Rest is Good

I was told once by a personal trainer that the key to good health is threefold:  Diet, Exercise, and Rest.  If good health results in better overall energy, then a lack of energy would mean that one of these things is out of whack.

Over the past week or so I have been feeling sluggish, yet I have continued to push my exercise regimen.  So, yesterday, I made the decision to do nothing.  Just rest.  Today, I did an easy 7 miler, which is scaling back for me... guess what?  It worked.

Today, I woke with more energy, felt better at work, and did my 7 miler with gusto!

My simple advice today- if something is feeling out of sync, you may need to change something in your diet, exercise or rest plan.  You may be under or over-nourished, you may be under or over- exercised, or you may be under or over- rested.  Just start looking at what you're doing and make adjustments where needed... a little rest for me, went a long way.


Enjoy this relaxing video :-)

Slinky on a Treadmill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=711bZ_pLusQ


Good night!

Mahi-Mahi with Spinach and Shiitake Mushroom Sauce

Mahi-Mahi with Spinach and Shiitake Mushroom Sauce

Shiitake Mushrooms
Diced Tomatoes
Spinach
Salt, pepper, cilantro, and garlic powder
1-2 TBS flour
1 TBS butter
Peanut or olive oil
Mahi-Mahi fillets
Shredded Parmesan Cheese


1.  Boil a pot of water, put shiitake mushrooms in the pot and remove from heat and cover allowing them to soak for at least 10 minutes.
2.  Season Mahi-Mahi fillets with salt, pepper, cilantro and garlic powder, lightly oil a pan and pan fry both sides of the fish until done (approx. 5 minutes a side)- remove from heat and cover and set aside
3.  Melt butter and combine with flour, salt, pepper, and garlic powder in the pan stirring together.
4.  With a ladle, take some of the water from the shiitake mushroom soak and pour it into the pan- the amount of water, like the amount of flour will be based on your desired thickness and how many fillets you are cooking.
5.  Stir the water/flour mixture until it starts to thicken, add more water if necessary.  Once the sauce starts to take shape, add the shiitake mushrooms and spinach to the sauce and continue to stir.  When the spinach leaves start to wilt, add the tomatoes and stir- then turn off the heat.
6.  Serve the Mahi-Mahi on top of rice, then pour sauce on top.  Finish with shredded Parmesan cheese on top.

Enjoy!

*Oh, and no comments on the place settings, my 4 year old set the table :-)

A Little Organization Goes a Long Way

Today was a full day.  I knew it was going to be full in advance, so I was ready to tackle the challenge ahead.  I needed to get my 4 year old to his preschool by 6:45 for his 7 PM preschool graduation, I needed to get dinner ready to eat by 5:15 to accommodate dinner guests for the purpose of a church meeting for my wife and our guests that would precede the graduation.  AND, I wanted to go for a run after work, from which I get home at around 3:50ish every day (I generally want my runs to be at least 6 miles).

Whatever did I do?  I got organized, planned ahead and got it all in, relatively smoothly.

The night before, I thawed out a whole chicken, seasoned it and placed it in a slow cooker with some water at the bottom and put it in the refrigerator.  I measured out brown rice, seasoned with salt, pepper, and a little garlic powder and I placed it in a sealed container and left it out on the counter.  I measured the water and put it and some olive oil in a pot and put the lid on t for the rice (every step taken now will save time later).  I then prepared the frozen peas by opening the freezer and touching the bag... yep, still frozen... then closed the freezer door.  I even got out all the serving utensils, plates, napkins, and silverware.

This morning I woke up, put the slow cooker out and set it to low (the low setting should cook the whole chicken in 6 hours), then I ate my breakfast and went to work.  Upon returning from work, I turned off the slow cooker (more than 6 hours later), then I dumped the premixed rice into the water, covered the pot and started the water to boil.  I got ready for my run.  Once the water started to boil, I turned it down to a simmer and bolted out the door.

When I finished my run and my stretching, I came inside, showered and changed and started to pull apart the chicken, placing bones and skin into my broth pot and the meat onto a serving plate.  I added water to the broth pot and started a simmer, pulled out the frozen peas and quickly steamed them and put the rice in a serving bowl, then put the peas in a serving bowl.  Prepped the table, ate with our guests (who were completely oblivious to everything I just wrote), enjoyed our time together, then parted company.  Went to and enjoyed the preschool graduation and, well, finished the broth, prepped for tomorrow's lunches, bathed, brushed, prayed, and bedded the boy, and wrote a blog entry.

