Tag: hardlopen

Stepping Up The Nutrition Game

Recently I followed an online course at Shaw Academy called ‘Sports and Exercise Nutrition – What Fuels Energy Systems’.
I had the luck that I found out about it through an online action, so I paid €5 instead of €395.
If you would happen to stumble upon it through Groupon or whatever, I’d say go for it, because I learned a lot from it in function of my long distance running.
There’s a lot of trivial info, but seeing it all aligned and being able to adapt it for yourself helps a lot.
Just to show what I’ve learned I’ll show you the calculation I did for myself and some conclusions I’ve made because of it.

Some sideinfo:

  • I weigh ~72kg
  • 1g CHO (carbohydrates) = 4 calories
  • 1g PRO(teïnes) = 4 calories
  • 1g fat = 9 calories

First step: finding my CHO intake

I’ve put myself in the ‘Competitive – moderate’ because I do 3-5 training sessions between 1 & 3h.
This means 6-8g carbs/kg

Second was my PRO intake

A bit harder to find
I chose ‘Moderate intensity endurance athletes’ with a range of 1.2-1.5g/kg so I had some room to manoeuver…
The course went into length about the PRO intake and said you can safely up it to 1.8g/kg without side-effects, …
They give a fuller feeling when eaten, so I figured, if I eat too much of one of the macronutrients, it might as well be my protein.

Total Calorie intake = RMR (Resting Metabolic rate) * PAL (Physical Activity Level)

I’m 28 & male ==> (15.3*72)+679


Chose Moderate ==> 1.7-1.9

I averaged everything out, soooo …

RMR * PAL = ((15.3*72)+679)*1.8 = 1780.6*1.8=3205.08 calories/day (before I ate about 2500)

CHO average = 7*72 = 504g ==> 2016 calories
PRO av g= 1.35*72 = 97.2g ==> 388.8 calories
CHO+PRO = 2016+388.8 = 2404.8 ==> 800.28 remaining ==> 88.92g vet

At running days I try to go higher on the low-fat/high-carb ratio than on non-running days.

This is all very theoretic of course, but I’m roughly a month into this new calorie regime and have noticed that:

  • I run better
  • I’ve lost a bit of tummy fat (my hardest region)
  • crave less junk food (I eat/ate too much crisps in front of the TV)
  • I get to eat more, because it’s “better” food and do not need to starve myself.

If you happen to have questions about this, feel free to hit me up in the comments.

46k Training … Exhausting!

Last Saturday I set out to run a nice bike route near my home. It’s mostly flat and would lead through a forest, some suburbs, the countryside and canals.
As I’m training for a 6h run in July, I needed to add some extra distance to my long run. This route was 44k, so perfect!

As you all know, preparation is everything for running this kind of distance and durations, so I layed out everything I needed to make sure I had enough supplies.
The weather got me doubting what to wear but I settled for my Tribesports outfit.
The short sleeves could end up being a problem, but I took my chances.

Preparation
Preparation is key!

The route started about 2 miles away from my doorstep, so I took the bike there. An extra 4 miles wasn’t exactly what I needed at this point and in the end it would give me the opportunity to ride the stiffness out at the way home.
At the start there was a nice sign with the entire route mapped on it, so after a quick snap of it for some aid (you never knew…) I set out.

TheRoute
The entire route at the start/finish point

The first 21k/13mi passed at a reasonable pace. I ran consistent (6min/km=9.65min/mile) which was the pace I hoped to average on in the end.
Combined with a heart rate between 130 & 135 I felt good and strong.

Charming-suburbs
Charming suburbs
Piece-of-forest
Some nice piece of forest

 

 

 

 

 

The route was changing enough and pretty enough to be interesting, which helps a lot on these looong runs.

After the first half I felt my energy sapping.
The plan was to eat a date every 2km and something stronger (chocolate, meli-koek, piece of gingerbread) every 8-9km, but I felt I needed to adjust this to every 5-6km or I would be drained way before the end.

Lovely-lovely-sights
Just lovely sights!
Crossing-borders
Crossing the BE-NL border!

 

 

 

 

 

At about 30-35k I felt everything getting harder and harder.
My hip joints were getting sore and my knees were getting more sensitive. The breathing and the muscles however were still cooperating very well.
This all changed at about 38k.
I hit the wall. It wasn’t a big wall, but it was a wall none the less. My emergency caramel gel were promptly put into my mouth along with some gingerbread and a good deal of water and after struggling about 15min I felt it got slightly better.

Some-canal-running
Running next to the canal (watching out for bikers ;-))

But the best was behind me… I already knew at about 35k I would end up doing more than 44k (I was back on familiar terrain) and the last 8k I was struggling.
Not that I was totally kaput, but my heart rate was consistently at about 140 and my pace had dropped almost 30s per km.
To add to my “luck” the weather started getting worse, wind started swelling and was in my face, I got into a rain shower (short one, about 5 minutes) and I because of this all, my arms were getting cold. (this may sound more dramatic than it was.)

But I just kept going  and ended at about 46.5k.

