Post-illness 4.5 lbs Heavier Recovery Day One - Eating sensibly and upping the movement

Over the last two weeks, some prior to the illness, and probably most during the illness, I had been eating far too many unhealthy foods, resulting in my weight going up by 4.5 lbs.
It could well be that the real gain is less but that is the figure when I stepped on the scales last night, so in the same way I accepted the surprisingly lower than expected weight two weeks ago, I will also accept the higher than expected weight last night.
I do intend to weigh every day between now and the Thursday before the race, which will remove some of these variations.

So with three weeks and two days to go, I need to rebuild my fitness and hopefully remove some the weight recently gained - the former is more important than the latter but they should go hand in hand.
Today's calories were;
373 calories for breakfast (muesli, milk, and a banana),
324 calories for lunch (Lunchbox full of salad with a very small amount of sundried tomatoes in oil, artichokes in oil, olives, gherkins and some stale bread)
710 calories for dinner (Chicken and Chorizo with long-grain rice)
238 calories for snacks (Peach, Apple, and a small cappuccino)
Total is 1645 calories.  I allow for 1840 calories, plus I earned 142 calories from the 7000 steps I did today - net deficit is 337 calories for the day.

Compared to the average steps of just 3000 in the last few days, today's 7000 steps is a good step in the right direction.  Tomorrow should be a lot higher, especially if I go for a short run in the morning.
Looking at my garmin connect data, I have gone from average steps of 100k per week down to 35k this week - no wonder the weight piled on with a drop like that combined with no doubt excess eating in the same time period.

A good first day - lets hope for three more weeks of the same.

"That's Not Good When You Have A 100km Race To Do"...and limping over the one million step mark

You may have noticed an absence of posts in the last seven days or so, as I picked up a virus that went for the throat and then had a party in my chest.

Tomorrow I aim to go back to work having been off since Monday but in running terms, I will give myself a bit longer to recover, and will not do any until Saturday, which means a nine day gap - this means in the most important two weeks of the training plan, I will not be anywhere as active as I should have been.

46 miles of running have been lost, and the big 32 mile run for Sunday is now unrealistic, so whatever is done this weekend will be well below the level for the ultimate run weekend.
This is frustrating but another way to look at this is that I have just over three weeks to be race ready.

My daughter asked me today how many days gap between my last run and my next run, and when I answered, she responded with the "That's Not Good When You Have A 100km Race To Do".

Last Sunday should have been the day when I clocked up my millionth step since I bought my Garmin watch nine weeks ago - as it happens, it was today with 4000 steps that I "limped" over the one million mark.

Knowing when to rest - sore throat

I did my six milers on Tuesday and Wednesday but today I choose not to do the Thursday one.

I had picked up a dry sore throat yesterday, so rather than risk prolonging it, and putting the weekend running in jeopardy, I have given myself an extra day off from exercise - this will be the first session I have missed since following this schedule.

Shattered! The price of too many unhealthy food choices?

There have been too many days of recent where fresh cream cakes, homemade millionaires shortbread, homemade chocolate truffles et al have been eaten, with total disregard to managing my calories.

Today was meant to be that turning point back to the correct ways but my long-run yesterday seems to have taken a bigger toll on my energy levels today than other long-run Sundays have on a Monday.
Temptation was all to easy in the end, and a salted caramel muffin from Sainsburys resulted in an unnecessary 450 calories being consumed - a lot of better food could have been eaten instead for that many calories but lets hope it ends today, and tomorrow does not become day six of poor food choices.

I should have also got more sleep last night but choose instead to catch up on some TV, and do some ironing - tonight I will be a bed by 10pm, so I get 7 hours good sleep before I am up for day 1 of 3 consecutive mid-week six milers, with rucksack.....
So far rucksack has only been used on long-runs but from now on, I will use it each run, so my upper body learns to be more used to it, and maybe it is a light form of strength training?

Given my training schedule is about to ramp up in the toughest two weeks before taper, having a five-day food binge was not sensible, but maybe I needed it to let some steam off ahead of the final push.

Bonking on purpose, walking on tired legs, new mantra, Look ahead to Week 12, and is it a Gnome?

