Juicing for Athletes…and supplements

Last year, we started juicing. It has made a pretty big difference for both of us. I haven't gotten sick since we started, and recovery is way faster. PDubs did a lot of research about what we should be juicing (what each fruit/vegetable does for you). This is what we came up with:

-Kale

-Beets

-Ginger

-Lime

-Apple

-Orange

-Carrots

 

 

We also sometimes add cilantro, parsley, watercress, or wheatgrass. That mostly depends on the season and what grocery store we are at! I try to buy all organic fruits and vegetables for when we are juicing.

The above loot makes about 11 ounces of juice for two people–the orange makes it tolerable 🙂 Depending on where we are in training/race schedules, we will try to do this every day–sometimes we have to skip a day, but it really has become routine (half the battle!)

 

 

 

 

I eat pretty well, but try to fill in any gaps with supplements. Above is what I take almost every day. The multi-vitamin and the fish oils are both a daily occurance. Cannot stress the importance/benefit of quality Omega's for recovery!! I started the probiotic when I started having stomach/gluten issues and it helped–I dont use it every day anymore though! The Viactiv calcium chews (which, side note, are delicious) I eat whenever I know I didnt eat much dairy of calcium rich food that day.

So, thats how we stay healthy over here. Let me know if you have any juicing questions (or specifics!)

 

This Week’s Running

My goal again this week was to hit 40 miles. AFter the 5k though…phew. You know when you take a rest week and it could go either way? You'll either not be able to WAIT to get to a “normal” week or….you'll be ready just to “take a little more time off” (which in my case, every year, ends up in 3 months off and a complete loss of fitness). Well, I was right on the edge of that. I did the race on Saturday, took Sunday off…and Monday…and REALLY wanted to take Tuesday off and eat ice cream but I knew any more than two days off is gluttonous and the loss of fitness really does begin after 2. So I put on my big girl pants and headed up with the goal to just get some miles in. And then took Wednesday off 🙂 Made it tough to get to 40 but Thursdays run was so awesome it inspired me to hit the goal!

Monday: OFF

Tuesday: 60min, Avg Pace: 9:25 min/mi, Avg HR: 156 (a wee high! foreshadowing for the week)

Wednesday: OFF (accidental OFF, just wrecked from 5k)

Thursday: 90 min, Avg Pace: 9:15 min/mi, Avg HR: 155

Friday: 60 min, Avg Pace: 9:30 min/mi, Avg HR: 153

Saturday: 60 min, Avg Pace: 9:26, Avg HR: 158 (mega oops!)

Sunday: 90 min, Avg Pace: 8:53, Avg HR: 155

Total: 39 miles even

So, I had intended to make either Friday or Saturday a split run (60 in the AM and then 30 in the PM) but out of the blue, IT band pain (in my knee) blindsided me. I have not had an IT issue since…2007? So it surprised me and I went Defcon 5 on it. A tiny twinge on Friday, and then Saturday the second half of the run HURT. So, I went home and did the protocol: Fish Oils (Zone Omega 3's!), Normatec recovery boots, ate a LOT, rolled and stretched until I couldnt see straight, AND got a different pair of shoes for today's run. Verdict? Not even a smidge of pain today, woop!

Got to do a 90 minute run today in the land of farms and flat roads (aka Bridgewater)–one of my FAVORITE old routes. Thinking that might become a staple in our weekly schedule now–its hard to have to go”hard” the entire time and have quick legs (as opposed to going up hill and having it easy on the downhills like at home!)

One more week of 40 miles (base, baby, base!)…a little more spread out than this week!…. then I will start adding in some tempo to hopefully get that Zone 1 pace up. Looking forward to the cooler temperatures coming up but also dreading I wont be able to run at 7am anymore when school starts!

CMS 5k Race Report

We are soooo lucky to have a weekly 5k here in town. It is $5 for non-CMS members (Central Mass Striders–a running club), and it is always on–rain or shine! There was a pretty big group today, having something to do with the perfect weather I am sure!

