Just to let you know that I wasn’t exaggerating about the storm, this photo was taken last weekend, but not in Hawaii, but off the Irish Atlantic coast. The Guardian newspaper even had an article about it.Once more I fell into the late-night trap. I know I sound like a broken record, but I have to get a handle on that. Basically, on Monday I ran 17 miles, cycled 5 miles to work, spent lunchtime in the gym doing weights, cycled 5 miles back home and did plenty of household chores in the evening, all on less than 5.5 hours of sleep. Sustainable this is not. Surprisingly, I felt pretty good all day; I presume I drew some sleep-credit from the weekend, when I slept close to 9 hours each night.
Monday’s run itself was pretty good. The rain had mostly stopped, just a bit of drizzle every now and then remained, but the wind was still rather strong, and I reran Friday’s loops around the Devil’s Elbow. Running two loops gives you the option of comparing the first and second half of the run; if the second is considerably slower than the first, then you have gone out too fast. The opposite was true for me, the second loop was almost 4 minutes quicker. The long climb up to the ridge of the
All the head scratching isn’t going to lead me anywhere, and I wasn’t too surprised that the legs felt rather heavy today. In addition to the fast miles, they always feel awkward initially when I wear my minimalistic shoes. For the first 3 or 4 miles I feel out of balance, and each step feels ever so slightly wrong. I usually get into the swing of things eventually, it feels like my feet eventually adapt and start the rolling action by themselves instead of relying on the cushioned shoes to do the work. At least, as I said, that’s what it feels like. I don’t know what’s really going on, but something is different in my gait with those shoes. Maybe I’d adapt more if I wore those trainers more often than once a week, but so far I’m still chickening out.
I’m not running for weight related reasons, but I have taken an interest in my weight anyway. Before I started running it used to be around 158 pounds, and the last few years have always been very stable around the 150 mark. Since the Loch Ness marathon, my weight has slowly but steadily crept downwards, and I’m now around 145. I’m not on a diet, because I think that kind of thing is incompatible with long distance running, especially when doing high mileage, but I do watch my food intake. I have always eaten healthily (living with a vegetarian tends to have that effect), but recently I have stopped raiding the sweet cabinet in the evening. When I get hungry, I usually eat some fruit, which more often than not is enough to satisfy my appetite. The odd biscuit or chocolate is still allowed; after all I don’t subscribe to the ascetic lifestyle. Twice over the last month I failed to resist temptation and gorged out on sweets, but apparently twice a month is fine from a weight maintenance point of view. I don’t mind a bit of weight loss. I don’t see the difference in the mirror, but your running times are bound to be faster if you don’t have to carry around some extra layers of fat. By chance, a few days ago I stumbled across this article. Using my own height for the calculations, the average idle guy would weigh around 158 pound, 10 percent less than that would be 140 (still some way to go, but if my weight keeps dropping like in the last 2 months, this is where I might be headed), while the ideal racing weight for distance running would be 15% lower at 134 pounds (which seems extreme, and I doubt I’ll ever weigh so little. I’m also unsure how healthy that would be). Despite writing an entire paragraph about all that, I’m actually not obsessed with my weight. I’m just taking a reasonably detached interest.
- 3 Dec
- 17 miles, 2:11:28, 7:44 pace, HR 141
first loop 1:07:35 @ 7:57, second loop 1:03:52 @ 7:30. Last 3 @ 6:53 - 4 Dec
- 10 miles, 1:19:05, 7:54 pace, HR145
including 10x100 strides
I can't imagine how cold it must be to surf in that water!
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking about the impact of my weight on my running performance lately hypothesising (fantasizing more like) about reducing my marathon time by 10% simply by reducing my weight by 10% - the easiest route to a sub 3-hour marathon I have come up with so far. After all there is a linear relationship between weight and energy – i.e. energy equals weight by distance. Therefore a 10% reduction in weight gives a 10% increase in distance for the same energy input – simple. Obviously an optimum weight needs to be maintained to ensure energy production is not adversely affected.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the article I could lose a few pounds just to get down to average weight (180 versus 176) so there is a huge untapped resource in those extra pounds. I wonder is it than simple?
wow Thomas wish I were in your shoes right now regarding the weight.
ReplyDeleteWhoa, those are some huge waves!
ReplyDeleteSomeone once told me to imagine carrying a 10 lb bag of flour on a mile run - that's what it's like carrying 10 extra on your frame. Yikes!
Looks like a pretty normal south coast surf to me - except we have sunshine ;)
ReplyDeleteI remember an article about kilograms (I think 2.something pounds) and running speed. For every 1kg of 'excess weight' lost, you run 30 seconds faster over 10k.
Surf's up! And so too, apparently is your conditioning. You seem to be making gains exponentially. Don't look the gift horse in the mouth - take the 6:53 pace for the last three miles, it will come in handy come race day.
ReplyDeleteOh, how about some more pics of that lovely Maia?
Thomas,
ReplyDeleteThat's very good that your weight has been slowly going down.
I have a tendency to gain weight. Especially over eating. As long as i control my calorie intake, my weight is good.