Monday, September 22, 2008

Monday 17 miles.

am) 10 miles in 1:06 with 8 X 10" maximum effort hill repeats.

pm) 7 miles in 44:50. As small as this run may have been in the big picture of my miles- this was possibly the best run I've had in several years. Tonight I practiced a little brain training and worked on resetting my thoughts on what I'm feeling and why. My last mile tonight was in 5:54 and it literally felt like a 7:00 mile... effortless. My logs show that I should be tired, but there's no fatigue at all. I finished reading "Brain Training for Runners" a few days ago and am now part way through it again. I've already started to work with my athletes on the concepts that I am not only reading about but am using for myself. I am figuring out ways to convey to my athletes what they should be feeling based on my own experience. BJ has already had one of the biggest breakthroughs of his life on his long run this morning. He ran so well he thought that something was wrong (seriously).
Part of why I am feeling so good is that I have made significant diet changes that have put me at 139-140 pounds for the last week, the lightest I have been (while fully hydrated) for any length of time and the changes have actually helped my recovery and ramped up my metabolism and my energy is flowing freely. Like I said, I should be tired but I feel like I just took a rest week. The minus 5# is part of why I am recovering and feeling so fast.

6 comments:

Marco Coelho said...

Lucho,

What diet changes have you made? Curious...

MC

Dave said...

So what's the magical way to loose weight? I've seen my weight drop a bit since ramping up my training in the last couple of months, but being a bigger guy 6' 182 lbs. (on a good day) I find it's hard to go down further by just training. I've tried to eat less, and tried to eat more, but I just haven't found something that works for me. I could be more strict, but are there any general guidelines you follow? I know you talked about carb consumption a while back, and that was really helpful. I guess I'm just wondering what the best way to lighten up and at the same time still stay energetic is.

dude said...

Glad you enjoy Matt's book.
I would love to hear more about what you think of it. Do you understand my initial comments al little better now?

cheers
uli

Lucho said...

Loud and clear! I truly do appreciate your pushing me outside of my "box". Thank you.
Matt's book is good. I think he could have delved a little deeper in techniques for mental training and dealing with the central governor. It would be almost though, to give advice on something so acutely unique to each person. It's sort of like diet- you need to foundation (knowledge) to figure out what works for you. By simply understanding the process it is making it very easy to see where I need to go. Last night's run was a break through for me in terms of seeing my mental limitations. At the KC Marathon in 4 weeks I will be pacing myself through to 1:15 at 13.1 miles then turning off my watch and going 100% by feel alone. No numbers, which as you pointed out, are wrong! The concept is difficult to explain in a way that makes sense at first- which I why I didn't understand. I think one thing that the Kenyans may have on the rest on the world is that when they train from an early age they don't have watches. They don't know what pace they are running! All they know is that they ran from their village up to the big tree on the hill along side a guy that won the NY City Marathon. They have no preconceived fear of X pace per mile. By paying such strict attention to how I feel at 5:30 pace I learn to fear it. When I look at my watch in a marathon and see 5:30 pace.. it triggers a Pavlovian response in my legs and they get tired. They don't get tired from the running- they get tired because I think they're suppose to be.
T

Primal Runner said...

Lucho

Can you provide any insight into these significant diet changes that you have made?

Cheers
Branden

Lucho said...

For the past 2 weeks I've eliminated processed sugars completely. I cut my coffee intake in half and drink 1 cup of green tea or black tea with my lunch. Breakfast is 30-40g of soy protein powder in 1 liter of water.
Post run is V8 juice. Lunch is a small bowl of pasta with olive oil and 200mcg of chromemate. An apple mid afternoon before my second run. Dinner is normal, healthy food like potatoes, pasta, chicken, rice.. no eating after 7pm. It's nothing ground breaking by any means but it calorie deficient. Eliminating the processed sugars is partly why I'm leaning up and my energy is high. The chromemate helps too.