Archive for March, 2011

Last night I started messing around with how I want the next couple months to look and came up with something fun that makes a bit of sense, too.

Here’s the thought behind it:
1. I’ve been thinking about getting up to 70mpw again but my most important consideration is keeping it fun.
2. I don’t do doubles, I’m a singles gal all the way, which means hitting 70 in a 6-day week requires a string of longer runs.  Doing this weekly would not be fun, it would most definitely become a grind and at this point in time, I’m vehemently anti-grind.  This schedule gives me variety, mileage and works the legs in a couple different combinations (longer runs in 6 days vs a 13-day stretch of shorter).  Good for brain and body.

So starting yesterday:
Week 1: Off,12,9,12,9,13,10 (65mi – basic week)
Week 2: Off,12,10,12,10,14,12 (70mi – longer runs)
Week 3: Off,8,10,7,8,12,9 (54mi – recovery week, shorter runs)
Week 4: 8,10,9,12,9,14,10 (72mi – no rest day but shorter runs achieve the mileage)

This is actually a sublimely easy schedule with room to grow – if  I get the urge in May, I’ll raise the mileage on the lower days.

Now in the past, my highest mileage weeks were a few 82s I hit while marathon training which included 3 workouts/week, so this is a walk in the park.  However, that was 7 days of running with an actual Long Run (20-23) which means the bulk of the other runs were shorter.  This makes Week 2 a slight challenge in its own way, though without quality runs in the mix I can go as slow as I need, so no biggie.

Speaking of, I’m remaining on a hiatus from quality work indefinitely.  I’ll continue with a mix of pacing, but “moderate pace” will continue to be my mainstay.  When I do re-introduce quality workouts, I have my eye on Steady State runs (between Marathon and Half pace…a common training pace before tempos became de rigueur).  Sure, it’s not as effective or efficient as tempos, but it sounds fun and that’s my buzzword for the season.

Oh, one you’ll notice is a seemingly big gap between the recovery week of 54 and the next week of 72, but you have to look at that section as day-to-day, not as weekly amount.  Day-to-day it’s actually a very even 2-week stretch.  Had to clarify since I could see that getting some raised eyebrows.

No Long Runs
The past couple months I was disinterested in reading about running but I’m happily back to my quasi-researching antics.  My mainstay is LetsRun.com where I search through old forum posts to investigate whatever assorted subjects are floating in my head – the latest being mileage and Long Runs.

If you’re marathon training, Long Runs are important – they’re the closest you’ll come to the race time/distance without ever actually getting to 26.2.  But for those of us targeting shorter and who have some mileage already in the pocket, you really don’t win points going overdistance.  That’s not to say 14 will be my absolute longest run from this point forward, I’m sure I’ll go longer for one of 3 reasons: 1. variety, 2. because I’m feeling kick-ass and it’s a beautiful day and 3. to grow the mileage.  But even then, 15-17 is as far as I’d go; what Pfitzinger calls a Mid Long Run, it doesn’t even qualify as a Long Run…eh, semantics.

So anyway, this is the framework that’ll take me through May.  And even though it’s kind of nothing, just an order to some mileage, seeing it laid out gives me a little thrill…like I’m beginning again.

I hit some strong mileage this last week, 66 of the little buggers that went like this:

Mon: Off
Tues: 12@8:17
Wed: 8@8:14
Thur: 9@8:29
Fri:  14@8:08
Sat:  12@8:20
Sun: 11@8:00
Total: 66 miles (avg pace 8:14)

The weather was cold again, not horrible but windchill in the 30s. Friday, I felt so cold in the Blue Hovel that I kept putting off getting into my running gear but once I finally got out there, it ended up being a fantastic run, my planned 10-11 morphing into a 14.

Yesterday was funny because I was going up the small hill to Fall’s Bridge when I felt someone lock into step right beside me.  I look to my left and there’s a girl with a big smile on her face who said something like “I knew if I could catch you, I was doing pretty good” which got a laugh from me.  We didn’t last long together as our paths diverged but it was cute and left me so cheery that I tacked on an extra mile.

That’s all I got today.  Though I did have a weird dream last night where my friend Jeff bought me a new tire for my unicycle.  He only wanted $1 for it.  I don’t have a unicycle but I woke up grateful anyway.  I love a good deal.

The week so far has been:  Monday off, Tuesday a 12-miler, yesterday 8 and today 9.  Yesterday was a late run due to Fran leaving my apartment at 2pm only to call a few minutes later with the words “My car’s not here!”  After asking him 3 times if he was serious before realizing his car had indeed been towed, I got a Zipcar and we anxiously made our way down to the creepy towing company area of Philly (they have their own icky enclave down there).  $251 later, the world was once again restored to normalcy…the shysters.

