Thursday, April 5, 2012

More Recovery

Goodness, what happened to March?  The first quarter of the year is done already?

Swim: 11,560 yards, 5 swims
Bike: 99 miles, 7 rides
Run: 82.8, 10 runs, 2 marathons (almost)
Strength: 10 sessions
Yoga: hit the mat 24 times

Regular swimming is a beautiful thing.  It should actually be 8 swims each month and over 14k yards.  But for the first month I was really trying to get back into tri training, I can easily accept 11k.  99 miles on the bike, however, is absolutely pitiful.  I actually did one ride that was only 5 miles.  I can also deal with the 82 miles of running, because I know there was a 26.2 and a 25 mile runs in there.   The recovery time from those races has kept me on the couch long enough.  51 out of those 82 miles were in races?  That's a lot of recovery.

And it's not done yet.  This week also has to be easy after the 25 mile trail run from Saturday night.  Taking it easy, and this pollen is kind of forcing me to take it easy.  Pollen has been really bad here this week.  Makes the yoga really difficult - anytime I forward fold it feels like I'm going to fall over.  So this week is still in recovery but next week it's back to base tri training.

There's an interesting trend going through all of these marathons with my weight.  I still log weight every monday morning in the spreadsheet.  Here's the weight after the last round of marathons:

Pre-Ironman Florida: 165 lbs
Post-Ironman: 173
Charleston Marathon: 181
Myrtle Beach Marathon: 188 - this freaked me out enough to cut out all carbs for a week

Tobacco Road Marathon: 187
Umstead 100: 189

So every marathon has been slower than the previous one, and I've been gaining weight the whole time.  I was never over 190 lbs in all of 2011, and don't want to go back there in 2012.  175 to 180 is my comfort zone with a body fat percentage under 20.  This week's 189 with a 22.4% body fat is scary high.  When you run long you have to eat more to recover.  You're burning exponentially more calories so you have to consume more calories over the following week to replenish.  I think it's a natural body response to the stress, it wants to go into fat storage mode in case you have to run like that again.  it wants to store energy.  My problem is that it wants to store that energy in the form of bodyfat around my belly.  I don't like that.  I barely understand it, and I'm ready for the trend to stop.  More weight is more bodyfat in this case, and that's really starting to slow me down, from the 3:54 Charleston Marthon to the 4:08 Tobacco Road, it's a bad trend.


Really I'm glad to be done with the long stuff for the season.  I've got a half marathon next weekend here in Raleigh, then will be ending the season with a half marathon at the OBX half ironman in september and no half marathons or longer in between.  This triathlon season's training plan is designed to get me short and fast. 

Next week is a base week for the tri plan.  The workouts are supposed to be slow and short with low intensity.  This is the same type of base plan I used with calorie restrictions last year before Ironman training when I was trying to lose weight.  It's time to take it slow to get faster.  This time I need to build speed instead of mileage.  Carefully plan the workouts and recovery, and follow the plan to get faster.  It's not an aerobic base that I need to build, it's a speed base.  So this is going to be interesting and hopefully fun.

Happy Easter, and have a great weekend!

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Cut out the beer! (That could just be the misery of a pregnant woman talking)

Complete Kitchens Colorado said...

Check out the paleo diet. Healthy foods, no counting calories, lose fat/ gain muscle, and you can still eat carbs ( although the diet is naturally low-carb).

B.o.B. said...

interesting look at your weight. i may need to do that at my next marathon cycle.

good job on getting the swims in. i too like swimming. happy tri season my friend! light it up!

Karen said...

Eating while training for marathons is tricky. I know so many (myself included) who managed to gain weight while running a ridiculous number of miles. I guess the key is what you are eating to refuel. I have been doing a Paleo / clean eating thing lately and it seems to help keep things in check.

Lisa from Lisa's Yarns said...

I would never have guessed you've put on weight judging by the pictures you've posted. But I understand your frustration. I am about 10 pounds above my ideal race weight right now. But I don't know if I have the will power to do what it takes to get those 10 pounds off...

McCrae said...

Very interesting! I don't own a scale because I'm worried that I would obsess over my weight. It would probably be worthwhile though to see how that changes through tougher training/stricter eating...

Jess said...

Shorter distances are fun! And I find I'm less likely to be as hungry when training for them as I am for longer distances, so I tend to keep the crap calories in check a little bit better!