EndClock
Timing at the end.

I ended up eating/drinking:

  • 40gr of oatmeal with 250ml water and 1.5 bar of black chocolate for breakfast
  • 22 dades during my course
  • 2.5 bars of black chocolate during my course
  • 4 pieces of gingerbread
  • 3 meli cookies.
  • 2l of water (slightly too little, my head hurt in the end)
  • 0.5l of water during my stretching
  • 1 bar of chocolate during my stretching
  • 0.5l of recovery drink (protein)
  • 1 recovery bar (protein + carbs)

The aftermath is great, yesterday I wasn’t all that sore, but I was tired.
Today the same, no soreness, but I could have used some more sleep… But tonight I’m aiming at another 20k, heavy week 2 out of 3 is starting!

PS: If you’re interested in live updates, you can always follow me on twitter…

 

How was your long run? Seen some nice things during?
Ever ran a layed out route (for bikers)?

BloodDonation

Blood Donation: Giving Away My Best?

Tuesday evening I donated blood. I do this every 3 months when the Red Cross passes through town.
Nothing shocking here, the aftermath however…

Usually I notice nothing after a donation, this time it was horrible.
Wednesday evening I went running and boy was it horrible…
I averaged at about 20s slower per km, felt faint and developed a headache.

Yesterday I had a recovery run planned, but my legs felt so rubbery I stayed home.

The combination of donating blood and limiting my calorie intake after my ski trip made my sugar level drop I think.
Every time I stood up too fast or picked something (or someone :-)) up it went black before my eyes.

So yesterday I ate … a lot and consistently throughout the day. Happy to say I felt a lot better this morning and hopefully this means that I can go through with my run of tomorrow.

The distance isn’t adding as fast as I’d like, but hey, listening to the body stays rule #1!

Do you donate blood? Ever felt faint after?

Recovery Run Around The House

As I had a tougher race than anticipated yesterday (Trail Du Mont, race report coming this week) I woke up with sore quads this morning.
Seeing that Monday and Wednesday are my running days and I can’t really move them around, the question was if I would go running this evening or not.

I decided a recovery run was in order, so after work I headed out.
Only half a mile away from home I noticed that the quads were more sore than hoped.

So instead of going on my regular run that consists of running away for X kilometer and then back again I decided to run laps around my house.
The diameter of my town is about 3.3 km (~2 miles) with an awful lot of shortcuts should I wanted to head home early.

Evening sight Zeebrugge
The sight wasn’t bad. Hooray for slightly longer days!

The plan for this week (made before the race) was twice 90 minutes of running, once in my zone 1 and once in my zone 2.
For my Goal For 2015 of running 2500km this year I should end with 210km per month. Those 2 runs would get me in that range, but stepping out today soon put me in another mindset.

Nice and easy and fairly short would do it today. Waking the legs to help the recovery.

I ended up with 3 laps, good for a good 11km (~7 miles) which isn’t all that bad in the end.

Do you go running the day after a race? Always or only up to a certain race distance?
Have you got a backup plan like this if you feel your legs aren’t all that?

My Step To Ultra

As you might have read on my blog here before I’ve run a marathon in October 2013. (Posts here, here and here, race recap here).
Seeing that the marathon is a mighty big goal, I lacked motivation once finished to continue running for a while.
I still enjoyed it, it helped me relax etc, but feeling that I had nothing to achieve gnawed at me apparently.
This went on for about four months and then I got invited to join a noncompetition trail run at half an hour drive away.
I went there with a couple of friends whom I never met before in real life, but chatted a lot online.

The run was 25km (~15.5 miles) with some nice hills and about 85% off-road. Nothing too hard, but much more enjoyable than constant asphalt.
We went out at about 5:30min/km and roughly continued at this pace the entire run.
Coming towards the finish I still felt very strong and had the feeling I was able to add a lot more distance if it were necessary.
The day after I wasn’t too sore, nothing worse than a tough interval day.

It than came to me that ultra maybe was possible.
If 25km went this easy, I felt obligated to myself to give it a shot.

We’re talking March-April 2014 here and after some looking around on the Internet I found a nice and easy 50k run at Maasmechelen at the end of June.
It consisted of 4 laps and knowing my daughter was coming (turned out to be April 15), I thought this the best for my girlfriend. This way she could come along and see me a couple of times passing without having to drive around herself.

So this meant I needed to start training.
For my marathon I hadn’t really followed a strict training plan, so I figured I wouldn’t look for one now either.

I focused on upping my mileage steadily with some stabilization now and then. Once again, being a ‘new dad’ meant I had to compromise towards my running (with pleasure off course :-), so I only had the time for 2 runs in the week and one long run in the weekend.
In the end I started with:

  • 1 run in my Zone 1 (Heart rate zones, see here…) for 70 minutes
  • 1 run in my Zone 2 for 70 minutes
  • Long run of 22km

And decided to go with:

  • 1 week adding 5 minutes to my Z1/Z2 runs
  • 5k adding (first time 3 to come at a proper distance) to my long run
  • Running the same as the week before

Rinse and repeat…

I had 12 weeks to go and managed to follow it quite strictly

50k schema
My schema

Ending with a 40k run, which was 80% of the distance made me feel confident about the race to come.

