and headed out. It has been a little warm for the past couple days, but not prohibitively muggy as in past weeks.

Tonight’s 8-miler was a doozy:

• 3 miles on 9:30/mile pace
• 2 x 2:00, 2 x 2:300, 1 x 3:00 aerobic intervals (AI) ~ 3 miles
• 8 gentle pick ups (GP) ~ 1 mile
• ~1 mile cool down on 10:00/mile

My legs didn’t take as long as usual to warm up today, but by the second AI, I felt beat. I kept repeating to myself that AIs are meant to push me a little past my comfort zone and to make me feel more comfortable within my normal pace… and, of course, that I would thank myself for doing them on Sept. 29. Or maybe it was the prospect of getting to speed-walk a bit during the GPs at the end. That was nice.

The middle three miles may have been a killer, but they rocked pretty hard too. I ran the set in 24:33 (that’s 8:11/mile), which is pretty speedy for me right now. Sure, I’ll complain about the AIs, but I think I’m feeling the beginnings of their benefits. I’ve been a good girl—not running these sets at too high intensity or verging on injury like I used to—and hope to reap the benefits.
What good is all this training is my bones and muscles are going to crumble at the end of the day? Perhaps I should go have another calcium-fortified protein bar or something.