Training Log: Cherry Blossom 10 Miler (Week 5)

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Coco

It hardly seems right to call this a “training log” post, but because anyone can get sick while training for a race, I will share what I managed to do despite my constant need for a tissue.

CUCB LogoMonday
AM Dog Walk: 1 mile
Weights: ITB Rehab Routine and strength routine

Super SetsTuesday
Treadmill: 40 min, with two tempo segments–10 min @ 6.5 mph and 10 min @ 6.7 mph
I started to feel sick Tuesday afternoon: sniffling, sneezing, head throbbing.

Wednesday
PM Dog Walk: 1 mile
I felt like I needed sleep more than I needed to do my strength routine, so I did not workout in the morning.  I took Dayquil to get through the day at work.

Thursday
PM Dog Walk: 1 mile
I still felt like crap. While Dayquil was getting me through the workday, I didn’t want to cover up my symptoms to workout because my primary goal was to get better quickly to be ready for the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler next week.

Friday
AM Dog Walk: 1 mile
I was disappointed that my head still felt like a ball of lead, but felt too sick to feel antsy about working out. I still felt that pushing myself would be counter-productive in the long run.

Saturday
AM Dog Walk: 1 mile
On Friday night I still was not feeling well. I decided to sleep in on Saturday morning, and rearranged my Easter plans so I could go for a short run on Sunday morning. Saturday, my symptoms were intermittent, and I started to wonder if I am suffering from allergies instead of a cold. I crowd-sourced my dilemma on Facebook, and some friends suggested I try Allegra or Zyrtec.

I took a dose of Allegra on Saturday night, and it did seem to help, although when I woke up Sunday my head still felt heavy and my throat felt a bit sore. Still, I felt like I had to get out for a test run.  

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Sunday
AM Dog Walk: 1 mile
Neighborhood run: 5.5 miles; 51:45 min (Avg. pave 9:24 min/mile)

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So, my legs still worked and my lungs were OK, but my head still felt heavy.

I wanted to run at a comfortable pace without pushing myself. Instead of listing to my usual playlist I listened to NPR–the last segment of Backstory and most of On Being. I figured that without fast songs to push my pace, my pace would be more natural. Here’s my split times from Garmin Connect:

1 9:40.8 1.00 9:41
2 9:16.7 1.00 9:17
3 9:23.5 1.00 9:23
4 9:40.0 1.00 9:40
5 9:09.9 1.00 9:10
6 4:34.6 0.51 9:02

These split times generally reflect the hilliness of this route. My first mile usually is my slowest, since I am warming up and have to go up a hill almost right away. Mile 2 has a downhill segment, mile 3 is mostly flat, mile 4 has several uphill segments, mile 5 is flat, and the last half mile has two downhill segments. 

The big question now is what to do in these last few days before the race? I am tempted to do more than I usually do the week before a race because I did less than I had planned last week, but I am trying to remind myself that that could backfire. Also, despite taking four exercise “sick days,” I only missed one running day and only shortened my planned 6 mile “long run” by a half mile, so I didn’t end up that far off my training plan.

Because my work schedule is more flexible on Monday and Wednesday this week, I think I will go for short runs on Monday and Wednesday–and maybe Friday–and do my strength routine on Tuesday and Thursday. Monday will be another easy run, Wednesday will be a speed workout if I feel better, and Friday will be an easy run if I run at all. Saturday I will do one of my Rodney Yee programs.

The Cherry Blossom expo is hard for me to get to, so I signed up to have my shirt and bib mailed to me. They sent them out last week, so I have everything already.

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I love the color!

Have you gotten sick the week before a race?

How did you adapt your training program?

Posted in Fitness, Training Log | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Happy Easter!

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Coco

Allelujah!

The Lord is risen.

He is risen indeed! 

Happy Easter!

Posted in My Faith | Tagged , | Comments Off on Happy Easter!

Book Review: The Heavy By Dara-Lynn Weiss

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Coco

When I first heard about The Heavy by Dara-Lynn Weiss, I had mixed feelings about reading it. Would it bring back bad memories about my experiences as an overweight child? Would it rekindle my own food neurosis?