We went to a birthday party Friday night where I ate an unearthly amount of chicken wings and popcorn. Not exactly setting myself up for success! However, my stomach was still a wreck from the 3 days of gluten leading into it so too much fat was the least of my problems!

I checked the QT2 run calculator to see what pace I should shoot for. That thing has NEVER led me wrong. Even though I have done the race before, I completely forgot the course (seriously, I probably blocked it out).

 

Mile 1 – 7:10. Avg HR: 186. This felt manageable. It trended downhill. I was aiming for right around 7:10 so I was happy, but I definitely went out too hard – typical Courtney getting caught in the excitement of the fast people!

Mile 2 – 7:44. Avg HR: 194. WOOPS. This mile took FOREVER. I was consciously focusing on not throwing up and not walking. It was a slight uphill for pretty much the entire thing, with a pretty short steep hill thrown in the middle.

Mile 3 – 7:45. Avg HR: 196. As you can see from my heart rate, my effort was not lacking–just my pace! I kept thinking to myself that this was somehow a 10k because GEEZ I was out here for a while. I also kept thinking about 5k advice PW had given to me YEARS ago…1st mile manageable, 2nd mile all out, 3rd mile hold on. I was trying! Saw Pdubs with about .5 mile left and tried to look like I wasn't miserable and like I was running fast (both were lies).

TRIED to focus on turnover and using my arms during this mile (so I had something to think about other than how much I hated this!)

Last .1 – 6:59mi/min. Avg HR: 200. Yep. At this point I had resigned myself to throwing up. Thankfully, I did not. But I was close for the 15 minutes following the race!

Total: 23:21 Avg HR: 192. I am not super happy with the time because I was shooting for a low 7 minute pace, but I can also acknowledge I left IT ALL out there and be happy with the effort! Average HR 2 beats lower than the ridiculously hot Gillette 5k last month but what are you gonna do!

 

Looking forward to racing again at the end of the month–same place, same time!

Weeks Worth of Workouts in New York (highest mileage week yet!)

We are home from Lake Placid, and I am in a recovery week. I really tried to up the mileage last week, and then took Monday and Tuesday off so I could spend every minute celebrating with PW and our friends! We did a lot of eating, drinking, and generally having fun and taking the two days off was DEFINITELY worth it. What was not worth it? All the gluten I ate and subsequent 3 day stomachache/sneezing fit I am now in.

But, anyways, here is the week!

Monday: OFF (in preparation for what I hoped would be many runs!)

Tuesday: 60 min in the pouring rain before leaving for LP (9:02 min/mi, Avg HR 153)

Wednesday: 85 min around Mirror Lake (9:05 min/mi, Avg HR 155)

Thursday: 60 min, last 10 min w/Doug in Zone 2 (8:41 min/mi, Avg HR 159)

Friday: 60 min AM (9:04 min/mi, Avg HR 156), 30 min PM EASY with Jesse — 90 min total

Saturday: 52 min around Mirror Lake before QT2 B-fast (5:45am!) (9:06 min/mi, Avg HR: 154)

Sunday: 26 min run the morning of the race at 5am (super easy!)

Total: 41 miles.

FINALLY! My goal is to keep my weekly average right around 40 miles, and my long runs around 90 minutes for now.

This week is super easy in anticipation of a 5k tomorrow morning. I decided that last minute after I took Mon/Tues off and saw it would be a recovery week 🙂

Wednesday we drove home from Lake Placid, arrived in Wormtown at 3, unloaded the car, and I put in an easy 30 minutes at 4pm before we drove to pick up the dogs.

Thursday (yesterday) was 45 minutes at 11am. Pretty much all set with running anytime after 9am–so not used to the heat and mugginess after being in New York!

Let y'all know how the race goes tomorrow. My plan is to NOT do the typical “run a 6:01 first mile and blow up” thatrunnerchick 5k.

