How Do I Get Ready for an Ultra?

I feel stalled.  I'm sure it has something to do with training setbacks from Grandma's Marathon, but I'm a bit tired of talking about it.  The drive to run and compete has winnowed down to a smolder rather than the fire I had earlier this year.  If you've been following this blog or my DailyMile training, you would know that I had my eyes set on ultras and and that the triathlon holds little appeal to me for some reason.  Developing overall strength and versatility, not to mention a stronger upper-body is a nice outcome of CrossFit and CrossFit Endurance, but none of it seems to bring the much needed oxygen to the fire.  What is it that I need right now to get me moving again, rather than haphazardly trekking out for a run here and there?

I need a goal, an outcome, something to reach for, something attainable yet challenging.  It's not enough to work-out, rather it needs to have meaning.  I really want ultras, but I know my body isn't ready for it now or even the near future.  My current comfortable distance for my knee and hip is seven to eight miles, the distance it all fell apart this June.  That's one-seventh the distance of a 50 miler, which is obviously not going to happen any time soon.  I think that is what my problem is.  I can't see far enough out to say when it's going to happen.

Is one year enough?  50 weeks of training between now and the Superior 50 miler next year, less than that for the Northface Endurance Challenge.  Surely, two years would be more than enough, but too far to keep me driven?  How do I put together a plan I know will work, that will keep me motivated and pointed in the right direction, while maintaining injury free performance?

I'm trying to look back at how I trained for my first half and my first marathon, what mistakes I made, and places I could improve.  I've read prolifically on training, and I've got a relatively good idea about how to go about it.  With that in mind, I'm going to try to rough out a plan to move forward.  The key principles I'm going to apply are:

1. 5-6 days of training.  At least one planned day off per week.
2. Alternating hard and easy days
3. 3 week cycles of increasing distance, 20% in week 1 and maintain for 2 (Lydiard)
4. Plan my peak performance and health for my goal race
5. Develop my distance in stages (5-8k, 10k-Half, Marathon-Ultra)
6. Cross-train like banshee (swimming, Crossfit, whathaveyou)
7. Set realistic, yet challenging goals at each stage
8. Be patient with setbacks and generous with recovery
9. Finally, don't overdo it!

What I need right now is a 5k or an 8k race to suss out my current fitness level, my current pace.  Any suggestions?

Burning It Up - Sleep, Food, and Nutritional Facts?

Time to start paying more attention to food and sleep!  I've proven that I can "burn it up" as a DailyMile'er friend Leigh put it, but I don't want to burn out.  I'm exhausted today, and I felt pretty down in the weather yesterday.  Only two weeks from my last bout with the flu, I'm struggling to keep healthy this weekend.  It's discouraging!

Gone are the days when I could stay up until two in the morning and still get up in time for a seven o'clock class.  I'm not eighteen anymore, and my body is telling me in no uncertain terms that it is unacceptable for me to get less than seven hours of sleep.

With my increased focus on swimming and increased mileage with running, I haven't successfully increased my caloric intake.  Instead, I keep dropping in weight, down to 178 pounds.  I haven't been this light since I graduated from college in '97.  To put this in perspective, last year at this time, I weighed around 195.  Weight loss was not my focus for running, rather finishing a marathon.  Now weight loss has become a concern.

So, this week's focus will be getting to bed before 11:00 pm, and making sure I'm eating many small meals throughout the day.  I often skip breakfast, and sometimes skip lunch -- if I'm too busy at work -- then have a large evening meal.  From what Meghan has been reading, this is entirely backwards.  Adelle Davis, the renown (or notorious) nutritionalist and biochemist, is quoted, "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper."

I've heard this phrase before but didn't know its origin.  I was about to leave the blog post at this, but like a good researcher, I dug a little deeper.  What was the premise for this statement?  How really does this benefit us?

(Image linked from Wikipedia.) Google to the rescue, or perhaps not, as the waters are now muddied by QuackWatch.  "Despite this training, she promoted hundreds of nutritional tidbits and theories that were unfounded. At the 1969 White House Conference on Food and Nutrition, the panel on deception and misinformation agreed that Davis was probably the most damaging source of false nutrition information in the nation.[emphasis mine] Most of her ideas were harmless unless carried to extremes, but some were very dangerous. For example, she recommended magnesium as a treatment for epilepsy, potassium chloride for certain patients with kidney disease, and megadoses of vitamins A and D for other conditions."  You should definitely read the entire article.  It paints a very unflattering picture of Professor Davis.

So, where does this leave us with nutritional advice?  Looking for more.  As I understand the diets of Ultra marathon runners such as Scott Jurek, they incorporate more beans, legumes, and vegetables in their diet than what most Americans are used to.  I can't say I'm ready to tread the path of a vegetarian, but I'm perfectly happy to add more vegetables.  Especially if it produces results like this.

I have no illusions of grandeur here.  I won't be winning any ultras any time soon;  I just hope to remain healthy and have fun along the way.  If I'm going to run 8 miles and burn a thousand calories, I should definitely replace them or find myself feeling like I do today!  *BLEH*

One other adjustment I think I need to make is to stop burning so hot.  I have been keeping my pace too high on what should be long-slow-distance (LSD) runs.  I'm not trying to do race specific training before Grandma's, rather just build up a nice base of mileage while cross-training with swimming.  It's time to keep the miles up, but slow the pace down appreciably.  If I'm planning on finishing a marathon in sub-4 hours, I should be training slower than that, rather than faster...  I've been doing it backwards yet again.  It's just so fun running fast!

Anyway, time to prep dinner for the family before tonight's Nickelodean Kid's Choice Awards, an event that Connor is quite excited about!  Yep, I'm a dad... :)

Push-ups and Sit-ups, How Good Are They?

Push-ups and sit-ups are the most basic of exercises we learned to hate as a child.  We were introduced to these seeming tortuous wastes of time by the sadistic discretion of  phy-ed teachers.  Of what use are they really?

Apparently, they're quite underrated.  The standard push-up engages a number of core muscle groups to keep your body in a straight plank, and serves as an excellent workout for your pecs and triceps.  Of course, you knew that.  You probably also knew about the One Hundred Push Ups training program, a site that provides you a schedule toward completing 100 consecutive pushups.

The initial test is simple enough, do as many pushups as you can.  Use that number to determine where in the schedule you should start.  Five sets of varying reps for a week at a time.  Fun stuff!

In likewise fashion, there is also a Two Hundred Situps training program, Two Hundred Squats, and soon to arrive Twenty Five Pullups sites give you schedules for similar physical feats of endurance.

I wouldn't be posting about this if I hadn't started, of course.  33 push-ups for the initial test moved me to week three.  I tried Day 1 of the program, and didn't quite finish my fifth set: "at least 20".   We'll see how Day 2 goes on Friday.  I did better with the situps Day 1.  I haven't tried the squats yet, but I might as well add that one in two.  The triumvirate complete.

Chad