If anything, it helped me put my past in perspective and realize how far I’ve come.

A snippet from the official synopsis on Amazon:

When a doctor pronounced Dara-Lynn Weiss’s daughter Bea obese at age seven, the mother of two knew she had to take action. But how could a woman with her own food and body issues—not to mention spotty eating habits—successfully parent a little girl around the issue of obesity?

….

Compounding the challenge were eating environments—from school to restaurants to birthday parties—that set Bea up to fail, and unwelcome judgments from fellow parents. Childhood obesity, Weiss discovered, is a crucible not just for the child but also for parents. She was criticized as readily for enabling Bea’s condition as she was for enforcing the rigid limits necessary to address it. Never before had Weiss been made to feel so wrong for trying to do the right thing.

Overall, The Heavy made me sad. Sad for Dara-Lynn and her personal battles. Sad for what she put through Bea through. Sad for other obese children who are facing a lifetime of struggling with their weight.

The parts that made me cringe the most were the parts that could have been me if I put a child through what I put myself through in my early dieting days–favoring low calorie food over nutritious food, panicking if I exceeded my allotted daily calories, measuring my accomplishments on the scale. Thank goodness I kept those things to myself–and got past them.

The parts that made me mad were Dara-Lynn’s dismissal of the importance of exercise and the lack of guidance she seemed to get from healthcare professionals. By focusing only on the calories burned during an hour of exercise, Dara-Lynn overlooked the many other benefits–like building muscle, gaining self-confidence, and improving mood. I don’t know if Dara-Lynn didn’t get detailed nutrition advice from the nutrition counselor, or just didn’t follow it, but she should have been told the importance of whole foods, whole grains, and lean protein, and warned that, yes, many hundred calories of fruit a day might be too much for a child who needs to lose weight!

The parts that I agreed with relate to Dara-Lynn’s observations about how much our culture immerses children in junk food. From school lunches to play dates to birthday parties, we foist sugary, salty processed foods with little nutritional value on our kids from morning until night, and the few parents who object are viewed as paranoid extremists who need to lighten up. Hopefully the current attention these issues are getting will have a lasting impact.

Have you heard about The Heavy?

Have you ever been concerned about your child’s weight?

Posted in Book Reviews, Fitness, Food | Tagged , , | 11 Comments

Foraging For Healthy Vegetarian Airport Food

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Coco

Last week I took a short trip to visit my daughter in Colorado. It was my first experience travelling while following a vegetarian diet. Not surprisingly, the biggest challenge was finding healthy vegetarian options at the airport.

On my way out, my flight took off from a small terminal with few dining options. As I was getting coffee from a  small coffee place, I noticed hard boiled eggs and single serve cups of hummus and pretzels in their deli case, so I grabbed those for the long morning flight.

Single Serve Sabras Hummus

By the time I got to my rental car I was starving and still at least an hour away from having lunch with my daughter, so I ate one of the Soyjoy bars from my stash of snacks.

Soyjoy Cranberry

It really hit the spot.

On my way back home, I got to the airport really early–it was the first day of Spring Break in the area, so I was worried about how long it would take to return my rental car and get through security, but I was done with both within half an hour! Since I knew I’d be sitting down for hours on the plane, I decided to use the time to roam the airport and forage for healthy vegetarian airport food.

While Denver International Airport has numerous Einstein Brothers places, I knew there was a Starbucks somewhere, so I headed there first. When I finally got to the small stand at the very end of Gate B, I realized that they would not have the egg white, spinach and feta wrap that I was hoping for–I don’t think any airport Starbucks has their hot sandwiches. They did have the single-serve hummus and pretzel packs, so I got one of those–and a tall bold coffee of course.

Starbucks Cup

I kept looking for something more substantial for lunch on the plane, but I couldn’t bring myself to pay $8 for a “vegetarian” sandwich made with several slices of cheese and a handful of vegetables. I realized that I would have balked less at paying that price for a ham sandwich, but I knew the vegetarian sandwiches would be mostly (white) bread and not very satisfying. I checked every deli case for hard boiled eggs, but only found Chobani for $3 a cup–not a shocking price at the airport, but I didn’t think it would taste very good with the hummus.