 

 

First Run in Lake Placid!

Woke up early this morning, but unfortunately I didn't sleep very well so I wasn't my normally perky self first thing in the morning!

Moseyed around for an hour, drinking a lot of water and munching on some crackers and decided to forego coffee and bring some caffeinated Clif Bloks instead. BAD DECISION. I pretty much felt awful for the whole 85 minutes, which stunk because I had built myself up to be so excited for a fun, fast run up here! Oh well–can't win them all!

 

There were my miles: 8:35 (all downhill!), 8:42, 8:52, 9:05, 9:17 (things are starting to go south right around here!), 9:28, 9:00, 9:17, 9:17, 9:57

Average HR: 155, Average Pace: 9:05

 

Proceeded to eat my new favorite protein bar, some fruit, and my leftovers from dinner last night, then fell asleep on the couch!

 

Since this IS vacation, I decided to follow up my nap with some shopping at the Gap Outlet (which was very successful) and a treat: grande hot passion tea!

 

 

I did some school work and then hit up the grocery store. I am one of those people that CANNOT go to the store without a list–but I did today and it actually worked out. I couldn't decide what to eat for dinner so I just bought a bunch of stuff that sounded good and threw it on my plate. Dinner was perfect!

 

Cucumber, snap peas, spinach and garlic chicken sausage, and fruit! With a few Sour Patch Kids for dessert, of course 😉

 

Looking forward to another run tomorrow and hopefully meeting up with the rest of our friends that are driving up!

 

Exactly what I needed

Yesterday was a rest day. I took it serious—I packed in the morning for Lake Placid and had an appointment at noon for a massage. As a massage therapist, I'm kind of picky (and maybe judg-y) when it comes to massages. In fact, I hardly ever go because I can't justify spending the money even when I know its a necessity. Im just afraid it won't meet my expectations! Well, I got an email for $35 massages and with my recent calf pain, I could not resist. It was a risk–$35 for an hour massage!?!?! Who knew what I'd get?

 

Well, guys–it was AWESOME. It was the best massage I ever had! She was amazing. I told her necks/back/legs and to go REALLY deep–she went to town. I got up after an hour in shock-she now has a customer for life. There were elbows involved, my calves hurt until this afternoon–it was perfect!

 

After my massage, and packing the car, the obvious next thing to do with a rest day is hang out with my peeps! I met two of my favorite girls at our favorite Mexican place. They make the guacamole right in front of you at your table (3 avocados worth!), and man is it delicious. Especially when paired with one of these:

 

I went home (early!) being so happy from hanging out with them, got a good nights sleep, and woke up early to run.

Up at 6am for an hour run in the absolute downpour torrential rain (pretty sure my five pounds of soaking wet clothing/shoes slowed my pace a bit!), and then we headed to LP!

4.5 hour drive–which I did by the way, PW is racing you know–and we are here! A lovely dinner at The Dancing Bears (try their gluten-free turkey club, so good) carbo-loading for my long run tomorrow morning!

Lets talk about this week’s running…aka how to survive a heat wave

If you've been watching the news/weather, or live here, Im sure you know New England has been in the midst of a 7 day heat wave. The worst part has been the humidity. It has been pretty much 95 degrees with 85 percent humidity and a dew point in the 70's every day! Please don't read this as complaining though–just laying down the groundwork to explain my runs. I actually enjoy the hot weather-I just got up early to beat the sun.

I pretty much looked like this within seconds of finishing every run this week:

 

Every one of these runs started before 7, and all were at a dew point above 70. Practically swimming! I reallllllly wanted to hit 40 miles this week, and got close, but a wrench was thrown in the works–explanation below.

I try to average 153bpm for Zone 1 runs, which these all were.

