Training on reduced calories

On Friday, I made a conscious effort to cut my daily calories and to measure my daily intake. My goal was to stay below 2000 calories per day for 3 weeks and see what happens. My secondary goal is to do as many of my scheduled workouts as I feel I can do in those three weeks. I've been expecting to "hit the wall" any moment now.

On Friday, I ran twice, for an hour each time. But, it was the first day, so I got through things OK. Saturday and Sunday were ski days, and I was tired by the end of the day, but not unusually so. My turns weren't getting sloppy or less precise due to tiredness. (Some might argue that my turns lack precision on a regular basis, but any lack of precision on Sunday was not due to a calorie deficit).

Yesterday morning, lifting was tough, but I got through it. I figured last night on the treadmill would be when it hit me. So, I walked for a while - 35 minutes at 4mph, 2% grade. I got bored and sped up until I got to 6 miles. It was somewhat hard, but I survived.

This morning, I had a great 7 miler on the treadmill, which surprised me very much.

Maybe it's the fact that I base my running efforts this time of year on Phil Maffetone's work, and I run very slowly during base building. The theory is that running very slowly uses a higher percentage of fat for energy than faster running, which uses blood glycogen (carbs) for energy. So right now, despite being in a somewhat carb-depleted state, maybe I can continue to do Maffetone-like mileage. Or maybe it will all fall to pieces any day now.

But, my weight is coming down, I'm getting into the routine of the lower calories, I'm not feeling too hungry, and I'm still working out. So, I'd have to say I'm off to a decent start. But, I'm only on day 5 of this planned 21-day experiment.

Thursday will be another weight workout, which will be a challenge.

Training Transition

I ran the Vermont 100 back in July and then ran two races later in the summer. One of the later races was a mountain race at a local ski resort and the other was a 100 mile road relay, with 5 teammates.

I was really drained after this racing and I was sick for a few weeks. So, I decided to cut back my mileage and not race at all this fall. For the most part, I've stayed around 30 miles per week, although I had one 50 mile week where I did a long run with a friend who was training for a marathon.

As my health returned and I felt more recovered, I started doing some speedwork this fall. As a result, I'm in pretty good shape right now, at least for me and for this time of year. I've been doing tempo or speedwork at least 2x per week for the last 6 weeks.

But, I think it's time to transition to long, slow miles, and start re-building my long distance base. In some ways, it's depressing to do that, because I've enjoyed running some miles at 7:00 pace or faster recently.

For my basebuilding, I follow a Maffetone-like approach. I start my "runs" by walking to warm up, I limit my heart rate while I'm running, and I finish by walking a few more minutes. This morning, I did 5.3 miles in an hour.

The good thing is that when I "run" at this speed, I can do a lot more miles and not feel so beat up. That's where I need to be as I start increasing my mileage.

I also know that by late March or early April, I'll return to some tempo work and interval work. But for now, it's time to relax and just cruise through my basebuilding for a few months.

On another note, tomorrow I start teaching skiing for the season. I've been leading training groups at the mountain for the past few weekends. It's nice to work with other ski instructors, but the real fun of the job, for me at least, is working with the kids. Tomorrow, our seasonal ski programs start, and I'll spend the next 16 weekends with the same group of 8-10 kids - skiing, playing, laughing, and getting to act like a kid myself.