I’m running a bit slower this week, btw – purposely trying to widen the pace gamut because yeah, it’s fun to be running peppy all the time but then where do you go?  You end up wanting to top yourself each week and I can’t play that game, otherwise this is gonna turn into a grind.

Besides, while I’m not doing quality runs right now I have re-entered 60-65mpw so it’s not like I’m slacking.  Sure, it’s not nearly as effective as doing both workouts and mileage, but at least I’ve got one in the mix.

Appetite Suppressant Wrap-Up
I’m apparently a fickle creature; this experiment was far more interesting when I wanted to get back to 115lbs.  Once I realized my runs were trending for the better despite being 4 lbs up, I stopped giving a shit.  Even so, in the name of faux science, I did a few more tests this week since I said I would.

I tried Hoodia and Glucomannan after dinner (on different nights, of course) and while they do seem to help stave off hunger for an hour or so, neither is like “Wow, I couldn’t eat a thing!”   I’d say between the two, Glucomannan wins, not that it worked more effectively – they were pretty much the same – but at least you know what you’re ingesting with it. That said, I didn’t give Hoodia a fair shot since it should probably be taken a few days in a row to know if it works but I’m not into messing around with it that thoroughly.

The other thing is, I think both Hoodia and Glucomannan are probably more effective for those who don’t have a Stop button on them at meal time.  If I ate the way I did as a young chunky thing, to the point of always leaving the table stuffed, then I could see it having more of an impact.  They are, after all, meant to be taken before meals, but if you eat small meals already and just want to fend off occasional evening munchies, they’re kind of Meh.

Yerba mate remains the winner for my purposes.  I like the fact that it staves off hunger efficiently, doesn’t have any funny stuff added or processed into it and that it’s a common beverage for zillions of South Americans.  I won’t be drinking it all the time but I bought a french press specifically for brewing it.  It’s cool stuff.

A Death In The Family
It’s time to say goodbye to a trusted and longtime running companion, my Garmin 305. Even though it came back to life after the last rainy drowning, it lost another button and started acting strange this week – it starts beeping out of the blue and then the buttons stop working.  As much as I hated to admit defeat, I finally gave in and ordered another 305 at Amazon for $128.  They also had the 405 on sale for $169 but I prefer this version.  Now, please join me for a moment of silence in appreciation of my little mangled baby before I say goodbye for good.

Note the bottom strap is held on with fishing wire, the other strap's clasp is held on with electrical tape, it has 2 replacement buttons made out of wadded-up foil and attached with tape, numerous scratches from taking a few tumbles plus a weird oily drop beneath the screen that won't go away. It had a good life. Amen.

My runs.  They’re improving.  Why?  I think it’s a mixture of
1. Taking that 2-week break
2. Removing quality runs, thus taking all the pressure off and
3. Getting laid on a regular basis

OK, well maybe not that last one, but it sure has lifted my general mood.  As for the break, soon after I was back on the roads, I thought “That was very nice, but didn’t really do anything for my running”  but now I’m thinking it might be the catalyst for what’s going on.

Perhaps it’s like running higher mileage, that you see the fruits of it appear a couple cycles down the road.  Who’s to say the effects of a break wouldn’t be slightly delayed as well?  Might be totally bogus and have nothing directly to do with my current progress, but if nothing else, it gave me permission to do #2 on that list without fear of regressing.

Another interesting and positive thing is that I weigh 119, as I have for the last couple months.  The whole appetite-quashing experiment started because I wanted to get back to 115 (my weight over the winter) to eek out as much speed as I could but I was getting hungry at night while not wanting to count calories or be strict about dieting.

But if I’m getting faster at this heavier weight and it doesn’t give me the evening munchies, then screw it!  I’ll save 115 for its original and proper purpose: racing.  All I ever cared about with the weight thing was making progress and since it appears I now am (and can still fit in my tight jeans) it’s all good.

Now For The Runs…
As mentioned in last week’s post, my average pace that week was 8:10, something I hadn’t previously clocked without quality runs in the mix.  Also if you remember, I wore my HR monitor once to make sure I wasn’t racing my runs, which showed 77% HRR on an 8:03 run, perfectly respectable aerobic pacing.  Well…it was even better this week.

First off, here are the last 7 days:
Mon: Off
Tues: 9@8:14
Wed: 8@8:05
Thur: 9@8:20
Fri:  9@8:00
Sat:  14@8:09
Sun: 11@8:00
Total: 60 miles (avg pace 8:08)

Btw, when you don’t have any quality workouts, you don’t need recovery runs so if you look at these last couple weeks and wonder “where are the slow runs?” I just didn’t need any.  Trust me, if I need one I’ll do it but I won’t add one in unwarranted – the rest day has been providing adequate recovery.

