The Muddaubber’s 2012 Thoughts

I don’t really want talk about resolutions. I want to talk about reality. Things that have to happen for me to succeed at the goals I have set for myself this year.

Oh, the goals?
- Run 2 half marathons
- Run 2 obstacle/mud runs
- Contemplate and evaluate the possibility of running a full marathon in 2013
- Lose 15 pounds of body fat and add 5-10 pounds of lean muscle mass

Do you know which of those goals is the hardest one? If you guessed the body fat for muscle mass swap, you guessed right.

I am about 155 pounds right now, give or take about 2 pounds on any given day. My BMI is in the healthy and normal range. But I carry a lot more body fat than I would like and I have a lot less physical strength than I used to.

In order to make the swap, I really have to tighten up my nutrition. The fact that I run as much as I do is the only reason I am not packing on a lot of new weight. That is the ONLY reason. If I let my training slip or if I became injured and was off my feet for a month or two, I can easily see me putting on 5-10 extra pounds in no time flat. I have let lots of excuses come between me and a cleaner diet, but with my husband’s renewed commitment to healthier eating, it is becoming easier for me to do the same.

There is too much sugar in my diet. Way too much alcohol. Barely enough protein and too many worthless carbs. And did I mention way too much alcohol?

I don’t want you to assume my diet is complete crap. It really isn’t. What it needs is tweeking; pulling out the crap I have allowed to slip back in, and boosting my protein intake above and beyond the required 60 grams per day necessitated by my RnY bypass.

My mission is to go back to how I ate early on post-gastric bypass; cut out the white simple carbs (excluding dairy), increase my protein above and beyond 60 grams a day (I want between 75 and 100), and cut the processed crap back.

I will continue my running and training for the half marathons I have signed up for, but I am going to really focus on adding in cross-training on those rest days (Sun., Mon., and Fri.). My cross-training will focus primarily on weight lifting and yoga. Yoga on Sundays and weights on Mondays and Fridays would probably work best given my half mary training schedule.

Next up: how to create and implement a plan I can work with.

Post-Race Blues

I posted my write-up on the Virginia Warrior Dash Race over at my regular blog; you can read it all here.

After such an insane weekend, post-race blues are setting in a bit, combined with two bits of bad news. The first is related to the length of time my beloved dog has left to be with us (hint: only a few more days) and the second was the single worst hemoglobin reading I have ever had taken in attempting a blood donation, in spite of heavy Fe supplementation over the past month.

I need to address some health issues, nutritionally and habit-related.

I also need a new goal to work towards. Warrior Dash is over and I have no races on my schedule until April at the earliest. I have been desperately searching for some kind of New Year’s eve or New Year’s day race, but the only local one I found was already sold out of spaces. I thought it would be really need to set the tone of 2012 with a race.

I am more depressed than ever that I am not running the half-marathon on November 12, like I had so badly wanted too. Money issues and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever set in at the exact same time that I needed to sign up and start hard-core training. I set aside my 13.1 mile goal at that point. Too sick and too poor to even get off the ground.

I am looking for charity runs, 5Ks, 10Ks, mud runs, whatever. I am also trying to avoid conflicting with major SCA events. Rugged Maniac on May 5, 2012, is therefore out. Henricus Dauber Dash (is there not a more perfect race for me?) is a possibility as it will run the week AFTER Pennsic next year, but that is mid-August and I need something to run soon. Like now.

I could run the Ukrops 10K in April next year, but honestly, the race sells out every year and it is capped at 40,000 entrants. I really don’t want to run with 40,000 other people unless I am going into something really big like a half or full marathon. Crowds give me issues, and it was tough enough running in a wave of 500 last weekend.

There is the MGD Filthy 5K, which is part of the Dominion River Rock games, next May. It is cheap ($25), within walking distance from my office so I can hit it straight up after work, capped at 2,000 participants, and looks like a ton of fun. Again, it’s in May.

I just stumbled across this Pumpkin Run at the end of the month. It hits all the right things for me. Close, inexpensive, running for charity (autism!), and family friendly (free kids run).

Maybe that’s what I will go do.

But first, I need new shoes.

