Thank goodness I am a runner…

There has been a number of occasions over the last week where I’ve thought, thank goodness I am a runner. I guess realistically I may not be in some (or all) of these situations if I weren’t a runner, but that is besides the point!

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been tracking my food and calories in MyFitnessPal. I haven’t had an accurate full week (Monday through Sunday) yet of data but if last week’s six of seven days is any indication, I better continue being a runner! For each of the first five days of tracking, I was over my net calorie intake. This of course includes the calories burned from exercising and my daily walking. The only day last week I wasn’t over was on Sunday because I had my long run and burned almost 900 calories on that run. Before I started tracking calories, I found that I don’t usually over eat on the days of my long runs, and this first weekend proves that. I am however starved the following day and generally eat more than enough to replenish the lost calories. This week however, I am making an effort to eat a little less each day as to not exceed my daily goal; let’s see how well I do. I loosely set my goal to losing 0.5 pounds a week, knowing that is not fully realistic with all the running and eating I need do. However, if I am able to lose a pound here and there, I wouldn’t be terribly disappointed.
On a side note, Monday sundown was the start of Passover and I am not going to pretend that I can speak to the religious aspect of the holiday, but I did make a successful brisket on Sunday night that I am proud of. For years, Josh and I would each take turns trying to make brisket for Passover and each year, we’d fail miserably. This year, I successfully made a brisket that actually tasted good, not overcooked, and the right tenderness. I can’t say that it is the best brisket ever, but now I have something to work off of. I followed this recipe loosely. I am not very good at following instructions, so generally when I cook, I improvise off of an existing recipe. In this case, I had roughly 3.75 pounds of brisket which I cooked for around 3.5 hours in the oven at the recommended temperature of 325 degrees. I did add some sherry cooking wine, but only about half a cup and then a whole can of diced tomatoes. I also added carrots, celery, and a quarter of a sweet onion to the brisket as well. However, instead of making the gravy per the recipe, I took the juices from the meat and sauteed it with mushrooms, remaining onion, and some of the diced tomatoes. While this sauce was intended to be thinner than gravy, I think it added a nice touch to the meat. In addition to the brisket, I also baked tri-color creamer potatoes, brussels sprouts, and steamed zucchini. On Monday night, Josh and I made matzo ball soup and haroset to round off the Passover meal.
Last night, I had my first speed workout in our training plan for the NJ Marathon. I met my teammate Julio at Central Park. He crafted for us a series of intervals around a circular field in the park. We ran two loops (each loop is roughly 600 meters) at marathon pace with a two minute break followed by four more loops at 5K (85%) pace with a three minute break in between each and then finishing it off with two loops at marathon pace. I like the break in between for intervals, but I hate the intervals themselves! I find that I am much more tired after 1200 meters at 5K pace than I am after a 10-mile run, but I guess that’s the point of speed work. 
Anyway, my commute home from NYC was interesting. I had heard that there was some traffic at Port Authority and the Lincoln Tunnel but that the Path train was also down, but this was around 7PM and by the time I left practice, it was already around 8:30 so after quickly scrolling through Twitter for updates, I decided I was safe to go my normal route. I hopped on the subway and headed to Port Authority and got on a bus. As soon as I was on the bus, I was absorbed by my phone that I didn’t pay any attention to where the bus was going. It turns out that the driver took a detour after coming out of the Lincoln Tunnel and ended up in Union City, which for everyone not from the area, is about two miles West of Hoboken but on a cliff. When other passengers on the bus asked what was happening, the bus driver didn’t say a word. It turns out that there was a lot of other buses all following the same route and a ton of police all over the Union City area directing traffic (I later learned that it may have to do some emergency construction on Route 495). Some of the passengers asked to be let off the bus, which the driver happily did. I called Josh to get a sense of how far I was from home, he thought I was about two miles away, and after much internal debate I asked the driver if I can get off as well. The bus driver seemed skeptical about letting me off but after he told me that it was at least going to be 25 minutes before we’d make it down to Hoboken, I knew that running it was going to be a lot of faster. Thank goodness I am a runner and that I was on the phone with Josh the whole time so he could direct me. It ended up being 1.6 miles to get home and I made it in less than 15 minutes. I don’t know that I actually beat the bus, but I’d like to think so!
When I am stuck in traffic these days, I usually grumble about how it would be faster to run it. However, usually it is not faster, but yesterday, it truly was! Thank goodness I am a runner so I can potentially beat traffic and thank goodness I am a runner so I can eat a lot of good food!
Are there reasons you’re excited you’re a runner?
P.S. I had the best smoothie ever this past weekend when I was out at brunch with some girlfriends at Kingswood in NYC.
Banana date smoothie with milk and honey – yum!
 

You are what you eat…

This post is going to feel like a complete ramble, so I will just apologize before I even get started. It’s been a quite busy week since the high of the NYC Half Marathon.