Now lets talk about my last 3 runs, all of them notable:

Friday
What’s weird about Friday is that it was the warmest day of the year so far (72 degrees) and that’s usually a performance hit for me right off the bat.  I pared down to a sports bra and shorts, but because I’m a little shy about the first shirtless run of the year (because there are only a few other chicks out there who wear sports bras)  I ran faster from the get-go.  It’s a silly thought pattern that goes “If I’m gonna run nekkid, I better look the part”  So miles 2-4 averaged 7:41.  That was great until…

I got dehydrated during mile 4.  The fountains haven’t been installed yet so I knew I was somewhat screwed.  I made myself slow down and turned around early to make it a 9 instead of the planned 10.  As I was coming back, I felt like I was seriously trudging, like 8:30s, plus I was running into a headwind, so when I glanced at my Garmin and saw I was going 8:00 to 8:05s, it was genuinely freaky.  I stopped at the bathrooms (one mile from my house), drank from the sink and resumed, the last mile my slowest.

Saturday
Since Saturday is date night which always continues through the following afternoon (happy sigh) I’ve started doing my LRs on Saturday so I have less miles to fit in on Sunday.  I had planned to do 13 but it was so beautiful (mid-50s again) that I added an extra mile making it the longest run I’ve done since January.  I began at a conservative pace (first 3 miles averaged 8:40s) thinking this would indeed be the week’s slow run, but as I warmed up, it became an unexpected progression run, getting down to a couple miles at 7:30.  I really didn’t know where that came from.

Sunday – Another Effort Check
After Friday’s weird fast run and Saturday’s progression surprise, I needed to again check that I wasn’t perceiving myself as running easy but in actuality working too hard, so I wore the Heart Rate monitor.  Um…wow.  11 miles averaging 8:00/mi, HR was 159 (74% HRR), even better than the previous week’s test.  This means that whatever’s happening under my skin isn’t a fakeout and I’m not racing my runs at all – it’s the real deal.  Exciting!

The Racing Situation
With all this happy running going on, I had a really weird thought the other day. What if I don’t race again till next Fall?

My plans were to do a 5K in April and the Broad St. 10-miler in May.  The latter would be a huge PR no matter what since I haven’t run a 10-mile race in a couple years.  BUT, I’m also thinking why ruin this time of delight and peaceful running by getting myself worked up with performance angst?  I want to be hungry to race, not do it because I think I should or to get a PR by default.

So I haven’t made a decision yet but it’s a real possibility.  I’m considering continuing this no-training way through the summer, keeping the mileage between 60-70mpw, sharpening in the Fall and then have a coming-out party with the (previously named) Philadelphia Distance Run in September.

Whatever happens, I’m having one of my most satisfying running periods right now.  No day is a bad day. Can’t beat that with a stick.

I want to give everything a real chance before I report any conclusions, so I’m going to post my final observations in a week.  In the meantime, here’s how the testing’s been going:

Yerba Mate
I got my order from yerbamate.us on Wednesday and had some fun trying the different brands & flavors out. One thing’s for sure, I much prefer these yerba mates to the one I got at Whole Foods (Guayaki brand).  That one is extremely grassy/smoky tasting while the ones I ordered taste more like teas.  The one from Whole Foods works though, so it’s definitely worth trying if you want to test it out – just remember to buy loose tea – if you get teabags by mistake, you’ll need to infuse 3 or 4 to get the right strength.  If you decide you like it, order online; it’s cheaper and tastier.

A whole lotta Yerba Mate

I haven’t tried the Rosemonte Especiale yet or the free sample flavor they sent (Mountain Nut Premio) but I’ve tried the white chocolate and really liked it.  It has a relaxing, slightly sweet flavor (it contains stevia but I add more sweetener and milk) and while it’s not a dead ringer for white chocolate, it’s a great evening drink and didn’t give a buzz at all, though I only used 2Tbs so I wouldn’t get much caffeine.  I had a cup at 10pm and was able to go to sleep at my normal time, though because I brewed it conservatively, I was peckish an hour later and went for the carrots.

Now, yesterday morning I had the super-duper strong one, Mahtay.  That one has guarana seed, ginseng and extra yerba extract added and is touted as having “twice the kick of of any Yerba Mate on the market today“ .  I friggin’ believe it!  About 30 minutes after I had a cup, I was an absolute buzzing bee at the sewing machine! It was kind of funny actually, how I became uber-motivated and focused on the task at hand.

For a daytime pick-me-up it can’t be beat, but avoid it at night (not that I tried, you can just tell it’d keep you up).  I’m going to drink some before my next early morning voiceover gig – sometimes it’s hard to get my brain wrapped around medical/technical jargon at 9am but this stuff will have me zoned in from the get-go.

Like the other yerba mates, it keeps you from getting hungry but it’s not like you want to stop eating completely.  I had no problem downing my meals, I just didn’t get as hungry between as I ordinarily would.