Monday: 80 minutes, 9:22 min/mi, avg HR: 162 (I did 20 min Zone 2 at the end)

Tuesday: 75 min, 9:21 min/mi, avg HR: 154; 60 min ride

Wednesday: OFF

Thursday: 60 min, 9:32 min/mi, avg HR: 158 (compensated pace for the weather!)

Friday: 45 min, 9:16 min/mi, avg HR: 154

Saturday: 60 min, 9:31 min/mi, avg HR: 161 (this was by far the toughest run of the week heat wise)

Sunday: 45 min, 8:42 min/mi, avg HR: 153 (THE HUMIDITY BROKE!)

Total: 39.24 miles

My plan was to do a split 90min run on Saturday (I was going to run 30 min in the afternoon) but out of nowhere the arch of my foot hurt something terrible for the entirety of my first run. It is a blessing/curse to be a massage therapist with a coach for a husband, because I know EXACTLY what that means and EXACTLY what I have to do to fix it. So my second run was put off to give me calf a rest and I did the protocol: calf raises/stretches, foam rolling, arch rolling on a tennis ball, and the worst: having PW dig his thumb into my calf 😦

But, alas! It worked. And the pain was minimal during my run this morning. And it allowed to do a serious jig at the end of my driveway when I finished my run–I was ECSTATIC! I ran in the house straight away and challenged PW to run a race against me, thats how awesome I felt (he declined).

Its amazing how what the weather can do your runs without you knowing. I was so happy to be running 9:20's during the week–I forgot how much humidity affects your HR/effort perception!

Really looking forward to putting in some serious miles in Lake Placid next week–goal is over 40!

 

 

How changing my diet changed my running

So in my last entry I alluded to changing how I ate. I'm almost embarassed to write about it because it is such a fad, but for the sake of honesty (and the fact its changing my life!) I will.

I jumped on the bandwagon–I gave up gluten.

Now, am I allergic? No. Celiac's? No. Do I feel better without it? Absolutely. I guess you could say I am “sensitive” to it. It affects me in many ways – my digestive system, my energy levels, my mental state, my running!

Its been a little under two months since I gave it up–about 7 weeks with only 3 moments where I tried to eat it again. And those three times all resulted in bloating, feeling sick, headaches, etc.

I tried going Paleo and felt awesome–essentially Paleo is gluten-free because you are not eating grains, but I love dairy too much to give that up (and its a major protein source for me!) Thats what got me thinking about how the wheat as affecting me…

Its been 7 weeks and Ive lost 12 pounds. TWELVE POUNDS! Not having the bloating and always feeling full alone is worth the giving up of bread. I am not tired all the time. I wake up without feeling terrible and tired. My runs are better.

I would eat pizza or a sandwich or spaghetti and literally roll around holding my stomach about how full and awful I felt, how distended my stomach was–PDubs can attest to this.

So–thats it. Here are two pictures–the first is from the 2.5mile race I did in May at 126 pounds, the other from the Finish at the 50 5k I did at 117 pounds (my father is in both pictures because we did both races together–and spoiler alert–he beat me at both!)

 

 

 

I am not recommending anyone else give up gluten–I do it now because it works for me. There is a lot of research going both ways–it is good for you, its good for you in moderation, AND its terrible for you. Do your research, and see what works for you!

 

Running.

Ive been doing some thinking about this blog. I seem to go through phases on what I blog about–or even if I blog. I guess thats the benefit of it being my own site–I can post about whatever I want 😉

HOWEVER, this week I was thinking about what I like to read about in other people’s blogs. The answer? Their training and their food. So I decided to start blogging about running again!

First, Id like to catch up on my training. Every year (it is inevitable, seriously) I end up getting overwhelmed by work and school and run sporadically for a couple of months. And it sucks–because when you do that you lose so much fitness, and all the work you put in leading up to that! I am going to try to break the cycle this year. How? BY SIGNING UP FOR ANOTHER MARATHON! The cure for me to run through the winter? A training plan with a LOT of running on it–the more miles assigned, the more likely I am to do it!

