Hot off the presses.... new meal plan!

Just completed this week's meal plan:

Braised short ribs and onions

Carrots

Salad

Smoked paprika chicken thighs

Broccoli and cauliflower/roasted cauli

Salad

Slow cooker braised flank steak, peppers, onions (saw this in Womans Day, of all places! Thought it was worth a try)

Garlic green beans

Salad

Leftover short ribs and chicken

Carrots

Salad

Leftover flank steak

Broccoli

Salad

Tangine pork tenderloin (been loving this spice rub from Jen's Gone Paleo!)

Green beans

Salad

Long run stats, menu plan, disappointment, and pain. Plus a new strategy!

Wow, could I have come up with a more depressing title?

First, a warning, this post is not 'all about' running or paleo.  It will probably be filled with whining.

The week has been rough.  Nothing's really wrong.  I haven't injured myself.  No one has died.  But, Wednesday I lost my running buddy.

When I first got the wild hair to run the half marathon, I asked someone at work if she would be interested in running a well known local 12k with me, which takes place a few weeks before the half.  It seemed like we had quite a bit in common and I was hoping to make a new friend.  She agreed, we discussed plans to do our weekly long runs together, I shared my training schedule with her and she liked it and decided to follow it.  We had been updating each other on our results via Facebook.  It was nice to have someone to talk running with.    Well, Wednesday she told me that she is having surgery the week before the race and so she's decided not to do it.

Now, surgery is a totally legitimate reason to cancel something.  But since there's so much time between now and then I asked if she still wanted to run on Saturdays and she said no.  Then she mentioned that she's "still following my training schedule!"  and, "has really started to love running!" 

We never actually got to run together because the weather here has been yucky lately, and I am probably taking this far too personally.  But I can't help but feel like I got, uh... honey badgered.  As in, "Thanks for the treats, stupid!"  (this video is not safe for work due to language)



I didn't think it would really affect me as much as it has.  Running the half was my personal goal from the start and I usually prefer to exercise on my own.  Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with running.  Maybe I'm just disappointed that it seems like she didn't want to run with me.

So, along with getting that news Wednesday, the rest of the week has had me in a little funk.  My legs were sore during my run on Tuesday and it was painful.  I still did my press and deadlift workout on Wednesday though I did fewer reps of the assistance work. Thursday I decided to skip my run due to knee pain (okay, okay, I was a little sad, too!  But mostly it was because of my knees) and of course Friday was my scheduled rest day.

Aside from the difficulty with running and my lack of a social life, I've been feeling bingey all week long.  I've had a couple run-ins with homemade almond butter and a little too much fruit.  The scale has been creeping up and I'm about 5 lbs over the weight I was at when I started this whole thing.

I guess that leads me to my new strategy.  Feeling disenchanted with running, for whatever the reason may be, I downloaded The Primal Blueprint.  I've always liked Mark Sisson's take on chronic cardio, and I had it in the back of my mind since before I decided to train for the half.  I haven't finished the book yet, but I've decided to change up my training strategy a bit based on Mark's recommendations.  Basically this means lowering my intensity during my runs, adding in sprints once a week, and continuing to lift weights.  See below:

I tried to keep my hr during today's run between 55 and 75% of my max (105-144 bpm).  This meant that instead of running I was pretty much at a slow jog, with a couple short walk breaks if my hr got over my target zone.  I have to say, it definitely took me longer to do my 4 miles today than it did last week, but I could tell I didn't dip into my glycogen stores as much as I have in the past.  I came home feeling pretty stable and I didn't need a piece of fruit or a sweet potato after my run.

Distance: 4.26 miles
Time: 56:12
Avg HR: 132
Max HR: 157

Along with switching up my training strategy, I'm trying a couple different things with food this week.  No fruit except berries, and no nuts except macadamia nuts.  The fruit is definitely affecting me in the same way sugar does (makes me want to binge, eat when I'm not hungry, and puts me in a nasty mood!) and the nuts are just too easy to overconsume.  I stopped buying almond butter for that reason, but it looks like even the 2 year old bag of raw almonds in the pantry is a trap, the nuts are just screaming to be turned into almond butter (delicious when roasted, salted, and ground up with some coconut oil  *drool*).  Anyway.  The goal is to try the lower intensity running for a bit, and to keep my insulin well controlled.  Hopefully I'll see a bit of improvement with these changes!

