Recent Activity
In Bob Seebohar’s book “Metabolic Efficiency Training”, he
talks about teaching one’s body to be an efficient fat burner by not only the
way we train, but also (some would argue more so) what we eat.
That’s one of the things that I’ve been doing over the last
couple of weeks since Superior Spring. I
feel like my nutrition has to play a role, I just need to continue to tweak
what I eat and figure out not only what gives me the best performance, but:
- What gives me the most energy for life
- What helps me to get the rest I need to sustain my pace and my training
- What gets me to and keeps me at the weight and the look that helps me feel comfortable
…to name a few things.
We’ve all got different goals. Many
people have these same questions and most people just don’t know what it feels
like to not be tired after eating, or have trouble sleeping because of the vicious
effect that comes with the S (tandard) A (merican) D (iet), or just can’t (or
choose not to prioritize highly enough) losing that weight that adds up and eventually
takes its toll on one’s joints and body over time.
I should be talking right, as I am in the middle of training
for another ultra marathon. The running
keeps me motivated; gives me a verb, something to train for and do, it’s a
carrot at the end of the stick. We
should all have carrots around health and wellness. We do everywhere else. What about graduation, or jobs and career
advancement, even retirement. Instead of
waiting around for those things, we should be doing something in the
meantime. Use the time we are given to positively
have an impact on those around us. Most
of those reading this do that every day.
What about health though? Are we
proactive about taking care of ourselves?
Are we living to be as effective and energized as we can be? Are we making healthy choices with the things
that we eat, or the things that we do?
Are we moving or sitting, practicing self control when it comes time to
make the decision as to what we put in our mouths? It is a choice each and
every time.
Here’s what I’ve been doing for training and what I plan to
do for the next few weeks leading up to Afton 50k and Voyager 50 mile. I almost consider them one as they do fall so
close together. I won’t do much training
between the two and that will all depend on how I feel after Afton. Mostly the adjustments I make with be with
nutrition. Again, not real sure what
that will look like either as I continue to be an experiment of one.
From May 20th – May 27th I really didn’t
do much except recover and replenish my glycogen stores. I probably ate a few things that I shouldn’t
have, made a few poor choices, but I’m back on track again. Once I start to train again and my focus goes
to the end in mind and reaching the physical (action verb) thing that I’m
trying to accomplish, my nutrition becomes more important to me. We start looking at our meal and snack
choices like opportunities to fuel our bodies with things that are going to
help it run better, more efficiently.
That’s what happens to me anyhow, and it doesn’t have to be a 50 mile
race… it can be exercising 3-5 days per week for 30-45 minutes at a time. Most of us probably “waste” that amount of
time in a day doing who knows what. I
challenge you to train for something though.
May 28th – June 2nd My focus here was
still recovery and I started to lift some more weights as I felt my muscles
coming back. Superior was tough and I
ran on dehydrated muscles for some time, so it took a little bit longer than I
think any other 50k I’ve done, to come back and feel that I could get after it
again. I ran lightly during this little
training block but like I said, I was just trying to recover as much as
possible. I had about 7 weeks between
Superior and Afton now.
Now we get into more day by day – my focus this time around
has been to work more on lower intensities to try and train my body to burn
more fat more efficiently. I’m trying to
train mitochondria. I’ve been doing lots
of long, slow distance, and I’ll save the pace work for closer to race
time. Most of the time that I spend
between races in July will be primarily slow, steady stuff depending on how I
feel. I may just treat it as a 3 week
long race…
June 4 – 10 miles evening around Elm Creek in the evening
June 6- 10 miles from 6:30-8ish; thanks Kate for watching
the kids
June 8 – 3 miles to Life Time Maple Grove where I met my
lovely bride for a bosu circuit squatting with arms, bosu shuffling, and some
core work (great job Kate)/ then 7 miles past home through the park reserve
with a 2 hill finish. It was hot and I
was absolutely beat for Saturday too.
Really it took about 3 days to recover from that week.
June 12 – 5 miles from CRT then back the club to do my
cardio point (it was neat to see what it was mid run) AB 137 top speed 7mph at 2 degree
incline. For the first 5 miles I kept my
heart rate right around 130BPM topping out at 146BPM. After the cardio point, I went out and did
another 6 down the LRT on the north side of Shady Oak Lake and back again to
the club (30 out and 30minutes back). I
was a bit run down and fuel depleted.
