About 5 Weeks To Go

sunrise from the top of Ribbesford over looking Stourport

And we're off again. So the week following the WOW I felt pretty darn good which was nice. Didn't run much, maybe 40 miles, but I did get back to my body weight routine which felt good after a few extra days off from it. This week I'm hoping to get in 60 plus miles running and then ramp it up for the following two more weeks and finally give myself about 3 weeks to taper.

Ideally I'd  like to get in two 30 milers but I think I'd be happy with one. I just need to be mindful of injury. I'm tired. I feel it in every workout and I feel that I'm on that cusp of too much which is bad. As long as I don't push over I should be good. My Achilles is still oddly sore. I've been working on my calves and also my feet which seems to be helping. It's not sore to the touch which is good but as I've said every time I mention it, it's there. A very mild pain at the back of my heel that goes away after I either stretch my calf or run for a bit. What I really should do is get a massage, a nasty painful, no fun, rub down on my legs to loosen them up but I think I'll save the money and try and do it myself. I've got a couple mobility moves that are great for my calves. Just need to do them which as of the past few days I've been on top of. Not sure if they are helping but I can tell my soleus is tight and may be the problem.

Bird In Hand pub

It's getting darker later now in the mornings which will make my uber early mornings tougher to handle. I love them, Wednesday I was up at 415, but it's bordering on headlamp time. Also I normally cut through a park which when it's dark out I hate. Two nights ago the ghetto bird, aka police helicopter, was flying over town due to yet another mugging/sexual assault in a park. Love this place, just waiting for that day to come when I bump into a gang of sweat pants wearing, tattooed, drunks leftover from a night of boozing. I shouldn't stereotype, but hey, that's the profile of the white trash here, aka "chav" or council housed and violent.

Bullock Lane Bridge

Anyway, I've changed my diet quite a bit for some time now. I've been eating a high fat diet which has been interesting. I figured I'd give it a go since I'm tracking what i eat in order to be sure I'm eating enough. So mainly focusing on high quality fats from grass fed real butter, eggs, coconut oil and milk, nuts, meat, fish, avocado; so no crap. Then of course a ton of fresh vegetables, some fruit but I've been trying to get my carb intake down to 150 grams. It's been going well. I no longer get "the hanger" from sugar crashes and my energy levels are way more consistent. I'm eating about 3200 calories a day which seems to be optimal for me. I'm not too strict and my carb intake is usually around 200 - 250 grams a day. It gets bumped up from 150 grams mainly due to fruit and I also have quinoa for breakfast post run to replenish my glycogen stores since I don't eat before I run.  I'll eat crap sometimes too; cookies, ice cream, pizza, beer, etc. I don't eat much of that stuff anyway so it's not a treat or anything, just something different. 

So why? Here's the basic thoughts. Well if you feed your body fat it changes gears to burn fat more efficiently versus relying on carbs. Fat is a far better fuel than carbs, it's slow burning, we have a ton of it in our body, even skinny people do, and many argue that it's what we are suppose to be eating. Way back before agriculture it's what we survived on. We hunted and gathered. Sometimes the hunting was bad so we survived on our fat stores until we bagged more animals to eat but until then we ate what we could find. More and more studies are coming out proving this all to be true, cholesterol and saturated fat aren't the enemy, it's the processed foods, sugars and carbs that are bad. But what about heart disease, etc? Take a look at current populations such as the Inuits, they subsist on fat. They have extremely low statistics for any heart related illnesses as do other similar populations. Anyway, I'm not going to get into more "proof",  just google it and there is a ton of info out there, more everyday. Remember, the government came up with the "food pyramid", do you trust them?

I think the biggest benefit is I no longer have "the hanger", hunger induced anger. Despite missing saying "uh oh, I feel the hanger" I sure don't miss those crashes! Don't get me wrong, I have my doubts, and am curious to get a blood test after I've been doing this for a while to see what my cholesterol etc is looking like. But for now I'm most likely the leanest I've ever been. Stronger too. The wife says I'm "hench", whatever that means! I look forward to eating this way without the high mileage running, just strength work, and see what happens. I'm not preaching, just experimenting with myself, using evidence I've found supporting this way to eat. This isn't a diet, they don't work, they are temporary. To each their own.

Anyway, some random photos from some random runs. It has been kind of grey lately and I haven't had my camera with but did get some decent shots.