Under the Weather

Well today wasnt a great day, after getting little sleep last night due to sore throat I felt totally exhausted today and the last thing I felt like doing was exercsing.

I put in a decent run of 19km in 1hr 36mins last night after work but I just didnt have it in me today. So in the end I just jogged home at an easy pace and cut my run short to 5.7km. No point overdoing it here.

I've had a few requests to blog about my diet. So i'll give you a brief snapshot of my daily routines and what i have eaten over the last week.

During the work week I always start the day with a LARGE bowl of homemade museli. This consists of rolled oats, almonds, walnuts, brazil nuts, wheatgerm and a few other seeds. I eat this alongside a generous helping of low fat greek yoghurt. I easily eat 1kg of greek yoghurt a week. Cannot get enough of it!

Breakfast is eatem at 7.30am and usually sees me through until 10am. At this stage I will either have a piece of fruit or a homemade snack (museli bar). Clearly i cant get enough of museli!

Lunch is at 11.30am most days, i just cant seem to hold out any longer. Today I had a bowl of mexican beans and peas and other veg, left over from last night. I also had a biscuit. Dinner was spabol. Im a huge snacker and i never deny myself so I might have some chocolate later or ice cream.

I generally have a protein shake with a scoop of milo and skimmed milk after a run to replenish my muscles. My girlfriend is vegetarian so the majority of our meals are meat free which suits me. We probably eat more courgettes in a week than most families do in a lifetime! Chickpeas and root veg also make up most of my diet. I do have a killer sweet tooth though. Just this week i ate 4 large chocolate muffins in 24hrs. I could have done them all in 10 mins but that would have been greedy.

Generally speaking if I want to eat something I will. Since i've started ultrarunning less than a year ago ive lost almost 10kg in muscle so im keen to not lose anymore. I love eating and it seems these 2 sports go hand in hand.

No Real Training Plan

Today was a much shorter run than intended. I had planned on doing roughly 20km around the park close to my work when I realised I had forgotten my head torch. No way I was going to run the trails without seeing where I was going so I cut my run short and just ran home. Of course I could have run on the roads for 20km but I didnt fancy it. And that was fine.

The reason im saying this because I do not follow a set training plan, I never have. I just train by how I feel. I let my body dictate what I want to do. If I dont fancy doing something then I wont. I find this keeps me highly motivated and generally speaking injury free (bear in mind I only injured myself by racing).

I have a rough idea in my head of the mileage I would like to achieve each week, but if a social occassion comes along or I am just not in the mood then I went let that bug me, i'll just come back running more keen the next day.

Tonights run was the first time since The North Face 100 that I have run without knee and ITB supports. I ran a steady pace and I felt great all the way, no pain.

Distance: 8.33km
Time: 37.55 mins
Average pace: 4.33 min/km

Tomorrow I shall be watching The State of Origin so it will be another night where I wont be running long. Instead I can focus on speed and hills and make the most of the time I do have.

First Injury Since Ultrarunning

Since I completed The North Face 100 on the 15th May 2010 I have not been able to run more than 8km without aggravating my ITB. I belive this is due to the dramatic increase in time runnning during the race (13hrs 28mins) compared to my longest training run (6.5hrs). I took a week off to recover and tried to start running again only to find my knees wouldnt allow it. So another week off and I started running but still it was painful.

Its now week 3 and I went for a 8km run on saturday and had a little ITB pain towards the end. I think im possibly running too fast (4.30min/km) and should perhaps cut down to 5.30min/km and see how my knee feels then.

Extremely keen to build up my mileage again as I signed up for The Glasshouse 100 in September. This will be my first 100 miler attempt and a dramatic increase from 100km. I certainly wont be able to bluff my way through this race so need to make sure im in top condition.

I have 3 months to prepare and get in shape and I shall detail my journey here...