Sunday, November 7, 2010

Nightfloat Val, Get A Hold of Yourself!!

I've been really struggling to get back into the swing of things eating and work-out wise since the Chicago Marathon. Basically what happened is, the marathon sucked, I was sad about it for a week and didn't exercise and ate poorly. Then I went on vacation where, right or wrong, I generally give myself carte blanche to eat the delicious food native to the region I'm visiting. But, even for me, I went overboard (see Boston 1, Boston 2 and Bar Harbor). Then I got home and started to get back on track briefly. Very briefly. Now I'm on Nightfloat, which requires me staying up 7 nights in a row and usually involves lots of fatigue, minimal exercise and maximal eating of bad food. Case in point (and I'm not proud of this), after not eating chips for probably near 6 months, I ate a whole bag of Lime Tostitos w/ salsa over a 2 day period last week. Who am I?



Then, of course there are the lattes. Pumpkin spice, chai tea, the holiday red cups are like the Sirens and I'm OUT OF CONTROL!

I still have 6 more nights of nightfloat so I need to nip this in the bud NOW!

Let's assess the damage for this week:

Calories: bad, bad, bad- plan for that below
Miles run (completed/planned): 36.35/48.1
Long run: 0/1
Speed work: 2/2
Swimming sessions: 2/3
Biking sessions: 1/1
Weight (planned/complete): 2/2

Could be worse, could be better. Plans to improve for next week include starting to document my food intake again on mycaloriecounter.com. I have done this for a few week stretches in the past and it really helped to keep me on track. When I first started recording my calories I was shocked by how many calories I was eating even more shocked when I made an honest assessment of how many calories I actually need in a day. More on that next week when I have my first week's worth of calorie assessment. I don't think it's realistic for me to make big dietary changes during my nightfloat week, but starting to record things again will be a start.

This is how we all feel pretty much the entire week of nightfloat:


My other big goal for next week will be to get my long run in, though it may be delayed until next Sunday as I try to transition back to days next weekend.

Thirdly, as mentioned in my Math in the Morning post, I need to correctly estimate how long my runs will take so I can complete them!

Things I did well this week include doing 10 extra minutes of weights and the ease with which I finished my 5 and 6 mile runs this week. I just finished "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall (more on that later) and have been happy with the easy, lightness, and fluidity with which I ran my runs this week.

Here's the w/o schedule for next week:

Sunday: rest day
Monday: LT (lactate threshold): 8 mi w/ 4 at 10K pace, weights
Tuesday: Yasso's 800s (7.1 mph)
Wednesday: 8x 200 @5K pace w/ descending rest times (first 60 s then 50, etc), weights
Thursday: 5 miles relaxed, weights
Friday: 30 min bike, weights
Saturday: weights, swim
(Sunday: 17 miles run)

Happy Sunday to all!

3 comments:

  1. Good job on writing out your goals. My diet has sucked lately as well... I keep telling myself that marathon training should allow me to eat whatever I want. So not true because my runs are suffering and I'm feeling sluggish and fat.

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  2. Ugh, overnight call definitely messes with your diet. Recording your intake does help, I think, because you know if you eat it you have to log it - it doesn't stop me from eating the chips, mind you, but I'll often limit the amount I eat if I know I have to log it. Try to get some rest this week (although I know you probably won't!) and remember that those lattes can be a source of calcium, so not all bad, maybe? :)

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  3. You'll get back on track! You haven't lost your sense of humor...thanks for making me laugh. And thanks for the calorie counter link. I really need to keep track of mine, oy.

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