Now, of course, I've got some dinner ready for another day, either Tuesday or Wednesday.  I've posted before about prepping meals days in advance and still believe that if you can get into a rhythm of doing this, it will make your life a lot easier when you are time crunched.  If you have room in your freezer or an extra freezer, you can prepare weeks in advance.  Just make sure you label what it is and put a date on it.  Homemade frozen dinners are great, but with no preservatives, they don't last forever.

Thanks for reading and God bless!

X Training

Cross training is probably one of the most overlooked activity for runners.  In large part, I think, it's because once you've caught the running bug, that's pretty much all you want to do.  The problem with only running is that you only work out one muscle group and you become a one-dimensional athlete.

I have begun to wonder if my lack of cross-training is the reason why I have such cramping difficulties in marathons.  For my last marathon, I only trained by running 6 days a week, with varying intensities and workouts.  I logged the appropriate number of miles and yet still had to fight intense cramps in my quads for the last 4 miles.

I never really have taken cross-training as seriously as I think I should have.  Don't get me wrong, I've done some cross-training, but it never really excited me as much as running.  After the marathon in March, I started to focus on strengthening my quads with weight training, but really felt as though I needed something else after a while.  So, finally, after 20 years, I decided it was time for a new bike.

Today, I did my second 24 mile ride.  What's nice about riding the bike as cross-training is that it is still a good aerobic workout and you get to do it outside.  It also works different parts of your leg muscles, which could be handy when your quads need to recruit them for added strength.  Also, the low impact aspect gives your joints a chance to recover from the pounding of running while still getting a great workout.

The only drawback is that if you want to get the same caloric burn from biking as running, you have to do it longer.  You have to bike about four times as long as you run to get the same workout.  For example, if I want the same workout as a 5 mile run, I would have to bike about 20 miles.  In fact, the biking equivalent of a marathon is a century (100 miles), to a marathon's 26.2 miles.  This fact I started thinking about on today's ride, which made me start thinking.

I think I'd like to try a century someday.  I already run marathons, so I'm in shape.  I have the ability and determination to train, and I have the roads on which I could train.  There would be timing logistics I'd have to work through and I would need a training plan, but it might be worth the effort.

I guess the other benefit of finding a cross-training workout that excites you as much as running does is that you might start wanting to join-in on the other side's fun.  So, I guess you can say that riding a century is a new goal of mine, I don't know when or where, but I know it will be done.

The final thing I will say about cross training is that I have always believed that changing your workout routine every six weeks is essential.  That might not mean finding something different to do, but to increase your intensity.  Finding a good variety of cross-training routines can help you either jump around or to change your workout goals and training plans seamlessly every six weeks. This only aids in weight loss and muscle growth as your body doesn't get the chance to find an equilibrium.  

I do enjoy biking and hope that this sticks for a good while.  And I hope to find a century in the near future that I can train for and complete.  Any suggestions would be nice.

Thanks for reading!

The Red Line

Today was quite a day for me.  I started by straightening up the house and vacuuming, then I went outside and mowed the lawn, then I went for a 14 mile run.   I am sore, I am tired, and I am trying to get off the couch so that I can punch down the rising dough... the timer's going off, I'll be right back... ok, I'm back- doughball punched down and reformed, now I have to wait 30 minutes before I shape them into loaves, then I will go to Family Game Night at the church.

I think I may have dehydrated myself today.  When I do long runs, I always wear a Camelbak that carries 50 oz of water.  More often than not, there is still a little water in it by the time I come home.  I will often, when my miles will exceed 12, pack two additional bottles of 10 oz each, especially when it is hot out.  Generally, when I get to the last two bottles, my emergency supply, I know it's time to head home.

Today was a very warm day to run, and you know I've preached hydration, but for some reason, even though I had planned to go 14 miles, it didn't occur to me to pack the extra water.   What's more, by the time I was at about 10 miles, I noticed the 50 oz were almost gone.  There's a point in this particular route I take where you can make a decision, turn here for 12 miles, here for 13, or here for 14... I don't know what it was that made me make the turn for 14- perhaps I wanted to prove how tough I was, or I was just thinking how great a training this is, to run near empty... but in all honesty, looking back, I knew I should have turned to go home.

Sometimes the drive to push ourselves beyond where we think our limitations are overrides common sense.  I was certainly tired and sore when that time to make the decision hit, but I didn't interpret that fatigue as something to be concerned about- I just pushed through... my pack went dry by mile 12, which meant that I had 2 more miles to run, in heat, without any way of hydrating myself (fortunately, if it got severe, I did have my cell phone- though the water that comes from the cell phone usually tastes like silicone).

