The long weekend

Glad the weekend is done.  Usually weekends are a time to recharge and recover, but not so this week.  Despite having to work this weekend and knock out a long run this morning (on the treadmill - I will get to that), I am in remarkably good spirits. 

To start things off, my 5 m run did not goes as planned.  Last night, I spent some time seting up the Garmin heart rate monitor (a pretty neat tool).  In order to mix things up a bit, instead of doing my easy/long-run pace (10:34/mile), I figured I would do max heart rate training (65-75% of my max (194); approximately 127 to 147.  After some tinkering, I was finally able to get the heart rate monitor working and get the data fields on the Garmin conifgured.  However, when I woke up this morning the Garmin was frozen.  Luckily, Meg was nice enough to let me borrow hers (all is well!!), but the rain decided to play games with my head and not make it possible to do an outdoor run.

Bottom line: despite starting the day off on tilt, I was able to put toegther a 5 m run on the treadmill at the gym (10:20 pace with 1.0 incline from 2.0-2.5 miles, 1.5 incline from 3.0-3.5 miles, and 2.0 incline from 4.0-4.5 miles).  All in all, I am proud that I was able to pull things toegther and knock it out.  Shows I am able to overcome adversity and that I have come a long way (special thanks to Meg and Dean K).

One good thing about running on the treadmill was that I was able to put some of the running anlaysis tips to the test (I saw a sports performance tech eariler this week for a Gait Analysis).  Big areas I focused on: arm swing (relaxing my arms, not putting them out to the side, and keeping 90 degrees in my elbows - better for momentum) and stride (ensuring my feet land in line with my knees and hip - was told my feet land 3 inches in front of where they should).  Short and sweet: the tips helped and improved my performance.  Also, the physical therapist recommended that I strech more, so Meg and I went out a bought a Stick the other night.  Since using the stick, I feel A LOT better - everything is looser and I don't feel as tense after a run. 

Overall, it should be a pretty easy week with Philly Half coming up.  A few shorter runs is pretty much all that is on tap.  Since discussing my intentions to fix my eating habits in my last post, I have improved a lot.  Each day I am getting closer and closer to the 50/25/25 - 60/25/15 carbs to fat to protein ratio.  Best part, I feel better since my eating habits changed!  I have more energy and stay fuller for longer.  Since starting my new diet, I discovered a new favoritie pre-run food: wheat bagel with almond butter!  So darn good.  My hope is to get things completely on track after I see the nutritionist on Tuesday.