Week 1: Done-zo

Miles Run This Week: 0
Days Until Burlington: 104

Well, week 1 of 16 is in the books! Part of me feels a little pathetic that I'm celebrating the first week of training, but this is the only time I can remember doing the following things while training:

(a) Starting my schedule on time
(b) Actually running the distance on the schedule
(c) Not living in unbearable pain while trying to accomplish (b)

So these are 3 steps in the right direction. I ran a total of 15 miles last week (which is my highest since the beginning of January), and I swapped a couple days here and there (because of the cold in Wisconsin). I ended up running 6 miles on Saturday and running 2 yesterday (instead of 3 on Friday and 5 on Saturday), and today I feel 100% fine. Totally not my usual marathon-training gig.

This week I have 17 miles total, with a 7 mile run on Saturday. Totally doable. I'm trying for 6 weeks of solid cross-training to make sure that when my mileage volume increases, I have a strong athletic base to draw from. This means 2 or 3 days a week of strength training, a day of spinning, and a day on the elliptical until my half marathon in March. I also figure I can trick myself out of fatigue by making it seem like I'm cutting back on activities (rather than noticing the 27-36 miles a week I'm running instead).

My 6 miler was in a snow shower. Well - as "snowy" as it has been here this winter (not complaining!). With the new revelation that my GPS is off by 0.16 miles, I had to compensate and run 6.16 miles, which was kind of annoying. I was supposed to be hitting 11:15s all week, but I hammered out this run at 10:51s. Not the greatest idea, but 6 miles for me right now is kind of my baseline - I've raced it, I've run a couple miles over it, and I've been running it consistently enough since Novemberish that it's really not going to wreak havoc on my legs. I'll have to much more careful when I get to 9+ miles, since I haven't seen those distances since summer 2010.

My stride suffered a little bit, too. I did a strength session with my trainer (and co-worker) Dom, and he toasts me every time. My glutes were SCREAMING the whole 6 miles. I better have the cutest-but-in-a-swimsuit this side of hell come summer time!

Today I start week 2 with 3 miles at an 11:15 pace. I'm also torturing myself with another session with Dom - but I'll be cutting back to twice-a-month, since his workouts take me out of commission for 48+ hours.

I've also started to focus on what I'm eating a bit more, and making an effort to eat fresher, less processed foods. My BFF/running buddy Val gave me a recipe for a breakfast burrito that she swears by. It has a balance of "healthier" fats (which, growing up in the 90s, is inconceivable. Fat needs to be avoided at all costs!), protein and fiber, to leave you fuller longer. I tweaked it a bit (because it called for cheese, and I already have 2 dairy servings a day, and sun dried tomatoes, which I can't get myself to like. Bleck.):

1 whole wheat tortilla
1 egg, scrambled (I added fresh ground pepper to it, too)
1/4 cup sprouts
1/4 of an avocado
2 pieces of deli-sliced turkey

It comes out at 305 calories, 14g of fat (mostly the avocado), 23g protein, 15g of fiber (because I got tortillas that had 12g in them).

I ate at my normal time (9ish) and wasn't hungry again until around 12:30 (as opposed to 10:15). I'm moved my yogurt-fruit-oatmeal eating until the afternoon and cut out the frozen lunch - mostly because of the high sodium. Day 1 is going pretty well, and the money I spent on the fresh ingredients was saved on not buying those frozen meals - those bad boys are expensive!

The one struggle I see is I'm missing my daily calorie count by about 200, and that's enough to send my body into starvation mode (theoretically. Does your body think you're starving it if it's not hungry, though?). Deprivation while training at the level I want to train at won't totally fly (although, I think that's what happened when I was training for my tri last year). Guess I'll have to eat a couple cookies to balance it out :)