2009 Recap - so far

So there's still a week or so left in 2009, and I plan on doing at least some running and probably at least one weight session in the next 8 days. But I reached another goal today, so to summarize:

Running

• 1020.8 miles
• 117 hours, 11 minutes, 57 seconds
• 160 runs
  
• Avg 6.38 miles per run
• Avg pace 10:25/mile

Biking

• 1000.0 miles ☺
• 58 hours, 49 minutes, 25 seconds
• 71 rides
• Avg 14.08 miles per ride
• Avg speed 17.0 mph

Swimming

• Approx 3 miles
• No idea on time or pace
• 13 Occurrences

Weights

• 21 hours, 46 minutes
• 40 Occurrences

This info will be very helpful when it comes to setting 2010 goals... which I currently do not have. But I will, shortly...

End of the sugar fast?

I'm seriously considering ending my sugar fast. I have two weeks to go and I've been doing it for two weeks. I had two basic purposes for trying this:

• To see if I would feel any healthier by replacing refined sugar with more natural foods, like honey.
• To see if I'd lose any weight.

I'm not entirely sure that 15 days is long enough, but I think by now I have a good idea. I don't really feel any healthier -- in fact, I think I feel a little less healthy. I'm gassy a lot, and I'm ironically a little more tired. I don't know that these two things are directly related to the change in diet or not, but they have coincided. And I haven't lost any weight, despite exercising the same amount (or a little bit more) than I was before... And I'm a little grouchy because I'm missing out on some really yummy food!!!!

So, has it run its course? Does anyone think that more time would yield more benefits? Would I feel more like making this a lifestyle change if I gave it two more weeks?

Now, to be fair, I have discovered some new recipes that I really like and that are a bit healthier than their sugar-laden counterparts... at least, I think they are. I'm not considering ending this and going on a junk food binge or anything, and I'll probably ease into the former "diet" gradually. Also, I think I'll be more moderate in general when it comes to refined sugar consumption if for no other reason than I now know of at least a couple of good alternatives.

So with all that in mind, what say ye, o blogosphere?

Day 4, no sugar

To recap, I going from the day after Thanksgiving to the day before Christmas Eve with no refined sugar. Today is day 4 of this experiment, and it's going rather well. Day 1 was particularly hard, because I hadn't planned for it and hadn't prepared any substitutes for the candy and snacks, etc., that are laying around our house perpetually, and especially this month of the year. Serendipitously, my sister emailed me a recipe for peanut butter bars the same day that Frayed Laces posted a similar recipe on her blog. I sort of combined the two into a really yummy snack that has been my fall back when I need a cookie-ish treat. Basically, this is my version of the recipe:

• 1 cup chunky peanut butter
• 3/4 cup honey
• about 1 cup nonfat dry milk
• 1 1/2 cups oats
• 1 TBS unsweetened cocoa
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Microwave the PB & honey together to make it more stir-able, then add oats, cocoa, and vanilla. Add dry milk until it becomes non-sticky enough to roll into a ball (about the size of a cookie-dough ball before you bake it). Refrigerate on waxed paper until firm. Enjoy.

They're goooooooooooood. They're not calorie-free or anything like that, but they're good. I think overall I'm running on fewer calories, mainly from missing the soda and all the candy that finds its way into my gullet. I will weigh in today as an official "beginning" weight after my run at lunchtime, and then again weekly and on the 23rd to keep track of any progress. I do plan on continuing to run and exercise at normal (for me) levels during this experiment. Keep ya posted.

Diet month and updates

Okay, so I think I figured out what's up with my foot. It's the shoes. The doctor suggested as much when I went in back in September, just before the marathon. However, he indicated the wrong shoes. Here's the deal. Today I went outside for a 5 mile run in my Nike Vomero 3s. It felt fine... for the first half mile. Yeah. Then it felt a little wanky. At the end of 5 miles, it was definitely irritating, if not a little bit painful. The day it started hurting, way back in September? Sure, it was after a 20 mile run in my New Balance 805s, but that run was a day after 6.1 miles in the Nikes. Then the trial run the next Thursday, when I only got through 2 miles before walking it in? Yeah, in the Nikes. The marathon? You know, where my foot hurt the whole freaking time? Again, the Nikes. Then, the next trial run 2+ weeks after the marathon... where I did only 2 miles on the treadmill because my foot started acting up... yep, you guessed it, the Nikes. Incidentally, I've done a few other runs in the 4-5 mile range in the last few weeks, NOT in the Nikes, and I've been great. Until today. 5 miles in the Nikes, and ouch.

So the Nikes are for sale. Anyone want a pair of slightly used Vomero 3s? I have 100.9 miles on them, still lots of life left (200-400 miles easy). Just not for me.

On another note, the lack of any real long runs or rides or anything in the last 6-7 weeks since the marathon is starting to take a toll on my waistline (yeah, Halloween has something to do with it too.) And Thanksgiving and Christmas and just December in general coming up aren't going to help, really. So here's what I decided to do: No sugary junk foods (including soda - oy vey!) for a month for yours truly. Now, there may be a sugary component to a meal, such as teriyaki sauce (lots of sugar there) on chicken, or something like that, but that will be it. There will be no candy, no non-diet soda (HFCS, that means you), no brownies, cookies, or pastries, no cinnamon rolls, no maple syrup, no hot chocolate, none of that. This will last from the day after Thanksgiving (I get to bring the cheesecake, and I'm not going to miss out!) until December 23rd (because Christmas Eve is the traditional family cinnamon roll breakfast, and I'm not going to miss out on that either!) So it's not quite a month, but still. Anyone who knows me will know this is a major undertaking for me, and I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to accomplish it, but this will be my goal. I'm going to allow myself 2 cheats for the month, just so I don't get derailed if I fall off the wagon for a shake or something just once. But only 2. That's it.

