Woohoo!

I did a 12 miler! This may be the longest run I do before my half marathon on October 3.

I had been moanin' after an 11 miler a month or so back that my treadmill cut out at 1h40minutes.... Well, I did my 12 in 99 minutes flat! Bite me, treadmill!

I am so jacked up I had to share!

Yeah running - it combats those Monday blahs!

That's awesome! By the time your half comes around you'll be ready for a full.

lol if my feet don't fall off after the half!

thanks for letting me vent my joy. it's a runner's paradise type of day!

Great job!

I hear you about your feet!  I'm training for my first marathon in 20 years (ran one just under 20 years ago) and my biggest issues are 1) my feet hurt from all the pounding; 2) I've been training now for 16 weeks and there are days when running bores me; 3) I'm the only person in the history of marathon running who has GAINED weight while training. Go figure.

Let us know how your run goes and congrats again on breaking the 11 mile rut.

scaroppo - google it! A LOT of people gain weight while training!!! I think it is a defensive measure by the female body to preserve some fat and muscle in a time of stress. I bet if you were to stop, those few pounds would drop off, but its better to be running - unless it hurts!:-D

Original Post by bsh0611:

scaroppo - google it! A LOT of people gain weight while training!!

Yep - Rachel Cosgrove gained training for an Ironman!

YAAAAAY!  You're rockin'!  Congrats!

LOL... now I'm reading this stuff about how endurance training makes your body efficient at storing fat and makes you gain pure fat. That's not encouragement!

you are such a running studdette!!  

Original Post by bsh0611:

LOL... now I'm reading this stuff about how endurance training makes your body efficient at storing fat and makes you gain pure fat. That's not encouragement!

and show me a sub-12 hour overweight Ironman and I'll retire tomorrow and go back to sitting on the couch in my underwear, eating twinkies and drinking beer

Original Post by wesmckean:

Original Post by bsh0611:

LOL... now I'm reading this stuff about how endurance training makes your body efficient at storing fat and makes you gain pure fat. That's not encouragement!

and show me a sub-12 hour overweight Ironman and I'll retire tomorrow and go back to sitting on the couch in my underwear, eating twinkies and drinking beer

  Weeell, I'll go buy stock in Budweiser then.

Just because you're expending calories in training for relatively long distances doesn't mean you can't also eat your fool head off and gain weight regardless. It comes back to one of the very first points I make in the FAQ; there's nothing anyone can do, ever to out-train their diet over the long term.

 Okay, Phelps gave it the old college try but I'm fairly confident he needed to adjust his intake down as his training load got reduced post-Olympics.

 It isn't actually specific to the exercise, but endurance trainees tend to be more vulnerable to slowing or stalling weight loss once you get into the marathon range on a regular basis. Even running a full marathon will only expend about 2-3000 kcal over baseline for the reasonably in-shape runner and that's mostly offset by the carb-scarfing you need to do while out to keep from bonking.

 Now here's the trick - your body is completely teh suck at registering liquid calories, it's why you can drink a million calories' worth of beer and soda and still be hungry later on; liquids that aren't milk don't trigger satiety in the same way as solid food does. so it's possible to go out and run, mostly compensate for the calories you're expending from the drinking stations along the way, and then overfeed at dinner since you're still hungry even if your actual energy balance isn't very far from net-zero.

 It's isn't running-specific though; it's just an unfortunate combination of a few physiological quirks of the human body and most people's lack of strictness with their calorie counting. The pros with their own nutritionists or even dietitians following up on them are much less likely to get it substantially wrong; while it's entirely possible to finish the Iron Man in less than 12 hours while being overweight or 60 in the masterclass or both at the same time it's not possible to be a contender for medals while being substantially overweight.

Anyway - it all boils down to people who have a poor intuitive grasp of the energy balance equations needing to count calories to do what the 'naturally skinny people' do in terms of adjusting intake to output.

At the same time it's a little nuts to compare sprinters who mostly as a class consist only of professional competitive athletes to longer-distance runners where there's a whole bunch of recreational trainees skewing the averages. Yes, the average endurance trainee is fatter than the average distance trainee, but aside from Vyperman, me, and Fitnessgrrl, how many recreational sprinters are there? I think my calculator would run out of zeros if I tried calculating the ratio.

Original Post by bsh0611:

lol if my feet don't fall off after the half!

thanks for letting me vent my joy. it's a runner's paradise type of day!

congrats on the progress!  Just a word of caution...I hope you are getting in some road training too.  I find it a lot hard to run in the world, than i do on a treadmill....There are ups and downs and heat and humidity and such :)

keep at it and good luck in your half marathon :)

zhowe - October Lancaster County, PA morning humidity CANNOT match my basement - I have been sweating more profusely than I thought possible!!

Original Post by melkor:

Original Post by wesmckean:

Original Post by bsh0611:

LOL... now I'm reading this stuff about how endurance training makes your body efficient at storing fat and makes you gain pure fat. That's not encouragement!

and show me a sub-12 hour overweight Ironman and I'll retire tomorrow and go back to sitting on the couch in my underwear, eating twinkies and drinking beer

  Weeell, I'll go buy stock in Budweiser then.

