Wrapping up the first week of January, and once again wondering what...happened? It seems like I update this blog quarterly, hopefully that will change. Why? Because I think I'm going to have a lot more granular updates and 'deep thoughts'. How? Well, my fingers need to touch the keyboard more frequently. I think my updates will be shorter, more media filled, and less about quantity (training miles), more about quality (what's going on).
What is going on right now? Well, I've gotten my long runs up to 10 miles over the XMas break. That's 10 miles at 5000 feet, in low double digit temperatures (~20 degrees). Granted, all of this running was done along the Rio Grande river basin, so there was no altitude gain, but it still felt like an evil monkey was squeezing my chest the whole time, and every run started out as a 10:30 'shuffle'. I managed to put in a 34 mile week while I was at home, which is my longest week in a long time.
That's the good news. The bad news is after that week we were travelling and skiing, certainly not doing running. I was skiing for the first time in 20+ years (fun!), but doing it with the kids (not super hard). And I ate and drank my way through the holiday. I've now got a spare tire. Sure, it's a racing tire, but it's a spare tire nonetheless.
More bad news: I've got some kind of nerve pinch in my shoulder that makes it hard to sleep, let alone turn my head. Agggh. Getting old.
This leads me to my conclusion: Nutrition and Stretching are as if not more important than the training miles. I'm coming up on 44, and the same mileage that would have dropped weight off of me like melting water off of an ice cube 15 years ago is....not doing that. Also, I'm running those miles a bit slower than I did 15 years ago. Because if I go faster right now...injuries happen.
So, what to do? It turns out I may have a corporate health benefit that I can apply towards being healthy. If that is the case, I'm going to apply it towards nutrition. I was doing pullups last Friday, and my shirt rode up to expose that tire and love handles. I always make fun of my wife for being motivated to exercise by vanity, but I have to say that shot of my gut was sobering, I'm hoping that image (seared to my eyelids) can be used to resist eating gut enhancing foods that are incredibly yummy going down.
What is going on right now? Well, I've gotten my long runs up to 10 miles over the XMas break. That's 10 miles at 5000 feet, in low double digit temperatures (~20 degrees). Granted, all of this running was done along the Rio Grande river basin, so there was no altitude gain, but it still felt like an evil monkey was squeezing my chest the whole time, and every run started out as a 10:30 'shuffle'. I managed to put in a 34 mile week while I was at home, which is my longest week in a long time.
That's the good news. The bad news is after that week we were travelling and skiing, certainly not doing running. I was skiing for the first time in 20+ years (fun!), but doing it with the kids (not super hard). And I ate and drank my way through the holiday. I've now got a spare tire. Sure, it's a racing tire, but it's a spare tire nonetheless.
More bad news: I've got some kind of nerve pinch in my shoulder that makes it hard to sleep, let alone turn my head. Agggh. Getting old.
This leads me to my conclusion: Nutrition and Stretching are as if not more important than the training miles. I'm coming up on 44, and the same mileage that would have dropped weight off of me like melting water off of an ice cube 15 years ago is....not doing that. Also, I'm running those miles a bit slower than I did 15 years ago. Because if I go faster right now...injuries happen.
So, what to do? It turns out I may have a corporate health benefit that I can apply towards being healthy. If that is the case, I'm going to apply it towards nutrition. I was doing pullups last Friday, and my shirt rode up to expose that tire and love handles. I always make fun of my wife for being motivated to exercise by vanity, but I have to say that shot of my gut was sobering, I'm hoping that image (seared to my eyelids) can be used to resist eating gut enhancing foods that are incredibly yummy going down.
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