I decided to look for a salad, but the pre-made “to go” options I saw included chicken, or were Caesar salads with a bit of romaine, a lot of cheese, and a big packet of creamy dressing. As I headed back towards my gate, I spotted a McDonald’s, and remembered that they do have salads. While the menu assumes that you will have chicken (the prices listed are for “grilled” or “crispy”), the Southwest salad was pre-made without any meat.

McDonalds Southwest Salad

I was pleased to see the generous portion of mixed greens, and handfulls of roasted corn and black beans. Who knew that McDonald’s would save the day with a yummy salad?

By the time I boarded I was starving, so I nibbled on some pumpkin seeds from my stash of snacks, to tide me over until I could put my tray table down and enjoy my salad, hummus and pretzels.

Pumpkin Seeds

All in all, I was pleased with what I found, although it was even more important to have my own supply of “emergency snacks” to supplement the limited healthy vegetarian airport options.

Do you bring your own food when you travel?

Posted in Food | Tagged , , | 11 Comments

Garmin 405 vs. Garmin Forerunner 10

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Coco

I’ve had a Garmin 405 since they first came out. When my first one got flaky, I got a refurbished one from Garmin for $75 that has held up pretty well.

Garmin August 11

Although it has lots of fancy features, I mostly use the basic functions–pace, distance, split times, etc. While it’s still working well, I know its days are numbered, so I was excited to hear about the new Garmin Forerunner 10 and put it on the top of my Christmas list. With a list price of only $129.99 I didn’t feel bad about getting it before I really needed it.

Garmin Forerunner 10

I loved its smaller size and its cool color–it also comes in hot pink. It has the same basic functions as the 405 (including a virtual pacer), but not the more advanced ones. It is very easy to use with four buttons (clockwise: start/stop/enter, scroll, back, light) instead of the frustrating touch bezel of the 405. When you finish and save a run, it automatically shows your split times, and it keeps track of your longest and fastest runs. It comes with a USB adapter to connect to a computer to upload data to Garmin Connect, where you can see more details about your runs (maps, pace chart, elevation chart, etc.).

I’ve heard some complaints about the Forerunner 10 taking a long time (several minutes!) to find a satellite signal, but I only experienced an unusual wait the first time I used it. It has found a signal quickly for my o’dark-thirty run in Switzerland, for my early morning run in Boulder, and for my runs from different starting points around the D.C. area.

I’ve heard one complaint about short battery life, but it seems to hold a charge better than my 405 (which doesn’t properly go into sleep mode), and I haven’t noticed any low battery issues after any of my long runs. The stated battery life is 5 weeks in watch mode and 5 hours in training mode.

GarminsI was curious to see how the Forerunner 10 measured up against my 405, so I did a few runs wearing both. While the numbers were pretty close, the Forerunner 10 read a bit longer than the 405 on all test runs.

Garmin Forerunner 10 Garmin 405
10:09 10:12
9:26 9:27
9:39 9:38
9:29 9:43
10:07 10:11
9:56 9:54
9:57 9:12
9:45 9:44
9:17 9:18
8.73 miles 8.67 miles
1:25:15 1:25:13
avg pace = 9:46 avg pace = 9:50

Garmin v. Garmin

Garmin Forerunner 10 Garmin 405
9:58 9:54
9:19 9:26
9:23 9:32
9:40 9:45
9:17 9:12
9:36 9:42
9:02 9:11
6.51 miles 6.47 miles
1:01:49 1:01:50
avg. pace 9:30 avg. pace 9:34

I don’t know if it’s just a fluke, or if one or the other is more accurate, but the difference is interesting. It also puts in perspective complaints about race distances measuring long or short as compared to Garmin distances. If two Garmins worn on the same arm can yield such different data, imagine how different data from different runners could be!

I use my Forerunner 10 for all of my runs now, but my 405 is still earning its keep.

Garmin Biking

 Do you use a GPS watch?

Posted in Fitness | Tagged , , | 20 Comments