Did I tell you that my back actually felt amazing on Sunday? Well, on Monday it felt pretty good for most of the day so I decided to attempt hot yoga again. When I hurt my back a couple weeks ago, I asked Surya Yoga to suspend my membership. I could barely fold forwards or backwards without pain and just didn’t want to risk going to class. I purchased a 10 class package for use within three months and had only used one session right before the injury. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to suspend it, but they were able to add an extra month on to the pass, so now I have until May. Coming off the high, I figured, why not give it a shot. I made sure to tell the instructor that I had lower back pain so that way if she saw me in the back of the room looking around it wasn’t because I wasn’t focused! I gave the class the best shot I had and felt great that I actually took some time to stretch my body out, but my back just didn’t appreciate the moving. Immediately afterwards, I started feeling the pain.

Fortunately, I had my chiropractor appointment on Tuesday. I was happy to report that I did well in the race but that I was still feeling pain. Unfortunately, as a regular in the office now, I know what to expect in my appointments – muscle stims, stretching, and then an adjustment. I walked out of the appointment feeling pretty good and was just excited to take the day off from exercising. I did however attend a Garmin expo at the local running store, Fleet Feet. I was invited by a co-worker, whose girlfriend helped organize the event. I was a little skeptical at first since I am a loyalist to Nike, but I did enjoy hearing about the different levels of Garmin watches and hearing other runners’ questions. At this time, I am pretty tied to Nike with my GPS watch, shoe sensor, heart rate monitor, Nike+ website, and the integration with my blog, but I will certainly consider Garmin the next time I am in the market for a new watch. One of the future features that Garmin watches may include is a paid service where people can track you on a website through the watch. I would honestly love that; I currently run with my phone during races so that way Josh can find me more accurately through the Find My Friends app, but if I didn’t have to carry my phone with me, I’d be sold!

This lunch from work (as described below) is almost 700
calories!

Also, on Tuesday, the day I didn’t work out, I decided to start on a food diary. I probably could have picked a better day to track everything I eat. Ever since I started running, I am constantly hungry. I am hungry when I am running, I am hungry after I run, and I am hungry when I am not running. I don’t know how I will ever be able to control my eating if I stop running. I used to track my calories years ago through the website, MyFoodDiary, but there was a subscription fee each month. Back then, I was more concerned about overeating and trying to lose weight. I am still concerned about that to some extent, but also understanding my ratio of carbs, protein, fat, and sugar. I found this pretty good website and app, MyFitnessPal that is free to use, pretty user friendly, and there is a big database of a lot of different foods and exercises that users can add to. Unfortunately, on my first day, I exceeded my daily calorie intake by 600+! It appears that I am averaging over 2,000 calories a day, which seems to be okay as long as I continue my training, which fortunately I am, just not fast enough! A sample of my normal day’s food is below:

  • Breakfast: Coffee with skim milk and truvia; Greek yogurt with pomegranate seeds, blueberries, and a Kashi waffle or granola
  • Lunch: Salad or sandwich; picture of salad above includes lettuce, a hard-boiled egg, pickles, grilled chicken, chickpeas, roasted red peppers, sunflower seeds, tomatoes, olives, tuna salad topped with red wine vinegar. Depending on my self-control that day, I may pick up a bag of chips.
  • Snacks: Banana, apple, small container of yogurt, granola bars, dark chocolate, cheddar cheese (not necessarily all of this, but some varying amounts)
  • Dinner: A lot of vegetables, protein, and some carbs (I usually make dinner on Sunday nights and then we have food until at least Wednesday. This week, I made corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, mushroom, carrots, and onions.)
  • Dessert: If I am still hungry, I may indulge on some organic, all natural ice cream or a bowl of cereal.
  • Water: at least 64 ounces of water a day and sometimes I add two Nuun electrolyte enhanced drink tabs to my water.
I am interested to see how this food diary will go especially after a full week’s cycle of running and some eating out are included.
Finally, I am happy to report that yesterday marked my first day of “officially” training for the New Jersey Marathon. My teammate, Julio and I both signed up for the race when we were on our runner’s high from the Miami Marathon. We decided that after the NYC Half, we would start training for this race, which is about seven weeks away. Last night, we just did a full loop in Central Park and are planning on an 8-10 mile long run this weekend. There are no coaches or other teammates at this time, so we’re holding each other accountable! We figure that next week, we can try to incorporate some speed work. We are following training plans and are not haphazardly running, but a part of me knows that there are many things I will need to work on if I want to run a sub-4 hour NYC Marathon this fall. I was so inspired last night that I purchased the book Advanced Marathoning, 2nd Edition. I am by no means an advanced marathoner, but I don’t consider myself a beginner anymore and didn’t want to go through a book that has plans from being a couch potato to running a 5K. I ordered the book on Amazon and am excited for it’s arrival. Hopefully, I will learn more about breathing techniques, form, speed work, and additional technical guidance to make me a better runner. I will definitely report back on my opinions about the book. In mean time though, my list of must-reads keep increasing! It definitely sounds like we will need a beach vacation in our future to accommodate all of this reading.
Do you have any good running or non-running reads to recommend?