Less than a month now to the 2012 Cara Bundoran Run. I hope all your training is going well. I’ve been out three or four times each week and clocking up between 25 and 30 kilometers. I’ve not had a chance to write over the past couple of weeks as I’ve been quite busy with work.
By now it should be getting easier to run, but I have to admit that on occasion its still a struggle. Several times I’ve gone out and had no motivation and no energy. Knowing that there is a 10 mile race on its way in a matter of weeks, contributes to a rising sense of panic. Having had a ponder on why I feel I have little energy, made me realise that I wasn’t eating enough as well as not drinking enough water. I was eating porridge in the morning, followed by nothing but cups of tea until eating dinner around 5pm and then very little for the remainder of the day. Hardly surprising then that the tank was empty when I need to go train. I had a look a read again of Kate Percy’s Book “Go Faster Food”, which made me see straight away what I was doing wrong. I should have been eating small amounts five or six times a day along with plenty of water. Not only is eating regularly important, but what you eat is also of paramount importance. The Irish love of potatoes is not exactly conducive to having plenty of energy on hand when you need it. The ideal foods are those with a low Glycemic Index (also known as G.I), which just means foods that release their energy more slowly, meaning less spikes and dips with your blood sugar level. Potatoes have a high GI meaning they are burned up pretty quickly.
So in the past week I’ve been eating a lot more, which I’ve found to be hard work. Having to remind yourself to go eat something every few hours isn’t as easy as you would think. But, it has given me more energy. On Saturday’s run I was in Bundoran before I knew it without feeling any feeling fatigue. Running around the bypass back to Ballyshannon I felt like I was rocket propelled ( my time didn’t bear that out though) and I felt great afterwards, something I haven’t felt in a while.
I have my brother’s Garmin GPS watch on loan at the moment, which tracks your progress and can later be uploaded to the Garmin website. One of the interesting little calculations that it does is the calorie count of your run. My long run on Saturday apparently takes more than 1000 calories, which of course has to come from the food/fuel that I eat. If I don’t eat then it stands to reason that I wont have the energy to train. Its surprising how often we can forget the basic elements that make the difference.
I’m also trying to fit in a long walk on the days that I’m not running, which I find helps my legs loosen out. It adds to the weekly mileage total which I’m sure can’t be bad.
I saw a surprising documentary recently that has made me think a bit more about food. Fat,Sick, & nearly dead is a documentary by Australian Joe Cross, and his experiment with change in diet and lifestyle. Joe suffers from chronic urticaria, a disease that causes painful rashes and blisters to appear on his skin. Considering himself to already have one foot in the grave, and been on steroids and other medications for years, Joe decided to completely stop the typical western diet he had been living on, in favor of fresh juices for sixty days. The documentary covers Joes trip across America, with a juicer hooked up to a car battery in his boot. The end result was that Joe lost a massive amount of weight and cured himself of urticaria. To to prove that his case wasn’t a fluke, a truck driver he met on his travels took on the same process and also cured himself of urticaria, and dropped more than 200 pounds of weight.
While Joe’s experiment was extreme, its results should not be that surprising. Several years ago I saw another documentary by American Morgan Spurlock who undertook to eat a MacDonalds meal three times per day for 30 days. His documentary was called Supersize me, after the infamous McDonalds meal size option. Morgan Spurlock started from the opposite position to Joe Cross; he was fit, healthy and a good weight. At the end of his thirty day stint, he was 25 pounds heavier, he had severe liver dsyfunction and mood swings that were tied to his cravings for more McDonalds food. His physicians likened his symptoms to those of a binge alcoholic.
Both documentaries pose a very interesting question about what we eat and its effect on our health. We’ve been hearing that fruit and vegetables are good for our health from a very young age, and indeed our health experts tell us that we need at least five portions of fruit and vegetables per day. Eliminating them and eating whatever processed and convenience food is to hand, has a negative effect on our health. The Supersize me documentary showed this by speeding up the process that would normally take many years. According to the expert opinion that Mr Spurlock sought out as part of his experiment he was advised that during his thirty days he consumed about eight years of the allowed volume of fast food.
I don’t think that there are many of us who would argue against the effects of fast food/junk food. But there has to be a corresponding cause/effect for a healthy diet comprised of fruit, veg and unprocessed foods. Maybe that is why it was so unsprisinging that Joe Cross managed to cure himself by improving his diet. I have read somewhere that the increased incidence of depression ( and worse, suicide) could possibly be linked to our diet, including processed meats which have traces of hormones, and other additives, the effects of which have never fully been examined.
Speaking for myself I can see a lot more fruit and veg making an appearance in my diet from now on.
Pancetta Spaghetti
5 cloves of garlic finely sliced
1/2 cup olive oil
4 ounces finely diced pancetta
8 ounces spaghetti
1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped, loosely packed
To make garlic oil, heat olive oil over medium heat, add garlic. Remove from stove and let infuse for one hour, then discard the garlic. Cook pasta according to package directions. In a separate pan, fry the pancetta in two tablespoons garlic oil until cooked (about three to four minutes). Drain pasta and add to the pancetta. Finish with parsley. Makes two hearty portions.
Calories: 600 Fat: 22 g (32%) Protein:10 g (15%) Carbs: 80 g (53%)
Percentages are of total calories
As seen on Runner’s World.com. Gordon Ramsey is also a runner, having started when his weight crept up towards 20 stone. He now regularly runs the London Marathon, and has completed some of the ultra marthons around the world. Apparently his favourite training is to run the ten miles home from work with a weighted rucksack.
I did nearly an hour’s stretching yesterday evening as I’m finding my pigeon legs (which are now developing into chicken legs) are aching and sore a lot. My running Guru ( aka younger brother) advises stretching before training after training, and lots of stretching on rest days. Last night whilst my beloved and I watched Notting Hill, I rolled and grunted around the sitting room floor stretching. The spectacle that I presented during this episode was not pretty, but I felt the better for it today. I had no aches or pains while training, but I was running on empty from having not eaten properly during the day. I did 3K and then slunk off home and made one of the pasta recipes from Ms.Percy’s cookbook. It was my first time having pasta without a tomato or cream sauce and it was exactly what I needed. I suppose I’m only now beginning to see how important the relationship between proper diet, hydration, preparation and following the schedule are. You live and learn!