The Fad of Five Fingers

Today I went out for my first run in my FiveFingers Sprint. My fitness buddy, Emily has been running in FiveFingers for awhile, including during the LavaMan Triathlon. OMG!

This is my back-off week, and today was my 10 minute run, so since my regular running shoes (Brooks Women's Adrenaline GTS 10) were packed away for a weekend trip, I decided to give the FiveFingers a chance.

I've walked around in the FiveFingers before, but I haven't really done more than skip and jump in them. What is astounding is the way you really feel in touch with the ground, but the rocks don't quite hurt the way they would with bare feet. Immediately, when I started jogging, I felt the mechanics of my legs move differently. I pronate with both feet, moreso with my right foot, and the first thing I felt was my inner calves contracting as my foot would come down to push off in a way that it doesn't usually. I felt the rocking of my foot. I've read that the benefits of barefoot running are that it engages your natural body mechanics, and doesn't mess up the natural balance that you already have. At the end of my short run, I ended up feeling almost like my feet were cushioned more against the ground. No blisters, thankfully, though a little bit of weariness could be felt.

I think I might have gone a little faster overall, but it's hard to gauge at this point. I'm still not sold, but I will be trying this again.

Scuba and Running

Today my athleticism was a combination of dry suit diving with Girl Diver at Alki Cove 2 and doing a long run of 39 minutes in my neighborhood.

I'm desperately needing to get back in the water, if only to increase my endurance for kicking. Diving is great for developing all sorts of muscles, from your legs to your arms (for us Northwest divers at least, it's 50 lbs of gear!)

My long-slow run was slower than I hoped, but actually over all, pretty OK. I didn't stay as low in my heart rate range as I wanted, which was disappointing. I do have to contend with hills in my neighborhood, though, which makes it hard to keep my heart rate down without slowing quite a bit. I'm still going faster than 12 min/mi, but I am hoping to do under 10 min/mi, especially by late June. I'm finding that my interest in training is flagging quite a bit. I'm wanting a running buddy (not necessarily a group.) I don't want to feel pressured, I just want to have fun. I also don't want to drive too far to run. Driving to run? Really?

I've neglected hitting the gym and doing yoga. I've also been pretty busy doing a number of other things. I hope to be very busy this summer, so it will be interesting to see how that impacts training.

In the end, I'm caught up in my independence.

On a dietary front, I'm really trying to be mindful of carbs. They make me feel sluggish, hungry, and generally icky. Now, I'm speaking mainly of the refined-sugar type. They also make me cracked-out craving them. This is new for me. I'm about 15 or so pounds from reaching my BMI norm. Here's hoping!

Chewy Vegan Banana Nut Muffins

I am not a vegan, however, I have this fascination with vegan baking. Mostly, it's a fascination with substitution, and seeing what I can get away with to make something tasty, yet also nearly healthy. My primary goal is to make yummy treats that are lower in refined sugars, higher in fiber and lower in fat than their conventional cousins. Right now, I'm just playing with making my own recipes. Below is a recipe I recently made. The muffins turned out beautiful, though they are on the dense and chewy side. The nuts should help with the chewiness, by offering some texture difference. They also increase the protein, which I often need to balance out any carbs. Please let me know if you try this recipe, and how it works for you!

Chewy Vegan Banana Nut Muffins

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup wheat germ
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup almond milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 bananas, pureed
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

Preparation

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Oil and flour three mini muffin pans or line with paper liners. Whisk flour and wheat germ, baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt, and baking soda in medium bowl. Whisk almond milk and vanilla in small bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat sugar and banana puree in large bowl to blend. Beat well after each addition until mixture is evenly mixed, occasionally scraping down sides of bowl. Beat in dry ingredients in 3 additions alternately with almond milk mixture in 2 additions. Mix just until blended. Mix in nuts. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups by generous tablespoonfuls.

Bake muffins until tester inserted into center comes out clean, 23-25 minutes. Cool in pans 5 minutes. Remove muffins from pans and cool on rack.

Easy Running - Is this training?

Yesterday I did a long slow run, though because my Garmin Forerunner 405CX was uncharged (oops!), I ended up getting out my old Polar F11 and Nike + SportBand to do my run. This meant doing a lot of manual entry into the Garmin system. This also meant that I was missing some data, like elevation change and being able to see graphs of minute-by-minute pace vs. heart rate vs. elevation. Frankly, I'm not sure if I truly understand those graphs, but they're neat to have.

As far as my runs last week, I stayed pretty regularly at a 12 min/mi pace. My long, slow run yesterday ended up at 11:37 min/mi though, I have to admit my heart rate edged more towards 145 bpm. I'm a little disheartened that I'm not running as consistently fast as I was when I was overtraining, or when I was edging towards overtraining. Now I'm also even more skeptical about my ability to run a full marathon in August. I know that the point is to finish, but MY point is to RUN. I want to RUN all of a 5K (can do), I want to RUN a 10K (will do!) - until I get the 10K down, I'm skeptical about jumping all the way to a marathon without sincerely giving my all to a 1/2 marathon. And maybe that's not this year - maybe that's next year.

I'm running three days a week, and doing two days of strength training. I have yet to get back on the yoga bandwagon, but I'm hoping that if I enroll in a class, that would give me the energy to get back into it.

Finally, a shout-out to Emily, who competed in yet another triathlon!

