Ketchup, Catsup, or Catch-up?

TRAINING REPORT:

It's easy to catch-up and write "training reports" when you skip workouts!  Last week was a large sink-hole of training while I was in Shreveport, LA, on business.  The weekend started on a "meh" note when I realized that I mis-read my training plan.  I though I had a 13 mile run on Saturday (3/19).  Oops.  Make that 20 miles. I was due to get up & travel most of the day Sunday and I really wasn't prepared to essentially give up my entire Saturday (run + recovery) before being away for a week.

Saturday, 3/19:

I ended up logging 15.6 miles at 8:22 per mile (Runkeeper stats). My iTouch got moistened on last week's run and was non-functional for this outing, so that piece of data isn't available. I shoveled in the food, knowing that I tend to have trouble eating enough when I travel (2011-MAR-19 Diet Log).  

Sunday, 3/20:

Travel Day.  Whenever possible I fly Delta Airlines.  To date, they have always gotten me where I need to go the day I need to get there.  It may not always be PRETTY, but it's at least predictable that I know where I'll lay my head that night (US Airways, not so much).  Delta tried REALLY hard to ruin their track record by canceling my flight out of BTV and rebooking me on a later itinerary and c.o.m.p.l.e.t.e.l.y. FUBARing the reticketing.  25 minutes with a very pleasant gate agent later, I had my tickets and first-class upgrade going out & coming home.  2011-MAR-20 Diet Log

Monday, 3/21:

Our team went grocery shopping after leaving the office and got back the hotel in time to turn around and go out for dinner.  Was there an opportunity to find time to hit the gym at some point in the evening.  Yup.  Did I?  Nope.  I did some push-ups and ab work in my hotel room, but generally felt pretty dragged out from the previous day's travel.  

I decided to keep my daily calorie goal at 3100 for the week.  Dining out in the South makes it challenging to find healthy options.  Even for those things that sound okay, not knowing how they were prepared introduces a lot of guesswork into tracking your diet, unless you're fortunate enough to dine at a restaurant that publishes nutritional information.  I knew the Blackened Mahi Mahi wasn't going to be great, but you could literally see butter/oil ooze out from the meat when you pressed it with a fork.  2011-MAR-21 Diet Log

Tuesday, 3/22:

All the best intentions of running treadmill intervals.  That's a terrific plan, assuming there's a treadmill available in the narrow time window between when we get back to the hotel and when we're going out for dinner.  Sure, in theory I could get up in the morning and run.  I could also wear adult diapers to avoid having to use restrooms.  Both are equally ludicrous notions that I choose not to consider as "viable options."

Needing to do something resembling running, I went out and did a pretty fine job of coming up with a solid ass-kicking.  My plan wanted me to do 6 x 800m interval runs.  I decided to go out to the bridge adjacent to the hotel and run up the slope and across the flat part on top as my interval and then walk down the slope on the other side until I was far enough to turn around and repeat the same run/walk interval going back.  I had planned for the challenge of running a "hill" interval (the slope was around 5-6%).  

What I hadn't planned on was the gale force wind that was blowing about 45 degrees into me for the majority of the run going one way. Strong enough sustained wind that it was hard to breathe in it. I did the over & back 3 times to complete the run.  I mapped the distance afterwards and found that the interval length was just about 800m exactly.  I also ran it quite a bit faster than I was "supposed" to.  

iTouch finally dried out & was functional (yay!), so I got my music & graphs back: Run Graph (Nike+)

2011-MAR-22 Diet Log

Wednesday, 3/23:

I don't know what I did to my triceps in the gym, but whatever it was, they were still sore on Saturday.  I started with a light warm-up on the treadmill to get my legs moving and did some free-weight work for about half an hour before I started pushing up against dinner time.  I did a little bit of everything (3 sets of most of this) -- push-ups and renegade rows, curl & press (standing), shoulder shrugs, Romanian deadlifts, squats, calf raises (toes forward, toes out, toes in), chest press, chest fly, tricep extensions, close-grip/tricep chest press, tricep pullovers, and finished it off with a few Turkish Get-ups.  2011-MAR-23 Diet Log

Thursday, 3/24 through Saturday, 3/26:

Thursday was intended to be an 8 miles run (5 miles @ Tempo pace), but we worked late and a run simply wasn't in the cards.  Friday was a get-up-at-4:30AM-and-travel-home day and Saturday was a home-with-the-family day.

• No workout Thursday.  2011-MAR-24 Diet Log (didn't track)
• No workout Friday.  2011-MAR-25 Diet Log (didn't track)
• No workout Saturday. 2011-MAR-26 Diet Log (Ben & Jerry's Bonnaroo Buzz -- Thumbs up!)

That whirlwind pretty well wraps up last week.  I'll get myself caught up on this week in the next day or two.  Sunday's 13 mile run was one worth writing about!