RAMBO RUN!

TRAINING REPORT:

Get in wayback machine!  Quick catch-up post for Friday (and Saturday), a cross-training day.  It was CHISL'D day (their name, not mine) which meant lots of cardio.  Today's class was done in a style affectionately dubbed "Rambo Run."  This means jump-roping.  Lots of jump-roping.  

It starts out easy enough.  10 seconds of jump-rope, followed by a strength exercise (e.g. dumbbell curls, presses, rows, arm raises, push-ups, and lots of weighted lunges). Without breaking, increase to 20 seconds of jump-rope followed immediately by a different strength exercise.  Same sequence repeated for jumps of 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, and 60 seconds before decreasing the times by 10 seconds per sequence until you're back down to zero (total of 6 minutes jumping rope).  Not all of the non-jump-roping interludes were strength exercises.  Toward the end, there was a set of 10 "all out sprints" back & forth in the studio.  That. Sucked!

Once the Rambo Run was concluded, core exercises commenced (crunches, bicycle crunches, hip-ups, 'windshield wipers,' and Supermans).  The last brutalization after all of that was "7 up, 7 down pushups" with a partner.  Both start in push-up plank position and hold (or try; it gets tough toward the end) to hold that position when not doing push-ups.  First person does one push-up, then the other person does one.  The First person does two push-ups, then the other person does two.  Then 3, 4, 5, 6, on to 7 before going back down (6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1) the same way.  49 push-ups.  This was one of those workouts I needed an extra towel to clean up the floor when I was done.  Great class!

2011-FEB-25 Diet Log

2011-FEB-26 Diet Log (CHEAT DAY!)

MUSINGS:

As I mentioned above, this is "catch-up" day and Saturday is/was my off-day for the week.  We had some good friends over for dinner and ignored common sense in terms of diet (it was "cheat day").  There are some weeks where I really need the cheat day and others where I take it, but don't really go hog-wild with it.  Saturday was a hog-wild day.  Chips, oodles of honey roasted peanuts, Chicken-bacon-garlic pizza and pepperoni-mushroom-onion pizza, garlic bread, two bottles of fine wine (2007 Little Vineyards Petite Sirah - the only winery where we maintain a Wine Club membership, and 2000 Casanova di Neri Brunello di Montalcino), several samplings of home brew from the Uberbrau Kegerator, and the grande finale of Peanut Butter Pound cake with chocolate frosting.  

The day tipped in at just under 5000 Kcal including 209g (almost 1900 Kcal) of succulent, delicious fat (for reference, that's about 3 "normal" days' worth on my 3000 Kcal per day diet).  With 17 miles on the schedule for Sunday, I'll find something to do with it!  When I did my half marathon training, I used to try to have cheat day be on my long run day, but I was only burning around 1000 Kcal per run (or about double a normal workout).  With the full marathon training, my shortest long run burns over 1500 Kcal and my longest will approach 2500 Kcal.  I almost need both weekend days to pre-load and recover-eat from runs that long.  

The problem is getting "healthy" calories in the tank.  Wine & beer (and junky food) are part of cheat day, but they are certainly not the best thing to fuel your body for distance running!  I can definitely see how pro athletes can have weight problems when they retire.  When you're extremely active, it takes so much food to maintain your current level that you end up resetting your baseline for what's an acceptable amount to eat.  My plan for my training continues to be to have an "eat anything and everything" dietary cheat day once per week and then balance intake to output for the remainder of the week, always trying to err slightly on the side of over-fueling.  So far, so good!