Friday, August 29, 2008

marathon pace and breakfast

I did a tusca pick 'em this morning -- meaning I grabbed one of the workouts he suggested and did it. I did 2 mi wup, 4 x (1 mi MP, 0.5 mi MP + :30), 2 mi cdn for 10.0 miles. I did the MP on a .1 miles per lap track. Miles were (from memory) 7:35, 7:33, 7:32, 7:32 and "rests" were ~ 3:53 - 3:57 (didn't quite slow :30). On the last MP effort my heart rate was around 168 for the last half of the last MP interval, so that's right what I'd expect. It would generally drop to ~157 by the end of the MP + :30 segment. All of this was in a steady rain that left me soaked. I don't really mind running in the rain except that my shoes get soaked. Weather was 68/dp 68 (100% humidity), so this was a decent result. Still I think I'm north of 3:15 (7:26 pace) right now even with an ideal course and ideal weather. If I dropped some of this weight though, I think I'd be in business.

Now onto breakfast. I usually don't eat breakfast except a granola bar in the car. Yesterday I felt awful by lunch and realized I ran 600 cals and then ate only 140 by lunch. That can't be good. This of course leaves me starving and I end up eating 70% of my calories between 6 and 9 pm, which probably isn't good. Anyway, this morning I had Recoverite (180 cals) when I got back, a bowl of Kashi (160) after I got out of the shower and a Trader Joe's granola bar in the car (140). Well, it's a start.

How do you allocate your calories throughout the day?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Calories: I'm putting in some heavy mileage again and am having my weight settle btw 160-161 most days...I've been avg about 3000-3100 calories, all in about 5 or 6 smaller meals throughout the day. I use calorie-count, others use fit day--whatever works for you. But you'll need to get a sense of your intake vs your output over the course of weeks.

Once there, I'd say run no more than a 500 calorie a day deficit (1 lb. a day; any more, you'll get hurt). That said, with a lingering injury, your body needs to calories to repair itself, so take heed if you're dinged.

Per the MP ints, it takes a lot of will-power to do them on a .1 track--is there anyway to do them on a marked path, the roads, the tmill, or a HS track? That's a lot of turning (which slows you down), but more importantly, that's added stress on your knee.

Greg said...

Normally, I would have done this on the roads/trails, using my garmin for pacing, but I couldn't think of any direction in Northern VA to go where it isn't hilly (and bad for my knee). (On the other hand we're blessed with great trails around here.)

There is actually a track ~2k away as I recall, which is just about perfect for a warmup. Probably should have done that, but I'm not sure about whether the high school uses it at that time of the morning (6-6:45) and didn't want to take the chance.

Of course counting calories is the answer, but it's just so damn hard! Running hours in the rain is cake by comparison.

Mindi said...

I have trouble with this too now that I am working. For the last couple years, I could graze all day. Now, I wake up, run, get ready and go to work. Next thing I know it is 11:00 am, I've been up since 5 and haven't had a single calorie other than the cream in my coffee. Bad habit - I am starting to force myself to eat in the am....

Nice run today!