So, back in May after running off and on for months, I ran a two mile race with my father to benefit the One Fund for Boston. And it was miserable. The entire time I cursed my lack of running and the food I had eaten all winter–I ran that race heavier than I had been in a LONG time–126 pounds. And I could feel every. single. bowl. of. ice. cream. during those 8minute miles (at a HR of 178, seriously). That was the kick in the butt I needed to start running again! Here are the following weeks of training.

May 20 – May 26: 2 runs, 6 miles total

May 27 – June 2: 24.5 miles, average pace 10:45/mi

June 3 – June 9: 19.6 miles, average pace: 10:20/mi

June 10 – June 16: 17.7 miles, average pace: 9:55/mi

June 17 – June 23: 28.7 miles, average pace: 9:45/mi

June 24 – June 30: 34 miles, average pace: 9:30/mi (this was LP camp! lots of running/recovery)

July 1 – July 7: 17.3 miles, average pace: 9:40/mi

*This was a recovery week and included a 5k on Wednesday that week (race report coming soon!)

July 8 – July 14: 33 miles, average pace: 9:23/mi

So, Consistency. All of the runs were done at the same average heart rate–smack in the middle of Zone 1. I was a miserable, miserable person during that first month when running between 10:45 and 10 minutes miles. My husband was hiding from me because I was blaming him for me being “slow”. Now, is that actually slow? No, of course not. I was angry because when I stopped running in November I had been running sub 9’s in the same HR zone. And because it felt AWFUL. My legs wanted to go faster, I was bored, but my HR was just so high!

BUT PROGRESS! This week has been pretty miserable in terms of weather in MA. Well, “miserable”. I actually love it but my running does not 🙂 I have been up at 6am every day to have my runs done by 8am at the latest because otherwise it is a sufferfest. 6:30am runs are just half-sufferfest (humidity, but no sun yet). Looking forward to running in Lake Placid next week–cool, dry, and flat!

Since I bit the bullet and did this post (the most time intensive one trying to calculate all the data above!), I am feeling much more motivation to post! Tomorrow morning: I alluded to running that 2.5 mile race heavier than I’d like, so Ill post about what changed!

Also—race report from the Finish at the Fifty 5k with about a gazillion pictures!

If I looked up how many blog entries are titled “Don’t Call It a Comeback”…

I'd probably have to call it a comeback. I have been MIA. Again. And running a lot. Again. And exactly like my last post from two months ago…I am updating right before I run a race!

Life got sort of hectic with the end of the school year and the midst of another Masters degree. I also took running back up pretty regularly and experimenting with dietary changes.

I ran a color run last month and am getting ready to run a 5k tomorrow (night)…which means, when you include the One Fund race I ran 2 months ago, I will have collectively run more races in the last two months then I did in the entire year of 2012!

It is officially summer vacation for this girl so I will updatingmore (like for instance, the dietary experiment listed above and a race report for the 5k tomorrow….maybe even pictures from the color run in which I looked like a Smurf!).

But I also wanted to share some pictures from the last weekend. If you know me, you know Lake Placid is my favorite place in the world. This year will be PW and my 7th consecutive year going up for the race. It was also the 2nd year for the Lake Placid QT2 camp–I am beyond happy to be able to go up for TWO FULL WEEKS every year (one in June and one in July!).

 

I am ridiculously happy while there, and get in so much training with a full focus on recovery! Here are some pictures from this years camp….

 

Morning on the porch outside our room…

 

 

Group dinner at the Dancing Bears…

 

Where I ordered this Black Bean burger (I definitely had this meal twice while I was in NY…thats how good it is!)

 

 

A view from where I was timing the end of the Time Trial:

 

How I was getting all that recovery in…

 

It rained daily there…which then afforded views like this:

 

 

The race tomorrow is at 5:30 IN THE AFTERNOON (which is normally post-dinner for me), I am looking forward to running hard in this, my favorite summer weather!