After really "working" myself yesterday, especially my legs, I had no expectations going into today's workouts. I got 10 big hours of sleep, though, and felt pretty refreshed upon waking this morning, and had a generally bright outlook on things.
As you may have read earlier, I got a little happy surprise when stepping on the scale this morning, and I have to say that had some impact on my overall great mood today. I'm not really trying to lose weight (for every lb. of fat I lose I lose basically 1% of my bodyfat, so at this point it's a difficult proposition as I'm already quite lean), but I have been training hard, and I know I haven't been keeping up with my calories. I can fluctuate 2-4 lbs. throughout the year, but I'm hoping to stay around 112 for the duration. We'll see. I'm not going to obsess about it!
Since I woke up late, I got to the pool kind of late, and my workout this week was longer than last week's Wednesday workout:
7:55AM Swim 2950 yards, 1:04. WU: 200 swim, 200 pull, 200 kick, 4 x 50 (10") Swim Golf MS: 8 x 150 (15") as 100 Hard, 50 Easy. 100 easy swim. 3 x 200 (15") pull, Steady with excellent stroke. 6 x 25 (15") as 25 Hard, 25 Easy CD: 100 easy swim
The pool was a little warm again, but I didn't care. For some reason, I felt really good in the pool today! Which surprised me after my increased strength workout yesterday. Oh well, I'll take it! I swam the 150's faster than last week, did 2 more of them than last week, I pulled well, it was all good. Went home and began my work day at 9:00AM, and had a few good conference calls; overall much less stress than yesterday.
11:55AM Lift 3x12, bis, delts and a few lat exercises; 14'. This was to finish up yesterday's workout. This was no big deal. I was going to go right into my run, but I putzed around; however, I did drink a can of Ultra Violence and eat a few Swedish Fish Aqua Life to get some calories in before running.
2:05PM Run 1:05 as WU: 15' Easy, 15' Steady MS: 25' Mod-Hard/z4 CD: 10' Steady.
All I can say is WOW. Did I ever feel GREAT doing this today! The main reason was that since I've been consistently stretching, my calves had absolutely ZERO strain in them, which translated into "floaty" pushoff on each stride, thus giving the rest of my legs nice cushioning. And bonus, I COULD HAVE run faster during the Mod-Hard segment (based on my heart rate), but I thought, nah, let's see if I can do that on Sunday during my long run when I get to do tempo work again.
So, so far this week's workouts are HARDER and LONGER than last week, and I'm feeling GREAT!!!!!! I'll take it. You never know when you'll have a "bad" day, but I think at least 50% of it is mental attitude, and I am feeling like I've made huge progress on that in the last few months. Make a few small changes like regular stretching and a little more sleep, and look what can happen!
Tonight I am going to eat good food. Even PASTA! FYI, one of my weight control secrets is that even though I train pretty high (ha ha) volume, I don't eat pasta very often. I do like it, but it can be heavy and I tend to eat too much of it (!). I eat brown rice almost daily, though, and my lunch always has some rice in it. I just don't eat huge volumes of it. But sometimes I can just tell when I need to kick up my calories and tonight is one of those. Since I'm feeling so good and training harder and longer this week, I'm going to put in some quality tonight to ensure I can nail my 2nd bike interval workout tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Do you follow the Paleo Diet that Gordo recommends? I have read the Pale for Athletes book and got some good info out of it. I have since cut all sugar and most processed stuff. I still need to work on cutting whole wheat pasta, one of my staples ...
No, I don't do a strict Paleo diet. Why? I don't have time, frankly, to be peeling/chopping/preparing the amount of fruits and veggies called for. Although I do a number of things that are good: rarely (if ever) patronize fast food joints; eschew pasta in favor of brown rice; limited dairy (I like string cheese as a snack, though); minimal processed food except what I consider fairly healthy (OK, my Lean Pockets breakfast thingies that I snack on aren't the healthiest, but I LOVE them); cook most of my dinners consisting of lots of veggies and lean protein; eat fairly low fat.
That's great you've cut all sugar. The secret is finding out what works for you. I feel pretty great eating the way I do now, because I get a lot of variety. I know I could/should eat more fruits and veggies, but at least I get 3-4 servings (according to RDA) per day of each.
Other than that, nothing magical. I don't eat until I'm full, I eat often (about every 2-3 hours), I don't skip meals, I know how many calories I'm burning and eating, and then I let my body tell me what I need. For example, sometimes I eat so little fat it's crazy, and my body will get me know because I'll crave it. At those times I will prepare a fairly high-fat pasta sauce and eat a ton of it. In the early fall I tend to have major protein cravings. I ate a LOT of beef this fall!
I grew up eating anything and everything, and I really enjoy the variety, including some level of processed foods. I really believe in the mantra "all things in moderation," and that keeps things balanced and ENJOYABLE to me. But my core 2500 calories per day is pretty high nutrient value, I think.
I'm such a stickler about everything else--sleep, stretching, getting in the workouts, massage, eliminating stress, that I'm not worried if I don't have the *perfect* diet. But I have made a commitment to get a little more strict with myself after Goofy Challenge.
Post a Comment