Anyway - it all boils down to people who have a poor intuitive grasp of the energy balance equations needing to count calories to do what the 'naturally skinny people' do in terms of adjusting intake to output.

I just read something interesting in Triathlete Mag.  It said the a triathletes body is 70% what they put in their mouth, 20% exercise, 5% mental, and 5% sheer determination (not to stray).

I prefer to keep it simple and I still believe that link to that chicas Ironman experience is just being used as FUD...

YAY BSH!!! man, you are FAST!!!! youre gonna kick butt for your half!!!! now it's time for you to do a full ;)

and scaroppo, i'm just like you haha. I'm training for my first marathon, and yup, I've gained weight!!! I lost a bunch of weight at first, then gained most of it back. oh well. I run 2 minutes faster per mile than I did before I started training!

I ate about 2,800 the day before the long run and that was on a rest day so I could gear up to break through my 11 mile barrier. I think I have made my body too efficient an energy storing machine, and I'm hating myself for it.I read about the lady triathaloner and now I feel like a complete cheese.

JCL! HOW ARE YOU? How is your foot? I have been worried for you, CC-style, because of that darned injury. How are you feeling? you're going to whoop it at your marathon.

I think female bodies are meant to survive and fight for it so when BF drops below a percentage they fight the elements as much as they can. Man, when I first had my 2nd daughter, I lost a ton of weight not exercising, breastfeeding and eating 6,000 calories a day for the first week. I was 28 of 37 pounds lighter at the end of 2 weeks! But when I started exercising and my daughter ate CONSTANTLY from the breast, I couldn't lose weight. I started cutting back the calories, and I'd hold on to fat. When I put her on a schedule and decided to eat more, I lost weight. It was nutty. Then I started running, weaned, lost weight, then started gaining weight (at first unintentionally) from eating too little I think, and I think because I did damage to my metabolism.

So much of it is what you eat!

Original Post by bsh0611:

I ate about 2,800 the day before the long run and that was on a rest day so I could gear up to break through my 11 mile barrier. I think I have made my body too efficient an energy storing machine, and I'm hating myself for it.I read about the lady triathaloner and now I feel like a complete cheese.

 

 BSH,

Seriously-you need to completely separate your calorie needs and your activity:

Eat: based on what will give you the + energy balacne necessary to get your period.

Train: Based on your physical condition as will help you improve [whether that's a long run, rest day, or recovery period].

The two are independent variables since your body adapts--and all you do by feeling should's/shouldn'ts with your eating and exercise based on each other is give yourself something to worry about that means nothing!

I kid you not when I stopped training last Christmas [when I first joined] to "help me gain" I hit my lowest weight.

I'm right back there again -about 5lbs below where I maintain when training hardcore and eating the same or less- ironically enough, I'm once again taking a break from running [for non-weight-related reasons! it makes the gaining thing harder as my body rebounds and gets ahead of me faster... :(]

Original Post by bsh0611:

zhowe - October Lancaster County, PA morning humidity CANNOT match my basement - I have been sweating more profusely than I thought possible!!

 perhaps cause you are FAST :)

have a good race

tears2 - Someone had said something about ridiculous amounts of calories in and that's why some people gain. I was just saying what my pre-run calories are;-)

Original Post by bsh0611:

tears2 - Someone had said something about ridiculous amounts of calories in and that's why some people gain. I was just saying what my pre-run calories are;-)

 bsh- I was referring to overall calories in vs calorie out:

1. It doen't work day to day necessarily: your body does what it needs with it's bank [be it the day before or day after-and it uses what IT needs, not what you think it should! ...or makes up and prepares for strarvation if it doesn't have that]

2. Overall, your body can get more efficient when in training.  Even eating LESS calorie and doing ten times more.  Myself, as well as clients have seen this repeatedly.

FULLY agree that nutrition and calories are as important and physical training for any serious athlete.

My personal thoughts are that two primary factors kick in when doing  endurance training.

The first, and I can personally attest to this, is that anyone who is running at least an hour a day, several times a week, and 2+ hours on the weekend could assume that strict calorie counting is not mandatory so long as you are careful with overall intake. At least this is what I thought, given that I had lost weight when training and running my first and only marathon. I can honestly say that I have been making healthy food choices all along, but now that I am counting again realize that my portion sizes were slightly skewed.

The second is that our bodies DO try to protect themselves and ensure that they have enough energy for what we're asking them to do. Even with my skewed portion sizes, I still regularly maintained a minimal daily deficit and I still gained weight. Age may play into all this. As may the fact that with the increased running I had to cut back on lifting (mostly for time and work issues). But the end result is that numbers wise I should not have gained 6 pounds and even now that I am maintaining a 500+ daily deficit, my body seems reluctant to shed it.

Having said this, I am also convinced that things will balance themselves out and for now it is more important to focus on having fun and finishing the marathon without walking than a few extra pounds.