Five Miler

My last run longer than last night's easy five miler was on 12/14/2009. Last night's five miler took forever, it seemed, at a slow and comfortable pace, but I got through the run just fine. It was nice to go out for a run, feeling motivated to run.

After running, I made a simple dinner of haddock broiled with olive oil, steamed green beans with butter, and a salad.

I re-read part of The Primal Blueprint last night. The basics of the Blueprint can be found at the link. I've decided that rather than trying to just turn a switch, I'm going to improve every week. So, this week's goal has been to cut out grains. In reality, that's a tough assignment all by itself.

The PB is made up of 10 simple rules. Some of them, I'm good at already.

"Eat lots of animals, insects and plants" - I do this a lot, except for the insects part. Regretfully, another rule states "Avoid poisonous things". While this might seem easy and obvious, when you find out what Mark Sisson means by poisonous, it isn't so easy. Sugar and grains top the list of things most people wouldn't expect to see on a list of poisons. Gary Taubes would put them on such a list, but not many others. My recent beer consumption would count as ingesting poisonous things. Other items that the PB considers to be poisons, at some level at least, are legumes and other starchy vegetables. My lunch today included black beans and delicata squash, two non-primal foods. Artificial sweeteners make the no-no list. And for some people, dairy products make the list as well. That's a lot of different foods to give up, at least on a regular basis.

Some of the rules I really have nailed down already. I already "Lift Heavy Things". I make time to "Play" - my ski instruction is just like being at day care all weekend, except I'm the bully who gets to make the other kids do what I want. Sometimes anyway. I get lots of sleep. I get out in the sun nearly every day.

I do have a history of subscribing to what Mark calls Chronic Cardio. Isn't that what ultrarunning is as a sport - moving for hours and hours on end? And yet, there is a rule in the Blueprint about moving around a lot at a slow pace. I probably move too much and much of the time at too fast a pace. There is also a rule about sprinting, and because of that, I add in speed work to my running more and more often these days.

I don't think that following all of these rules will make me a great ultramarathoner. But, I've never been great at this sport anyway. Right now, I'd just like to be leaner, stronger, more agile and more flexible, and feel less old.

I'm afraid to even step on a scale right now. I'm guessing I've gained 25 pounds since September and I have a lot of work to get rid of that extra fat.

Tonight, I'm going to do an upper body workout in the gym.