It was hard, but I made it home.  It never got severe, but I also didn't pee for like 3 hours after I got home and it was a dark yellow, that's when it hit me that I was approaching a danger zone.

The weather is hotter now, and when we run in hotter weather, we need to remember to drink a lot of water and stay attuned to our bodies' needs.  We can make it through, pushing the red-line, possibly going over and surviving, but we might also be doing irreparable damage to our bodies in the process.

Alberto Salazar, in his book 14 Minutes, talks about this as it relates to his 14 minutes clinical death.  14 Minutes is his autobiography.  He details his career as an elite distance runner and highlights many races that were made famous, like the "Duel in the Sun" which was a famous duel between Salazar and Dick Beardsley in the 1982 Boston Marathon.  Salazar winning the marathon by a mere 2 seconds.

Alberto Salazar had a reputation of running past the "red-line" to exhaustion and nearly died because of this at least once.  Crossing finish lines and just collapsing.  However, though he was considered extremely healthy, he still collapsed almost 25 years later and died for 14 minutes as he had a massive heart attack.  No one knows for sure why, but many of the theories go back to these events where he had heat stroke, heat exhaustion, severe dehydration, etc.  These conditions most likely weakened his heart, creating plaque, and, over the years, it all caught up.

I bring this up only to highlight that there is no need nor reason for those of us "Citizen Runners" especially, to push beyond that red-line.  It's OK to only go 10 miles instead of 14.  It's OK if we need an extra day off.  It's OK if we make a speed workout into an easy run.  We need to be careful when to push and when to hold back.  It's great to push ourselves, but we need to know when we're going too far.

We, the citizen runners, are the best advertisements for others to get outside and run.  We know the benefits and the joys and we want to share it with others.  But every time we get injured because we went too far, we feed into the lie that running is not good and give evidence for others to never try.  So please, fellow runner, heed this warning, hydrate well, rest well, eat well, don't push the red line too much, and be careful out there.

Well, it's time to shape the bread loaves, then get to game night.  God Bless you all!

Sometimes, I Like Running in the Rain

You know what?  I kind of like running in the rain.  We've had a lot of rain lately, and on Monday the rain was a gentle, steady rain.  At first I was hesitant to start the run, but after a few miles, I was reminded about the peaceful, quiet mood a rainy run can be.

For starters, no one else is outside, you are all alone... no lawnmowers, no one smoking outside, very few cars, and no outside dogs barking at you... the only thing you hear is the gentle patter of rain, your breath and your own footfalls.  There's something meditative about a run in the gentle rain.

There are times when I look outside and take note of the weather conditions and just wish that I could just stay inside, but the experience is never as enlightening or calming as a good run in the rain.  The only other similar experience is running in the snow.  These are often the weather conditions that many, including myself, have used to excuse themselves from getting outside and getting active.

I usually get a lot of thinking done when I'm running.  Entire lesson plans get completely rewritten for the next day or even the whole week on a run.  I solve social, political and economic problems on a run.  I have singlehandedly solved many, if not all, problems with educational policy and leadership on a run.  The societal ills that I make better on a run is directly related to the length and difficulty of the run.  The longer and easier the run the more complex the problem I can solve.  On a rainy or snowy run that is long and easy... you can't imagine what I can do with that.

What's surprising is that those of us who don't have enough sense to come in out of the rain, stay out there because we have learned the meditative qualities of these runs... and now I've blown our secret. It's not always nearly as unpleasant as it looks, in fact, I would say you don't really notice it all that much until the run is over and you come inside...  then you need a towel.

Or maybe we really don't have enough sense to come in out of the rain.

Obesity and Poverty- an interesting article

There is a reality to this article that I can just barely understand.  I've never known true poverty, but have certainly seen poverty.  One would think that those in poverty would be thin, too thin, but in America, those in poverty are often obese.

In Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It by Gary Taubes, the author describes a similar phenomenon with the poorest among us.  I've even blogged about it.  The fact is, fattening food is cheap and when it comes down to whole food and fruits and vegetables vs. boxed, prepared food- boxed, prepared, processed food is cheaper and easier to feed a family for many people... it also creates obesity and all the health problems associated with it.

I believe that this does not have to be so.  With proper training and support, I believe that even the poorest among us can live happy, healthy lives.  Please read this article and give me your take on it. It greatly disturbs me, but is very true for a large number of people in this country.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ann-bauer/poverty-weight_b_1500009.html?fb_ref=email_share_box&fb_source=message

Thanks!