Week 10, Training for a 50K Trail Race

 This has been a recovery week, and I surely needed it. After finishing my 16 mile trail run, I spent the rest of my Sunday getting plenty of rest and recovery. Unfortunately I did not sleep well Sunday night through Wednesday night. Each night I felt like I was having hot flashes, and was nauseous. Looking at my sleep tracker I was very busy tossing and turning all those nights. Needless to say My week didn't start off well. 

Week 10 Training Plan: (6th - 18th October)

Monday: Rest and Recovery, Mobility 30+ minutes.

Tuesday: Glute & Core Strength 45 minutes, Mobility practice 30 minutes.

Wednesday: Glute & Core Strength 45 minute, Mobility Practice 30 min.

Thursday:  Easy run 3.1 miles on the flats keeping Zone 2, Strength 30 minutes.

Friday: Easy run 3.1 miles on the flats keeping Zone 2, Mobility 30 mins.

Saturday: Tour De Cure ride 4.5 hours with some significant climbing.

Sunday: Trail run 14 miles keeping Zone 2 as best I can with the hills.

Luckily Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were rest days from running and riding but I still needed to get in my strength workouts, and my mobility workouts. I was fine doing those, but mentally I was struggling. I also felt like I was coming down with a cold. My eyes were heavy and itchy, I had a slight sore throat and some post nasal drip, not to mention my energy level was a 2 out of 10. 

By Thursday I had enough of being tired. I called off my late morning and afternoon work commitments and tried to nap. This nap was semi-successful in that I did sleep, but not for as long as I was hoping for. Needless to say I was still able to get some sleep Thursday into Friday and even woke up feeling refreshed. 

Friday I had to take my car in for service in the morning, then was going to do my run when I got home. This was a great plan especially since it was going to get into the low 90's again. On my morning run the temp was already 75 degrees when I started, but the light felt like it was 5pm. It's definitely fall even if the temps are not fall like. 

Friday evening I prepared all my food and water for Saturdays long ride. This helps me rest better knowing I'm all ready for the morning. The good news about these rides is there are plenty of places along the way to stop and refill my water bottles. The ride was going to be around 6 hours in length so I packed enough food for 200 kcal an hour plus water with Clif Hydration at 20 ounces an hour. In all the ride  went really well, we all stayed together and enjoyed a nice lunch break in Pescadero. The air was so clear that when we go to Hwy1 you could clearly see the ocean. Also by this time the temperature had risen and we were all feeling quite warm. I was able to get a few bits a pieces of video from the ride, but unfortunately during the last descent my camera flipped down and I didn't know it. When I got to the bottom of the descent I saw my camera pointing at the ground and realized I may have missed the entire Kings Mountain descent. Oh well, I'll just have to ride that road again and make sure that darn camera stays facing forward.

**Here is the video from Saturday's Tour de Cure ride.**

Sunday's run ended up getting cancelled. Long story short, my long run from last week ended up causing a strain in my left calf. It was fine most of the week, however when I got off my bike after Saturdays ride, something went pop and it hurt the rest of the day. With my event coming up in only 6 weeks I need to stay healthy so the run had to be canceled. 

These things happen in training, and you just have to go with them. When we try to push through is when we create bigger problems. So instead of running, I will be focusing on recovery through rest, ice, compression and gentle mobility exercise to keep the knee and ankle moving while I'm not running. We shall see how next week goes. 

Homemade Energy Snack Balls

If any of you are like me, busy through the day running here and there. Many days you feel like you are out of control and when you are hungry so is your snacking a bit out of control. You wonder what can I do about this.

Maybe you are lucky and have an office that has snack food at the ready. I'm going to guess the snack food consists of cookies, crackers, chips basically anything in a package that was easy to order and is able to be left out for long periods of time without spoiling. I'm sure you already know that is the worst stuff for you to snack on. Right? Or maybe you are lucky and your company orders things like Cliff bars and things similar to those. OR maybe you are really lucky and your office has vegetables and hummus dip or peanut butter and fruit.

Most of us would agree it's easier to have these things readily available so we don't have to think about what we are snacking on. The veggies and such are obviously the healthiest choice of snack, with the cliff bar and their equivalent being the next best choice. Hopefully you would agree that the chips and such should be avoided on a daily basis.

So then what do you do when you don't have these at your finger tips? I have been playing with a few recipes on homemade no bake snacks. These snacks are higher in protein and lower in carbohydrates that their store bought equivalent and take about 30 minutes to prepare a batch of 6 servings.

You are probably wondering why I mentioned higher in protein and lower in carbohydrates. I mention that because many of the store bought snacks can be as high as 13:1 carbohydrate to protein ratio. This is quite a high ratio even for someone who is doing an Ironman event of several hours. For the most part many Americans get more than enough carbohydrates in their normal american diets, but fall short in their protein intake, especially women. My goal with these snacks was to get this ratio closer to a 4:1 ratio for better nutritional balance.

What you need:
1 medium sized, medium to ripe Banana
5 TBSP Peanut butter or Almond butter
1 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
1 TBSP Cinnamon
1/4 Cup Unsweetened Shredded Coconut
2 scoop (44 g) Vega Protein Smoothie Vanilla protein powder
1 Cup Old Fashioned Rolled Oats
1/4 Cup Raisins, Blueberries or dried fruit of your choice

How Do You Do This No Bake Thing?
1. Mash the banana in a bowl, then mix in the nut butter. You can also use seed butter if you are allergic to nuts. If your nut/seed butter is quite dry, warm it up in the microwave to soften it, then mix it in with the mashed banana.

2. Next up add your Vanilla Extract, Shredded Coconut, Protein powder, and dried fruit. Mix these up well.

3. Last add the oats and mix well. If you find its too dry and the oats aren't sticking together, I added a tsp of water at a time until everything gently sticks together. Be careful not too add too much water as this will make the finished product too moist and sticky.

4. Use a tablespoon to scoop out the mixture and roll it into little balls. This recipe will give you 12 tablespoon size balls. Once they are all rolled up, place them in the refrigerator for 2 hours to set.

5. At this point you now have 6, two ball servings. They will last 3 days in the fridge or 3 months in the freezer.

Happy Snacking!

                                                     NUTRITION FACTS
                                                  SERVING SIZE 2 BALLS

                                    PEANUT BUTTER       ALMOND BUTTER 
CALORIES                             224                                     216
CARBOHYDRATES            25.5g                                    26g
FATS                                       9.5g                                    8.8g
PROTEIN                              10.5g                                    9.6g