My First Marathon (x2)

For those of us who use the color-coding for workout completion in Training Peaks (green - as planned, yellow - too much or too little, red - way too much/little or skipped), there's always a desire for a week of green workouts. Well, this week didn't turn out that way. It's a mess. Monday - President's Day and regular Monday swim. This one was 4,000 yards, as written by Coach Sean, but in the TP account I use most it was 3,000 - so red but not bad. I also went to Yoga for Every Body at kOMpose.. Tuesday - it was WARM outside. 75 degrees in February. The shift from the 30s to 75 isn't something that you can acclimate to if there was nothing in between. I was also dehydrated from the afternoon AND didn't bring any water AND the fountains are off because...February. Workout was 6-8 miles with 2-3 warm up and 1-2 and 4 of in and out between 10K pace and marathon pace. 6 miles was in TP and I ran 7. If I wasn't about dying of dehydration (and the resulting c...

I am in the phase of my food sensitivity eating that I am trying (one at a time) untested foods and continuing to avoid the foods that I am moderately or highly reactive to. With sensitivities to wheat, corn, soy, cane sugar, vanilla, ginger, orange, peach, pecan, raspberries, and watermelon, one might assume that it's really hard for me to snack or find nutrition to use for training. It's true, there are a number of products I used to use (nuun, Clif bloks, eGel, Hammer Recoverite, BiPro vanilla whey protein) that I can't use now. But I am doing fine fueling a bit differently. Sport drink: Homemade...tart cherry concentrate, Untapped maple syrup, water, sea salt Gels: Honey Stinger Gold Untapped maple syrup Recovery: Pea protein Egg white protein Both proteins are unflavored and have a weird "natural" flavor so you need to mix them with other things and a sweetener like honey or 100% maple syrup. I am having a hard time finding dried ...

Since this week was a bit of a bear, perhaps it is fitting that the weekend included the Polar Bear 5K & 5-miler, known collectively as The Bear. Monday - 4,750 yard swim. I am performing ok on these long swims, but I don't end up having dinner until after 8 PM and then I go to bed before 10 PM...and wake up in the middle of the night hungry. I talked to Jackie (sport dietitian) about it and I need to have slower carbs with dinner that will get me to morning. Tuesday - I ran in the morning and had a really strong 6 x 5:00 set with 2:00 recovery between. The 5:00 segments averaged 10:31 pace, which is just a little slower than my 5K pace. However, my heart rate never got to the target range. I asked coach if the cold could be a factor and he said yes, as well as relatively hydration to when it is warm and the lag on the heart rate monitor. We were both pretty happy with the average time for them. 6.7 miles total for the run. Work got rough, but then it was on to the reason I...

The second phase of the immunocalm diet had more foods to add, foods that were still not reactive, but closer to moderately reactive. It was about two weeks after the first phase. Near the beginning of this phase I had a perfect storm of things not going well: I was exhausted, work was stressful, I may have had a hormonal issue, and I didn't fuel a long run correctly. The result was a meltdown of fairly epic proportions followed by a day of very high blood sugar and a second day where it was just unstable - low and high. I stopped taking Metformin that day (not recommending doing this on your own, I have had a lot of conversations about dosing with both my endo and GP over the past year). Some foods were great to be able to add because they made the diet less restrictive. My dietitian encouraged me to keep tracking in cronometer, which I did. I have now been tracking daily for more than a month and I think that's my longest streak. I also started taking a probiotic and i...

Some weeks are harder than others to balance work, training, sleep, and life. This was one of them. But I got the work done. And ran some numbers that show that work works. Between 2013 and 2017 I reduced my average run pace from 13:42 over all runs to 12:12 over all runs. Having a coach to be sure I am doing the right work, and doing the work...well, works. Monday - 5,000 yard swim. Ironman swim training has begun. And yes, 5,000 yards is farther than the Ironman swim. And it is a long time in the pool. Tuesday - I didn't sleep very well Monday night and was anxious about things at work. I felt pretty tired when I got to the group run and I wasn't sure how it was going to go, especially since it was mixed speed and steady state. I had a pretty solid run and felt good about it. 6.2 miles average pace 11:44. Wednesday - I couldn't work the watch correctly in the pool to save my life. I was more tired and hadn't slept well again. 2,000 yard swim. Then in the evening...

I haven't been great about posting my training logs here, so I am doing one long catch up and then I'll get back to it. These were originally published on Salty Running. The end of the week is both training log and race report. Overall this was a good week, even though the rodent said 6 more weeks of winter. Monday – 3.050 yard swim mid-afternoon. Monday was a weird day where I struggled with my blood sugar all day and worked from home so I could try to stabilize it. I finally was in good shape by mid-afternoon and decided to get it in while the pool was likely less crowded. Tuesday – Half mile repeat day. Six of them with 2:00 recovery in between. I started the warmup with a guy who was in his third mile already and only running five miles. So it was a bit fast. My 800s were ok, but not fabulous: 5:20, 5:19, 5:32, 5:19, 5:31, 5:32. I managed to hang myself out about 2.4 miles from the start when I only needed a mile cool down.  7.5 total miles. Wednesday – 3,000 yard...

I have been on a quest to get to race weight by Ironman and to eat healthy, not bonk, and maintain my blood sugar at a healthy level. I've worked with a registered dietitian on sport/race nutrition for years and then on weight loss that is sustainable and possible while training. Last year, my dietitian recommended food sensitivity testing. I passed on it at first but I recently had the tests completed. I'll post an update after I've had time to assess how it has worked for me. My regular sport dietitian doesn't do the testing, so I reached out to another well-known local sport dietitian who is also a two-time Olympics Trials Qualifier in the marathon, has published a book, and is opening a restaurant and bar with her husband. At first the conversation wasn't about testing, it was about reaching race weight in a sustainable manner while training at a pretty high volume. After I completed her intake questionnaire, she said that she recommended the mediator release t...