I'll be posting updates, including weigh ins, etc., as I go. This should be interesting (to me, at least).

4 miles! Happy Day!!

Today I decided to give the peroneal tendon another test. I've been sick for about a week, give or take, with a cold/cough/weakness fit that kind of came and went from last Tuesday through Saturday. Never got a fever or chills or aches, thankfully. So, since last Monday I've not only been off my foot, but I've been off of everything. I'm feeling about 90% recovered today, so I brought in running clothes and shoes and hit the treadmill (torture on a beautiful day like this one!) at lunch time. Again, I wanted to be able to stop whenever I wanted if I felt the tendonitis wake up.

I hit the treadmill and started off at an easy 10 minute pace... went a mile, no problem. Bumped up the speed to 6.1 (9:50 pace) and went another mile, no problem. My foot did feel a little wanky in a lot of places, but not where it's been hurting, and they all worked themselves out. In short, I ended up at 4 miles in 39:12, a 9:48 avg pace, and NO PAIN. BooYah!

After I stopped the treadmill and stepped off, I could feel slight tenderness where the pain has occurred in the past. (Hear that!? In the PAST! WOOHOO!) But nothing that's going to alter my gait or even cause any real discomfort. I will take it as a sign not to run tomorrow (at the least), but I will be back running now. And that's a good thing. I was starting to go insane.

New Goals....

So, 2009's marathoning season is in the books, and now I enter "maintenance mode" also known as "base building" in preparation for 2010. In 2009, for the first time I ran two marathons in a calendar year, setting 2 PRs and finally busting through that 5 hour barrier with my 4:34:40 finish at St George. I feel that at St George I ran what could possibly be my best marathon effort. Now I have to ask myself...

"What are you going to do next!?"

I wish the answer could be "I'm going to Disneyland!" but it appears that the finances thereto will be insufficient. However, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about setting goals for 2010.

Should I aim to:

• Run more marathons? (perhaps achieving a sub-4:30 or even target a 4:00 marathon range?)
• Try a triathlon? (including open-water swim, something I haven't done yet)
• Do a duathlon? (That's usually a run-bike-run format - like a tri, without the swimming)
• How about a half-ironman? (There's one in Utah Lake in August...)
• How about a bike race? Lotoja? 1000 Warriors? Something else? A century?
  

I'm just not sure. I did get approached at church last week to run in the 2010 Ragnar Wasatch Back Relay, which I think I have my wife talked into letting me do, which will be fun and won't require nearly the training commitment that a marathon (or any of the other above choices) would. But that's in June. The year is only just half over at that point. I need more goals to keep me going, keep me training.

What oh what should I do????

Couple of weeks "off"

So I thought I'd throw a little update up here just to let anyone who follows know that I'm still around. Until today, I hadn't run at all since the marathon. I've been hitting the gym doing a full-body workout regimen that I'm growing fond of, and I've been cycling a couple times, both indoor and outdoor. I've been staying off my foot, as far as running is concerned, to let the peroneal tendonitis heal, and it's been feeling good. Last Saturday was my 11th wedding anniversary and I took my wife to Lagoon, our local amusement park, where we spent the afternoon and evening walking around and standing in lines and going on rides. After 5 hours of that, I expected to feel something in my foot, but to my delight, I was pain (and pretty much any other sensation)-free in my formerly-inflamed left foot.

So, with that bit of good news, I thought I'd try a short run today and see how it goes. I jumped on the treadmill at lunchtime and started off at a fairly manageable pace of 9:50/mile. My entire left foot felt kind of funny right off the bat, but not on the outside where the peroneal tendon is that has been giving me grief. As I ran, most of it kind of worked itself out, and it felt great to be running again! Not as great as it would have felt outside, but I'm taking baby steps here (metaphorically speaking). Anyway, at about 1.6 miles or so I began to feel the twinge in the side of my foot, so when I got to 2 miles, I pulled over and stopped. I could have run farther. It really wasn't to the point yet that I'd call it "hurting", but nevertheless, I decided to err on the side of caution and let it go. I tried using the eliptical, but that thing is just weird. For those of you that like that machine, I ask only, "Why? How!?" I couldn't stand it for any more than about 100 seconds and I was done.

I guess this means a couple of more weeks of no running and letting the foot really heal up all the way. That's frustrating, but I don't want another major setback, like the marathon turned out to be (as far as foot recovery is concerned). Looks like I will be doing a lot of weights workouts and biking (indoor and out when the weather permits)... which reminds me, I'm accepting donations for (and/or gifts of) winter cycling gear, including but not limited to:

• arm warmers
• cycling jackets (they're cycling-specific so they don't ride up in back when you're bent over on the handlebars)
• cycling vests (see above)
  
• leg warmers (not the 80s fashion statement)
• full-fingered gloves
• long-sleeved cycling jerseys
• tights (think black lycra and warm, not ballet)
  
• skull caps
• balaclava

If you really want to give me any of these or donate to the cause, leave me a comment or shoot me an email and I'll be happy to provide you my paypal address and/or size information. And you'll have my eternal gratitude. What, that's not enough for you? :)