This run was at 11-1 and I hadn’t eaten since 5:15 that morning when I
had some eggs with a little cheese and a big ole’ cup of chocolate milk. That’s something I’ve reinserted into my
diet. I really like chocolate milk and
with the probiotic I just started taking, it doesn’t bother my gut much anymore
either. Also, it’s now almond milk. I ate a pizza post workout L
June 13 – weights/ legs mostly; 1 leg hack squat, 115lb
deadlifts x 25, hack squat light x 20, walking lunges w x over vipr reach (with
shoulder blade) x 80/ then it was a 60 minute treadmill tempo run (my first
speed work since Superior). It felt
great and a day later although a bit depleted, my ROM is wonderful and it just
feels so… functional. Here’s that
workout:
·
5 mph for 1m
·
6.5 mph for .5m
·
5 mph for .25m
·
7 mph for .5m
·
5 mph for .25m
·
7.5 mph for .5m
·
5 mph for .25m
·
8mph for .5m
·
5 mph for .25m
·
8.5 for .5m
·
5 mph for .25m
·
9mph for .5m
·
5 mph for 2.5m
·
10 mph for .25m
·
.15 mph walking cool down
With a 6 exercise core workout to finish (some sb,
crunches, bridges, planks, etc) it’s not as important what you do, it’s that
you choose to do something and… MOVE!
Today was just an active recovery day. I spent 10 minutes warming up and 45 minutes
on the foam roller and stretching. I
feel great and have been making better nutritional choices. It’s tough to get enough good calories
though. I feel like I need to keep
shoveling it in. Especially when
incorporating some speed work into the program.
Bursts of effort will boost one’s metabolism for up to a day and a half
after the activity takes place. That
means that if you do any burst training, your body will work FOR YOU to burn
more calories while you rest for up to 36 hours. Pretty neat stuff! I suggest training around your Aerobic Base
for awhile first. Just go for a walk…
with a purpose:!
Here’s the plan for the next few weeks leading up to
Afton:
June 15 - hills around the Minnetonka area then off to
Maynards with the team
June 16 – active recovery
June 17 – 150 minutes steady/ most likely beginning
around 5am in order to be home in time for church at 9:30
June 18 – 100 minutes steady; maybe venturing to explore
some new training grounds. If anyone has
any ideas for places to check out within 15 minutes of the Chalet at Elm Creek
Park reserve, I would love to hear them, and if you want to run, lets go!
June 19 – active recovery
June 20 – 60 minute tempo run/ to 160 BPM and recover
jogging down to 120+BPM
June 21 – 100 minutes steady
June 22 – active recovery/ foam roll, stretch, upper body
running exercises, lunging circuit (20-30 minutes of weights)
Off until the 27th/
busy
June 27 – 100 minutes steady
June 28 – active recovery
June 29 – hills @ Hyland if anyone wants to join me it’s
probably be 2:30 or so between the ski hill and the ski jump hill; going easy
on the downs as I’ll need fresh quads in a week
June 30 – wedding, super fun! Can’t wait Co. You got the perfect guy!
July 1 – 100 minutes steady
July 2 – 60 minutes speed/ hills
·
1 mile warm up
·
.5m x 2 speed
·
Tubing hill x 2
·
1 mile cool down home
July 3 – active recovery
July 4 – 40 minutes speed
·
1 mile warm up
·
.5m x 2 w full recovery
·
1 mile cool down
July 5 – active recovery
July 6 – rest/ check in for Afton
July 7 – RACE. I’m
going hard for this one. I’m treating it
as a training run but am still going to go for a PR in the 50k distance which
is sub 5:35. Very doable I think if I
can stay tight to my nutrition and training, learn from my race day nutrition
in the past and play with what works during my training.
My hope in writing is to motivate, inspire, log my own
workouts, and get my blog followers asking some questions about their health
from a behavior modification and self discipline standpoint. It’s all about choices and support. We all have people in our lives that will
enable us to make poor decisions about what we put into our bodies. We also have people in our lives that will
push and encourage us to make positive choices around nutrition and
exercise. You have a choice and instead
of just going along with poor choices because you don’t want to make someone
feel bad or it’s hard, make the difficult decision so that you too can feel
better than you ever have before, like the way you look, have more energy
throughout the day, sleep better at night.
We have the power, all of us, to inspire those people around us to care
about themselves as much as we care about them.
INTAKE
DECISION CHALLENGE
Drink half your body weight in ounces of
water.
I
posted earlier that often times we are not actually hungry, just thirsty. See if you notice a difference in 3 days of
following this simple tip.