This morning having got up at 6am, put some washing out on the washing line, I went for a 15 mile run with my weighty rucksack on.

I had a few nooks and crannies in Reedham that I had not yet explored, one of which was a public footpath which revealed a set of steps that led down into a hollow - I will do photos next week.
Beyond that it was a fairly mundane steady 12-ish minute mile running except I had decided I wanted to know how far could I keep running without topping up with food - obviously I drank water as appropriate because it was sunny clear skies and I was not aiming to be dehydrated.
I was wondering if I would make it through the whole 15 miles but I bonked just before the end of mile 14, after 2 hours and 50 minutes of activity.

Bonking at that stage allowed me (unplanned) to find out my walking speed on very tired legs especially given they did 5 miles on Friday,7 miles on Saturday, on top of the 14 miles just done.
So for the final full mile, I walked as briskly as I could sustain, and it took me 16 minutes 49 seconds - this is useful to know as it starts to give me a sense of my walking speed when I need to give my body time to recover, and also I can start to get a better sense of potential finishing times for the big day itself.

I have been reading a translated Japanese book by Haruki Murakami called "What I talk about when I talk about running"- I am currently about a third through it and it is a refreshing read of a Japanese author who likes to run, and is part travelogue, part training log, and part reminiscence covering his preparation for the 2005 New York Marathon.
One of the comments he makes refers to a quote (origin unknown) that I am adopting as my mantra;


With week 11 complete, Week 12 is the penultimate week of serious training, and will involve 3 x 6 miles (one easy, then two medium effort), an 8 mile on Saturday, and a 20 mile run on Sunday.

I did take one photo before I went out for the 15 mile run, that of me in my gear and with my rucksack on - I will leave you all to decide how Gnomish it is......

Healthy Eating "suspended" for a couple of days - my first fresh cream cake in months tasted wonderful

Running is progressing to plan but both today and tomorrow, my food consumption will be intentionally less healthy than usual.

A colleague had brought in birthday cakes, and I decided to treat myself to a fresh cream apple turnover - It was eaten slowly and every bite was savoured - it tastes delicious!

Tomorrow, I am bringing into work homemade chocolate truffles and homemade millionaires shortbread for a different colleague who is moving onto pastures new.  In addition, we are heading to an Aussie Pie shop in Norwich called the Flaming Galah!, and I have never been there, so this will be a good experience based on how popular it is at work.

Weekend onwards, I will revert back to a more sensible food regime through to the big day in just over five weeks (gulp!).

Reflections about the marathon that never was

Whilst I haven't been beating myself up about not completing the 26 miles on Saturday night, I have been dwelling on that training session since then.

These are my reflections about it;

1) Night-time running takes a lot more concentration (even with torches), and particularly on lumpy fields - this is likely why I felt so wiped out on Sunday but thankfully no running until Wednesday morning, so plenty of time to mentally and physically recover.

2) On race day, I will not be running laps of the same route - it is 100km from Lewknor to Avebury - every step will take me to something new, especially as that entire trail is new to me.  Running the same loop over and over again, clearly take an entirely different level of mental fortitude, that probably has to be built up.

3) I did not bonk, so like all recent long runs, I got it right nutritionally.

4) I've noticed in recent long-runs that as I get close to 18 miles, my feet swell up and there is no space between my toes and the shoes, so today I bought a new pair of trail shoes that are a half a size bigger than my current ones.  The existing ones will still be good for short to medium runs, plus I could use them in proper cross country races, where you end waist-deep in ditches of icy cold water.

5) I choose not to complete the other 8 miles on Sunday, as there was no gain to do it, and I could give myself that extra day to recover.

6) Time-limited training sessions do not reflect race reality where a lot of time-slack is built into how long I need to complete it by.  On race day if I can do 15 minute miles, I complete it in 16 hours - I have 22 hours to do it in, in order to get my shuttle back to the beginning.

7) Running two hours in the dark was a big achievement, especially as I had no prior night-time running experience.

As a final point, on Saturday I did 42,000 steps.  On Sunday I did 2,000 steps.