-241

To Belle Isle Bridge and Back

My standard two miler. To make it an even 5k run, all I have to do is cross the Belle Isle footbridge and go a quarter of the way around the island, then turn back; I like this fact. The weather was stunning today; upper 60s with a cool stiff breeze, and beautiful sunshine. It was too hot to wear the sweatpants I had, but they were the only thing in my bag. When I packed that bag on Sunday, I had no idea it would be almost 70 degrees 3 days later. At least I had a sleeveless tank. Hard to accept that it will be almost 25 degrees colder tomorrow.

Ran the first half non-stop. Took a 4 minute breather walk, then another solid 5 minutes, a 1 minute breather, and finishing out the last of the run with a sprint on the uphill from the Alcoa plant to Canal Street. Speed was better, breathing was much better, but then I had albuterol assistance, and I had some asthma symptoms when I was done and cooled down.

I have felt awful for weeks and I am blaming the combination of the sinus/ear infection from hell and probably some pretty nasty anemia and dreadful B vitamin levels. Vit. D is probably in the basement too. I had been slack with my vitamin supplements and certainly was not getting any sunshine, but in the past week, I have been religious about my supplements, in fact, doubling my doses like I am supposed to be doing. I am eating iron rich foods (spinach, nuts, red meat, broccoli, etc.) and combining them with Vitamin C rich foods (mandarin oranges, dried cranberries, carrots, etc.). I am drinking milk daily, either in a coffee, or straight from the little pint cartons. In short, I have not been paying as close attention to my nutrition (and I am not talking caloric intake) this winter as I should, and I think it is 90% of the reason I have felt poorly, and a part of the reason this particular sinus infection has been so brutal (besides the fact I let it go untreated so long).

Lunch: Chicken salad (protein) on a bed of spinach (iron) with mandarin oranges and dried cranberries (Vit. C to increase iron absorption), and beets (more Fe and I adore them). My salad bar usually has sunflower seeds, which I would normally add for more iron and protein, but they only had walnuts today, which I dislike.

As the weather starts to improve this spring, I would like to aim for 3 runs per week, two at the full 5k distance to Belle Isle and back, and then one run in the Alcoa part of the canal walk, where there is gravel, stairs, and dramatic elevation changes, for a much more intensive, if shorter workout.

-243

Did nothing all weekend except feel like crap after poisoning myself with gin. Maybe I drank it faster than I have been. Maybe all the cold meds enhanced the effect. The quantity wasn’t different from what I was drinking a couple of weeks ago, but the effect was more pronounced, and the result was a wasted weekend for the most part.

Then I packed my running gear (including a new Underarmour-style long sleeved shirt and a new Champion heavy weight hoodie) to take to work this morning, and left the bag sitting on the couch. Another wasted day. Perhaps tonight I will put the exercise bike to use since they are calling for rain for the next day or so.

An aspect of training I have not addressed here yet is diet. My RnY gastric bypass requires me to aim for 60 grams of protein per day, and my pouch doesn’t allow room for all that protein and gobs of carbohydrates at the same time, so by necessity, I am on a “low-carb” diet, generally under 100 carbs per day. For the first 6 months or so, I kept it to under 50 carbs per day. Being at maintenance now, having a little more room in my pouch, and doing more aerobic activity, I allowed my intake to go up, but I struggle constantly still with the “white carb” cravings. I still avoid white pasta in large quantities, no white store-bought bread, generally no white potatoes (not much sweet potato either), and little to no rice. Now my mom is a baker and I get lots of delicious, homemade white bread in the house, and while it is a major struggle to not eat the whole loaf, I do allow one slice per day.

It is possible to cheat my surgery and I do, but I am growing more and more fearful of failure, so I am actively trying to make better choices and trying to make more good choices than bad ones. Yesterday was kind of an unusual day, but here is what my diet looked like.

Brunch at Bob Evans – 1 cup of oatmeal (didn’t finish it; only have room for about .75 a cup) (about 19 carbs and 5 grams of protein)
Mid-Day Snack/meal – S’bux Skinny Caramel Macchiato – 15 grams of protein w/ 25 carbs (yes, I will treat a latte as a meal)
Dinner – Kona Grill Miso Soup and 5 piece Yellow Tail Sashimi. (Miso has 5 grams of protein. 1 ounce of sashimi has 7 gr. of protein, so I probably had 21 or maybe 28 from those 5 slices)
Snack – Multigrain Pita Chips and beer

That is a pretty good day, especially if I had left out the beer. I needed a little more protein, and a few less carbs, but overall, that was pretty good.

Getting diet, aerobic conditioning, and strength training all working together is my goal over the next 240 days.