Running and Biking and Losing, Oh MY!

Good weekend all! The weather has been great here this weekend, and I am looking forward to my first 'long' run since the half marathon later today. Today's long run is just 6 miles. 'Just' lol. Funny how time and miles on the road changes your perception of what 'long' really is! I plan to head down to the valley later today to run. I decided not to do an early morning run just because I want to be among the masses in the park today! It's a beautiful day and the valley will be hoppin later with cyclists, runners, families, fishermen, golfers etc. (**Plus there's a science project going on here later that involves creativity and building and I am SO out of here while that is goin' on ha ha! THAT is 'dad's work' through and through!)

Friday evening I had a GREAT tempo run. I was just heading out the door when I suddenly heard thunder, and a sky check revealed some nasty weather rolling in. I was bummed! It all passed after about an hour, and then it was just awesome out after the rain, so even though it was 8:00 (I never run that late), I HAD to hit the pavement! It was a great, fast run! I was supposed to run 3miles at a 12:09 pace, but ended up running them at 11:22! I felt great and not like I was pushing too hard. It was just one of those totally awesome runs. In fact, I thought for sure my watch was off or something, because even my easy warmup was going a lot faster than normal. Sometimes I was running at about 9:50. It was so cool. I kept thinking, I'm not REALLY running this 'fast' (for me). But when I got home and went to mapmyrun to compare against my watch, sure enough, I really was running at that pace!

I'm not sure what this means with my Runner's World SmartCoach plan. The paces are SLOW, but they are based on my 1/2 Mary time. I have a 5K on June 13th, so we'll see how I do there and see what kind of training paces SmartCoach gives me based on that finish time. If I need to tweak the plan I will!

My Bike

I got my bike out yesterday, washed it, greased it and took it out for a quick 3.5 mile ride. It was supposed to be a gym day, but it was so beautiful out, I could not stand the thought of sitting on a stationary bike at the gym! Plus my arms, chest and back were still a little sore from my weight workout Thursday evening, so I did not want to hit the weights again.

My bike is nothing special, it's a 'Murray'....just your basic 18 speed bike. I really enjoyed riding though, and I am going to take the bike to the shop for new tires, a new seat and a basic tune-up. The rear brake does not work at ALL We got Grace a new 'big kid' bike for her birthday, so I am looking forward to some fun rides with my girls this summer! Chris does not ride a bike, I wish he would but he has no interest whatsoever! His sensory system requires both feet on solid ground at all times!

I think I only burned about 100 calories (if that), and my heart rate didn't get up over 130, but I was really just casually trying to add some activity in to my day. Because it's all about ....

The Calorie Burn

I have the Runner's World Nutrition for Runners book, and the focus is really on calories in vs. calories out in terms of weight loss for runners. The biggest mistake runners make is over-doing the carbs, even if it's healthy carbs, it's still excess calories beyond what is truly needed to fuel running. This is the mistake I made in the last month or so of training for the half. I ate more 'grain' carbs, when I could have been eating more fruits and vegetables and getting enough carbs for less calories. That's not to say the whole grains are 'bad', because obviously they are not, but I know I've been a slacker in the fruit/vege group. Especially the veges!

The second mistake (according to the book) that runners make is having the mindset of 'I ran 5 miles today so I'm 'done'. In other words, running is the only significant calorie burn, which is great, but if you're trying to lose weight also, you can either reduce your calories, or, add in some more activity to increase the calorie output.

Well, to me, it's a no brainer! Would I rather eat 100-200 calories less (and be hungry?), or would I rather use the stairs more, walk faster, bike to the store, take a 5-10 minute walk break around my office building every hour, park further away from the store - and burn those calories instead?

So my casual little 80-100 calorie bike ride was much more fulfilling than reducing my food intake!

But the good news is that my first week of watching calories has yielded a 3 pound drop from the 5 I had gained. So I am pretty pleased with that! Hopefully by next weekend I'll be back to my 'low' weight and then can keep working to get the last 10 or so gone! I am sure though that most of my 5 pound gain was water retention from over-doing the carbs, and also the 'stress' to my body from the 1/2 marathon effort.

That's my rambling for today! Looking forward to some great race reports in blogland in the coming week!

Enjoy your Sunday!