Extreme Running - NY Times Article

Mark Bittman (author of our household's favorite cookbook, How to Cook Everything ) has a story in the NY Times about ultramarathoner Scott Jurek. Not only is Scott Jurek a man who runs crazy distances, he also is a vegan.

I have no intention of becoming vegan, though I do have the intention to clean up my diet more than it is today. I already eat a lot of fresh, local foods, and most of our meat and dairy products come from local, organic and humane sources. I'm trying to limit my overall consumption of meat and dairy, to make other foods more of a staple of my diet. I see vegan as being an unsustainable ideal when done as it is done by most vegans I know (relying on heavily processed, Big Ag foods and petrochemicals). One of the things that exercise makes me ravenous for is protein and fat, which I usually get from meat and protein. I don't know if I'm not eating the right plant substances when I get that need, but it seems that nothing else satisfies.

Anyway, I digress. Check out Mark Bittman's article Diet and Exercise to the Extremes. It's now time for my short and fast run!

Losing Steam, and Fast

Uh-oh. I've reached the 2 workout per week zone. That's not entirely true, but I only attempted jogging TWICE last week. I did, however, add weight training back into the routine AND did a 10.5 mile walk/hike between Ballard and Magnolia on Saturday (that took me up a cliff at Discovery Park). My calves are still a little tender from that one, though I made it through the entire hike rather remarkably.

I purchased some size 12 jeans at American Eagle Outfitters on Friday, and am waiting for them to be shipped (I had to have them shipped due to my short stature.) This makes these jeans the smallest size I've purchased as an adult. My weight is still hovering above the 160 mark, but I stand at over 100 pounds lost, and have decreased from a plus sized 24-26 to a misses 12. This still puts me at about a 14-16 when it comes to modern fashion sizing, but still, it's a pretty far leap.

I was just reading the latest Marie Claire magazine about a woman who did a relay with her husband across New Zealand (heck if I can actually find the web version). She started at a size 12 and ended up a size 4 - and I don't want to say that my hope in fitness is a smaller size, but there's a novelty in it considering I've been large my whole life.

I have yet to go to a Team in Training practice - and it's becoming something that I avoid because I keep avoiding it. I'm worried about overtraining, and wonder if crazy athletics is what I want to go towards.

One thing's for sure, though. Hiking up that cliff at Disco Park was one of the most fun things I've done in a long time.

Good Run Thursday

Yesterday I had a really great run. I walked for 4 minutes, jogged for 22, and then walked for the last 4 - and THEN did some strength training at my gym. Overall, it was a fantastic day, and though I'm achey this morning, yesterday's work out felt really, really good. Some the the achiness I attribute to the strength training. I need to find a good way to tone my abs, as that I hate most of them, and the ones I don't hate wrench my back (because I'm doing it wrong, I'm sure.)

My pace for my walk/run averaged at 11:10/mi. My heart rate still got a little high if I want to stay in the moderate training range, but wasn't too crazy, so I feel like I'm doing well. I look forward to see how my run Saturday will be, since it will be my first 30+ minutes running during a week of regular exercise for a few weeks.

I haven't managed to make it to a Team in Training practice yet - mostly because I'm still unsure as to my ability to do the event, both running and fundraising-wise.

Rethinking Training (with a little help from my friends)

As I'm looking into braving the chill (damn chill!) of the outdoors today to get a jog in, I thought I'd take up my pal Emily's offer to calculate a training schedule.

2010-04-27: 10 20 30
2010-05-04: 11 22 33
2010-05-11: 12 24 36
2010-05-18: 13 26 39
2010-05-25: 10 21 31
2010-06-01: 13 27 41
2010-06-08: 15 30 45
2010-06-15: 16 33 50
2010-06-22: 13 26 40

I can still go out for my 30 minutes total (longer on my slow run days, right Emily?), but I can walk when I'm not jogging - or at least, I think that's the way I plan it. Last week I did 1x30min and 1x20 min, and walked a fair amount during the week. Today, I might set up to do 10 minutes walk, 11 minutes run, and 9 minutes walk to get me through the end. It sounds about what I'm up for today, and will get me out there, which will be better than me continuing to just sit on the bench.

The sun is out - so perhaps it's time to go out for a jog, eh?

Slowing Down More

To say the least, I'm scaling back my intensity. On Friday, I went out for a 30 minute jog - then it started raining. It was already chilly, and I wasn't really feeling up to a run anyway, but I went out hoping I could shake off some of the sluggishness.

Even though I hadn't eaten in a few hours, I found that just a few minutes into my jog, I was getting some acid reflux. It was almost enough to make me want to just stop then and there. I moved on, and decided around 12 minutes into the run that I would just give up and head back, and make it a 20 minute jog. I paid attention to my heart rate, and kept it the lowest consistent bpm of recent - which is to say above 145, but below 160. My bunions were generally unhappy, and I was starting to wonder if I am developing arthritis(!).

A coworker of my husband's who is currently studying Brazilian Jiu-jitsu had told him that all of the guys he trains with view running as a disastrously dangerous sport for the body. I know it doesn't have to be, however, I'm trying to find a way to make it work for me.

In other sport news - I went to a softball practice for a friend's corporate softball team. I ended up with tendonitis in my forearm after one practice, and am going to have to bench it for awhile.

The hell? Can't I catch a break?

I know that really, I should perhaps be going towards gentler body/mind sports, but I like being able to run and be badass. It's hard to find balance.

Still frustrated, still working. Considering an evening jog on a treadmill to round out the day.