24 March 2009 – Update

It’s been a few days since I blogged. Our internet stopped functioning over the weekend and it took a while to get it back up. Unfortunately, I can’t view blogs at work, so haven’t been able to log in. 

I won’t post the past few days of food, but I’ll summarize – totally paleo, not so totally zone. My portions were off, especially on the weekend. I was mostly eyeballing the last few days. You will notice my Saturday event forced me into two rest days on Sun and Mon …

Friday – gtg to the end of the day, but shared a piece of tiramisu w/ Keith. It was delicioso! I was also super hungry on Friday and ended up eating my afternoon snack with my lunch. I don’t think having just dairy in the morning (cottage cheese and ricotta cheese) or for my snack does much to satisify my hunger

 Saturday: I was WAY off on Saturday, particularly on the fat. I noticed over these days that my body wanted fat and so I gave it fat – esp on Saturday – lots of peanut butter/almond butter.  I also ran in the national marathon Saturday at the but-crack of dawn (I can see you fuming Brian). Yes, I know, ‘jogging’ makes me slow, fat and injured. But, I had signed up, paid the fee long before starting crossfit and committed to running it with my friend who’s gearing up for her ironman. Anyway, we ran it with no time/objective in mind, which was interesting in itself for us. I was so unfocused on it, in fact, that unlike past triathalons/marathons, I didn’t have anything ready from the night before (which is not a good thing for me at 430 am), couldn’t figure out what to wear since it was a little colder than I thought it would be and when my friend picked me up I realized I had totally forgotten to eat breakfast. Oops. Not good. Very unlike me, as I’m usually pretty meticulous on the planning for races and even my daily food intake.  I settled for some stale pretzels my friend had in her car to tie me over for a bit -  but it didn’t really do the trick. Later in the run, I wished I had eaten something more substanital and after the race I had a bananna and 1/4 of a bagel to hold me over till I got home. So, there go my zone carbs for the day — eaten without any protein, mostly due to my poor planning. Of course, I had some more carbs later, but was pretty focused on the fat and protein my body craved after the run. Went out that night and got a little further off the zone…

What I learned from this run: I’m glad I was there to run with my friend and enjoyed the scenery and all…but only for about the first 4-5 miles. I was so freakin’ bored..and I’ve run much, much longer races than this. I think this confirmed that I’m done with road running. I had turned to running trails a while back which is better, but this just really sucked (performance and experience-wise). I was feeling that before I started crossfit, but this just really solidified it. I won’t say never, but I will say not anytime soon… I need variation and the straight endless (uphill) pavement roads through the city were driving me crazy, literally. If I weren’t running with Christine, I would have turned around and walked home about mile 5. Interesting, because I’ve never quite felt like that before. Not to mentioned that I was still feeling the 4 WODS earlier in the week (again, the planning factor, or lack there of, comes into play).

And as for the after effects of not training for a run and not running in months –  my knees hurt a LOT after run – they felt like they used to feel after I ran marathons and ultras, which made me feel kind of wimpy, but I figure its because I’ve barely pounded the pavement since fall of  last year…or some have said it could be me reaching the 30 year mark when “funny things happen”(but I’ll keep denying that). Next day, knees were fine, but  Sunday and Monday, my right lower calf/achilles was super super tight and sore so, unfortunately, I forced myself into a couple rest days. I guess a positive note would be that no other muscles were sore at all. Quads, hamstrings, back and other calf were totally fine. I think what I felt afterwards in my knees and my calf was due to the trauma my body took from the pavement – it can’t be good for me and I don’t plan to do it again anytime soon. 

Sunday, food, stuck to paleo/zone and rest day – not measuring. 

Mon — gtg on paleo, not on zone part – I was over on all in the evening – directly attributed to my extreme hunger from missing my afternoon snack. I simply forgot to pack it in the morning and by the time I realized it at work, it was after 4 and the little shops had closed:-( I’ve been a little off since Thursday, but back on track today.

So: lessons learned from the last week– (1) Need more substance in the a.m. to hold me over (2)Don’t skimp on fat during regular meals. I felt like maybe it was too much fat I was taking in. But, after decreasing my fat intake earlier in the week I think my body craved it and compensated for it over the weekend. I’m not sure how it affected my performance yet, as all this is still pretty new. (3) Fibrous carbs really do help (4) May need to experiment taking zone protein blocks 1/2 up, as I was regularly craving more prtn throughout the week (may try 11/5/28). (5) running is boring, takes too much time  and it makes my knees hurt:-)

Wow- that was really long.