Friday, April 25, 2008

Sleep

I still feel pretty good after the race last weekend. I've run every day this week, and my 7-day mileage total is at 66 miles, the highest so far this year.

The one clue I've had that I might be a bit tired has been in the evenings, especially last night. I fell asleep sometime before 8:00 last night. My wife came home from a meeting and woke me up, and I looked at my clock. It said 8:12 and I almost panicked. I thought I was late for work this morning and that I'd missed my run. When I found out that it was still Thursday night, I just went back to sleep and I got 10 good hours of sleep last night.

My weight seems stuck at 187 right now, and I've been gradually making minor changes to my diet to reduce some calories. Hopefully, I'll see some downward progress soon. One of the changes I've been making has been to my post workout recovery drinks. Instead of drinking them full strength, I've been using half of the mix that has carbohydrates and mixing it with a protein powder, to reduce the overall number of carbohydrates. I'm trying to reduce my total carbohydrate consumption to the point where I can feel it start to affect my workouts. After I find out where that point is, I hope to eat just enough carbohydrates daily so I can train well, but no more than that.

My last 4 weekend long runs have averaged over 25 miles. After this weekend, my long run will average over 30 miles for the four following weekends. So, this weekend will be lower mileage. I'm planning on 10 tomorrow morning, doing 5 easy, 3 tempo, and then a 2-mile cooldown. My son has a 90 minute track practice tomorrow morning, so I'll drop him off at practice and run from there.

Sunday will probably be my last skiing day of the season, unless I make it to Tuckerman's Ravine for some skiing next month. I would like to do that, and because you have to earn your turns, it's a workout as well. But, my scheduled long days and the closeness of WS will probably keep my focus on running rather than skiing.

My son's track team had a "scrimmage" meet last night and they mostly ran relays. He ran an 800, a 400, a 200 and a 100 last night, all in relays. He said he hates the 800 because he just locked up after about 600 meters. He also improved his PR in the shot put by 2 feet last night. He's hoping to throw the discus competitively in his meet next week.

His next meet is the middle of next week and he told his coach he wants to run the 3000. She told him she's never had a runner switch from the 100 to the 3000, but his freshman year is a good time to experiment with different events. One of his teammates, another freshman, has already run 12.4 for the 100, and qualified for the state meet at the end of the season. Phil doesn't seem likely to qualify for states this year, but he seems to be enjoying the variety of events he can try.

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