Glucomannan
I was timid about trying Glucomannan, which is interesting since it’s just fiber so in reality, it’s the least mysterious of any of these things I’m testing out.  But as I mentioned on a Facebook update, it has me thinking of the gelatinous creature from Alien, so when I tried it a couple nights ago, I only took 2 capsules instead of the suggested 3.  It seemed to fill me up some but didn’t last too long.  Since I didn’t choke, poop excessively or discover any jelly-like creatures bursting from my stomach, I’m going to test it with the proper 3-capsule dose next.

Hoodia
I tried it last night.  Since my interest in all this is focused on apres dinner snacking, I was tempted to take it a couple hours after dinner but followed the directions and took it an hour before dinnertime. I actually wasn’t expecting it to work since I’d read that you might have to take it for a few days before it starts working, which is one reason I was ready to dismiss it summarily.

Surprisingly, it seemed to work right off the bat. I held off cooking for an extra hour because I wasn’t hungry enough to go for it (and I’m always ready for dinner).  Btw, the kind I got, Source Naturals Hoodia, is the priciest of everything I’m testing but as I mentioned in another post, it’s worth it to me to spend the extra dosh since there are fakes out there and I trust this company.

Anyway, I found myself wanting to snack a couple hours after dinner, so next time I’ll try it mid-evening to see if that works because I don’t need or want my meals affected, I have no truck with those.  Ditto with Glucomannan, btw…it’s suggested to be taken 20 minutes before a meal, so I’m going to experiment with the timing of that, too.

Almost There
So the jury’s still out on Glucomannan and Hoodia.  I need to give them a couple more tries taken at different times to judge their effectiveness properly so keep an eye out for my final conclusions in a week or so.

Yerba Mate is genuinely effective for appetite suppression, however it can give you some added energy along with it, more or less depending on your brew strength.  While it won’t give you caffeine jitters, you’d have to do your own experimentation to figure out the right amount for the job.

I’ll close by giving my most humble apologies to those of you who don’t give a crap about any of this.  Normal posts will resume with the next one (not that there’s anything interesting going on anyway, but one can always hope).  In the meantime, have a great weekend, all!

Last Week’s Runs
…continued.  Saturday was an 8-miler @ 8:03 and Sunday was a 13-miler @ 8:15.  The week ended with 57.3 miles averaging 8:10.  I usually don’t pay attention to how the week averages but this was worthy of note because, in looking through my logs, the only times I’ve had such a quick weekly average was when speed, tempo or a race were included but this was all “regular” runs.  The combination of the weather mixed with a happy head from no “have to’s” or “shoulds” made for some lighthearted, lightfooted miles.

I also wore my HR monitor for Saturday’s run and was very pleased with the result.  As a matter of interest, right after my 2-week break I wore the monitor see what time off does to a girl’s heart and was shocked by how high it was: 162 (76%HRR) for 8:42 avg.  Not a bad HR as a whole, but very high considering the pace.   Comparatively, Saturday’s run was 164 for 8:03 avg…way better!  Additionally, the knee is happy again.  It’s all good in Flo Camp.

Appetite Suppressants
…continued.  I found an entertaining video of a guy taking us through Yerba Mate preparation and explanation.  Not only is the guy charming and quite a cutie, but it’s informative, too.  I’m supposed to get my Yerba order in tomorrow, btw, so I’m looking forward to trying the different ones out.  As far as taking it late, since it does have caffeine (more or less depending on if it’s a first infusion and the amount used), I’d say you’ll have to experiment to see if it messes with your bedtime or not.  Here’s an excellent article that a commentor linked to in the last post (thanks Illiterate Primates) if you want to read about the chemical and study stuff behind it.

I also found another appetite suppressant that doesn’t contain anything stimulating at all.  This is a good thing if you don’t want the energy/mental boost Yerba can give (and is surely better for evening consumption if caffeine is a problem).  This one is called Glucomannan and all it is, is fiber.  It comes from a  root that’s been consumed in Japan for over 1000 years.  Here’s some info on it.

You have to take water with it or you can choke (seriously, that’s on the bottle) because it turns into gelatin, which fills you up.  Apparently, it’s also good for constipation due to its fibrous properties so it’s used for that as well.  I haven’t tried it yet though I did get a bottle at Whole Foods this morning.  I’m holding off on testing it out because tonight is date night and if it makes me fart, that could be problematic.

A common way to use it is to open the capsule and put it directly into a smoothie or in oatmeal which seems to thicken it up.  I read some woman used it for a sauce thickener.  I’m not that brave so I’ll be testing it out by keeping it in capsule form.

That’s it so far in the land of experimentation.  I’ll check in with the results of this stuff in the next post.  In the meantime, have a great day, all!