This week's menu:

Roast chicken

Carrots and curried cauliflower

Salad

Pork roast

Roasted root veggies

Salad

Meatballs and pasta sauce

Garlic green beans, spaghetti squash

Salad

Leftovers

Carrots

Salad

Macadamia nut chicken

Broccoli

Salad

Leftovers

Broccoli

Salad

Training week two is nearly complete and meal plan

Saturday I completed my 'long' run for the week.  I have to say that after an actual day of rest, I felt awesome and had a really good run.  Stats:

Distance: 4 miles
Time: 45:40
Avg HR: 150
Max HR: 169

So I shaved about 2 minutes off last week's time.  I'll take it!  The three mile runs are getting quite a bit easier at this point.  I have been having a little bit of knee pain lately but nothing too bad.  If it gets any worse I'll consider doing something about it, but for now the plan is to just deal with it.

I've been a little discouraged this week because my weight seems to be creeping up.  I know I'm lifting weights, I know I'm running, I know I'm probably building some muscle, but I also think I've been eating a little too much.  Since Friday I've been trying to eat primarily raw veggies because I think it's easier to avoid overeating that way.

For instance, I can easily put down 12 oz of broccoli if I roast it, because it loses almost half it's volume in water in the oven!  But, 12 oz of raw broccoli?  Uh, no way.  That's an entire dinner plate heaped with broccoli!  The same with cauliflower... I could put down an entire head of roasted curried cauli, but there's no way I could eat a whole head of raw stuff.  And of course, those veggies need a healthy dollop of coconut oil to be properly roasted. I'm not afraid of fat by any means but it's easy to consume too much food with (the oh, so delicious) roasted veggies.

So this week I'm going to stick mostly with salads.  I am trying out a new dressing and it sounds promising.  If it passes the taste test tonight I'll post the recipe!

This week's menu plan:

Roast chicken

Carrots

Salad

Carnitas

Broccoli slaw

Salad

Flank steak

Garlic green beans

Salad

Leftovers

Carrots and Broccoli slaw

Salad

Apricot sage pork chops with red cabbage and fennel

Garlic Green beans

Salad

Pork Roast

Broccoli

Salad

Pre-training week is over, official training starts tomorrow!

Things have been busy around here!  I have tried several times to sit down and write a post but each time I do I find I'm sidetracked with more pressing things. 

Last week I got 4 workouts in.  Monday was 3x5 push press and back squat, followed up with 60 bodyweight squats and 20 pullups.  Tuesday was approximately a 3.15 mile run which took 42:05.  Thursday was 3x5 overhead squat (super pathetic weights on this one, obviously I need to work on my OHS!) and 5x5 deadlift, followed by 50 squats, 40 situps, 20 pushups and 15 pullups.  Saturday was a decent little run... 3.5 miles in 42:xx minutes.  I'm also sad to report that my Polar HRM officially died Saturday.

I've been doing great with keeping my diet clean, but I've also taken on a lot in this area as far as work goes, especially since I'm know working a little harder at planning paleo meals for my husband.  Last Sunday I tried the tactic of doing a big cooking marathon in the afternoon and it worked pretty well for keeping the rest of the week open for training so I tried the same thing again today, except I went bigger since I knew the training volume would be picking up this week.  Between last night and today, I:

roll cut, stuffed, and tied a pork loin for roasted sun-dried tomato and rosemary pork loin (a full loin, minus the tiny roast at the end, which is for later this week) and roasted it
roasted 2 chickens
made mayonnaise
mixed 5+ lbs of pork sausage and divided it up to freeze
chopped 6 bell peppers, 2 onions, a cucumber, 2 tomatoes, a head of cauliflower, 2 lbs of carrots, 2 apples, and 5 heads of lettuce
made deviled eggs
made a week's worth of sausage, pepper and onion egg muffins for husband's breakfast

So, most of my veggie prep is done for the next couple days, but tomorrow I have to marinate and cook two flank steaks.  The rest of the week should be pretty easy, due to the amount of leftovers we will have, I'll just need to cut some veggies mid week for salads, maybe make some dressing, and cook another pork roast later this week.

I also did our menu plan for the whole week:

Tomato and rosemary roast pork loin

Broccoli

Salad

Marinated Flank Steak

Broccoli

Salad

Roast chicken

Carrots and cauliflower

Salad

Leftover pork loin

Garlic green beans

Salad

Leftover roast chicken or thighs/breasts, or apricot pork loin roast

Broccoli

Salad

Baked salmon and cod

Garlic green beans

Salad

Annnnnd.... I figured out my strength workouts for this week.

Phew!  I'm exhausted!