Chasing My Joy

My journey to becoming an Ultra Runner and Ironman

Archives for October 2012

Meeting with a sports nutritionist

On Friday last week I had an hour long nutrition “tune-up” with Dina from Fuel4mance. A tune up includes:
Our Nutrition Tune-Up is a one-time consultation for those seeking assistance with their daily eating program and competition day planning. Whether it is fine tuning your nutrition to ensure good immune and cardiovascular health or overcoming a weight loss plateau, this service includes a customized eating program based on past medical health history, fitness level and future nutrition goals.  
Competition day nutrition is also included in this assessment when time allows.
I was excited for this meeting because I have been looking to clean up my diet a bit and lean out for heavy training come spring.  I am at a “healthy” weight but feel that I could lose about 15 pounds and be able to swimbikerun easier. Since I sort of thought that Ironman training would help knock some pounds off (It did not….bummer) I thought I would call in the professionals. Dina was super nice and fun to talk to, her main advice was to not count calories or do crazy diets but to work on metabolic efficiency (i.e. not spiking your blood sugar). I don’t want to give everything away since this is her job and everyone’s nutrition needs are different but I am changing my diet to see how I feel and if I can drop a few pounds.
The biggest change is getting rid of grains and extra crap from my diet. 
I am not going low carb, I am still eating plenty of low-fat dairy and fruit, I am just avoiding breads, rice and starchy veggies. This will be a bit of a challenge for me because I really like grains and starchy veggies (goodbye butternut squash, pumpkin and sweet potato). I am going to give it a try for two weeks to see how I feel, if I have enough energy to get through 15+ hours of training and if I drop a few pounds.
Oh yeah….Alcohol is a nono as well =(
Have you ever worked with a nutritionist or wish you could? Did you find that it created a big change in your diet, body or life?

First Big Week Back

I won’t call it Ironman training since I still have more than 11 months until Ironman Lake Tahoe so I will just say I was back to training. Last week was my biggest volume week since finishing IMCDA and I am feeling it today! It feels really good to be back at it but also reminds me of how sore and tired I was all the time last spring. I really need to nail down some recovery aids, I know what to do but am sometimes just to lazy/busy to do it. Here was last week in review:

Monday: easy six mile run before work then 60 minute body pump in the afternoon
Tuesday: Track practice including 1 mile time trials
Wednesday: 90 minute spin class and body pump
Thursday: 45 minutes Yoga
Friday: 90 minute spin into a hard 20 minute transition run and strength training in the evening
Saturday: 11 mile hilly trail run (was supposed to do strength training but watched OSU beat BYU while following Kona live, priorities!) this run was SO beautiful!

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Sunday: 66 mile hilly ride with fast friends (easy ride for them, pushing it for me;) No pictures from the ride since we forgot our camera but it was a great way to enjoy the fall colors!
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It was a good week, total hours came to something like 16ish hours training. This week is fairly similar with some juggling for two evening events at work and traveling on Sunday.

What does a big training week look like to you? Last week was biggish with 16+ hours of training, really big will be more like 22+ hours.

Fourth Quarter

I can’t believe it’s already October, where did September go? October is my favorite month, I love the changing leaves, the moderate temperatures and all the fun harvest activities. I am not ready for snow but I am ready to be done with the 80+ degree days. On Saturday we enjoyed a beautiful trail run near Nederland Colorado. Sourdough trail was a little rocky but mostly runnable and very beautiful!

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The aspens were bright yellow, it was worth it just for the drive, the mountains are gorgeous right now, and it won’t be long until they are covered in white. I hope to come back to this trail in the winter to snow shoe!

October also signals the start of the fourth quarter of the year, the last chance to get things you wanted to get done in 2012 before we ring in 2013. I had lofty goals for 2012, I am happy that I met the most important one but have to accept that I probably won’t meet all my 2012 goals. I feel ok rolling some of the into 2013, this year wasn’t perfect but it’s still been great. So here is my progress on my 2012 resolutions:

1. Follow my training plan as best I can. I am TERRIBLE at this, I know you can’t control everything so following 100% of the time is not reasonable but I need to be better. What is the point of hiring a coach if I just do whatever I want anyway? Still working on getting better at this, I think this might be an ongoing fight.

2. PR in half and full marathons check for the half marathon back in the spring, I had planned on running a marathon before the ironman but had to skip it because I had some over use injuries acting up and it just wasn’t worth it so close to ironman, this one will have to roll over to 3013. I have already signed up for the Colorado Marathon, hoping to PR there!

3. Complete the ironman (most important goal) DONE!!!



4. Complete an ultra marathon Sadly, not done =( I thought I would be able to shift focus after ironman and spend the summer running trails in the mountains. After a bad ankle injury in July I was derailed from reaching this goal at a early fall race. It is SUPER tempting to try to attempt this one in a non race self supported 31 miles. I have wanted to meet this goal for a long time and I knew that when I signed up for Ironman Lake Tahoe that I would be giving up an ultra marathon in 2013 so I could focus on Ironman, road running and avoiding injury. So this may happen not at a race (since there aren’t any in December) I will have to try to talk my husband into helping me accomplish this one.

5. Get to my training weight by April (10-12 lbs lighter than I am now) and racing weight by June. I was closer in the spring, but I am still working on getting there, I am hoping to be solidly at “training weight” by the end of the year.

6. Be better about blogging (i.e. more consistent, better pictures, etc.) This is a repeat from last year but I want to continue to improve. This is a COMPLETE fail, must do better.

7. Run 1,000+ miles and ride 3,000+ miles I think I am on track for this, but I am not great at tracking all the time.

8. Focus on strength all year This dropped off during peak ironman training but I am back at it now

9. Stay injury free, this will be most important in helping me reach all other goals Hmmmm, I did get injured but it wasn’t as bad as the last two years so that is progress. I am trying to get better about recovery.

So it’s a mixed bag but I am happy about the progress so far, now I jut need to talk my husband into a gorilla ultra-marathon late in December…what do you think hon??