Race report coming in a later post, hope you enjoyed 🙂

Race Recap: Marathon Brabant, October 27, 2013

After the origin posts leading up to my race, here is the race recap itself.

We’re talking about more than a year ago, October 27, 2013.

I have trained for this day … a lot, yet I’m very nervous.
This is the first A-race I’ve planned in all my “running career”.

Day before I laid everything out and hung the bike rack to the car so The Girlfriend could pedal from one point to another and see me go :p

Race day … 6:30am
Had a good night of sleep and woke up fairly rested, time for breakfast.
Thinking I needed a breakfast of champions I go for

  • Banana
  • Honey
  • 3 white slices of bread
  • Dark chocolate
  • No milk, but lots of water.

Start of the race was 11:45 but it was a drive of 1h45, so we got going at about 8:30 am to surely be on time.
Drive was fine, I stressed as little as possible in the passenger seat and tried to clear my head.

Once there the nerves hit me. Looking for my bib I saw all these professional runners and got nervous.
I could choose between two corrals: -3:30 and +3:30.
Seeing I aimed for 3:30 I doubted but went for the -3:30 to push myself a little with faster runners.

Fast forward to the start (nothing happened that all of you don’t know: dressing, being nervous, going to the bathroom thrice, …)

Waiting in the first corral I say to myself I should keep running in my first 2 zones as long as possible, preferably until mile 20. Then I could see what’s left in the tank and speed up if necessary for my goal time. (3:30 = 5:00 min/km = 8min/mile)
I think you all know what they say about plans. I stand there, full adrenaline, seeing my heart rate is already at about zone 2 and the gun goes off.

Go go go … don’t go too fast, DON’T go too fast, … 1km: 4:39 HR: 155 (end of zone 2) *grmbl*

Marathon Brabant - Beginning
Nice action pic from somewhere near the start
Marathon Brabant -Slightly downhill
Look at the arrow, it says marathon and points to me =]

So i didn’t take the best of starts. Every damn article talks about this mistake and I knew it, yet I went. 2nd km was too fast as well (4:43) before I got to pace myself.
Most of the following kilometers where at about 5:00 pace so that went well, but my heart rate was definitely too high. I felt it went well, but was afraid for the notorious wall at km 30-35 (~mile 20) or so. But feeling strong (and naive?) I kept going at this pace.

I brought gel and meli cookies with me, both great for carbs. Had one bottle of water with me and 2 waiting at given points with supplies.
Planning on eating one of these every 30min and drinking every km I had a solid nutritional plan, gladly it was one I actually stuck too!

Marathon Brabant - Meli cookie
Mmmm … Cookie

Everything was very solid until about halfway. That was when it got thoughts. Luckily The Girlfriend stood there and pedaled some time along with me. After 3km we sadly met an official saying this was not allowed, so it was plodding off on my own again.

The course was 2 times the same lap which meant I now knew what was coming.

Nice part through the woods lifted my spirits, but not my pace. It got harder and harder to get 5min km, but slicing the remaining distance in pieces helped a lot mentally.

Marathon Brabant - km31
Hydrating at km 31 (~20miles)

Last part of 4miles got really hard, quads started cramping, it was a boring piece with lots of wind and I knew an uphill and bridge part were coming up. I started passing ever lore walking people what was somehow helping but triggered a little voice in ly head as well. A voice that stated all those people were better trained, so if they were walking, surely I could for a bit. And if that meant not getting my goal time there was always another.

I pushed the voice away, clenched my teeth and got to the final part. Could wave to the girlfriend, could pass some walkers, started seeing more people along the way, last piece uphill was coming with the bridge after it and I pushed through, heavy as it was…

Marathon Brabant - km38Uphill
38km and uphill
Marathon Brabant - km38Uphill2
It’s clenching teeth time!
Marathon Brabant - km39 on the bridge
Marathon Brabant – km39 on the bridge

The finish got closer, a nice banner was put up at the last 500m stretch. I wanted to speed up a little for the last part, but the cramp was too close. Just running out was a-okay at this point.

Marathon Brabant - Finish
Finish!
Marathon Brabant - GooseBumps
Obligatory Garmin shot! (WITH goosebumps)
Marathon Brabant - So Happy
Yup, it’s real, I did it, I’m a marathoner 😀
Finished in 3:29:29 (20131027_MarathonEttenLeur PDF), so barely made my goal time, but I made my goal time 🙂
Heart rate was consistently too high, which accounts for the cramps in the end.
But nutrition and hydration went well, so all in all I was very happy with my debut!

Endomondo & Strava link!

Marathon Brabant - Nailed it
Marathon Brabant – Nailed it
Holiday_sleeping

Holiday Break?

Christmas is coming and so is new year’s, but I bet knew that already 🙂
Weather is terrible here, wind keeps on blowing 11m/s – 13m/s and my girlfriend has the flu.
Combined with all the dinners that are coming I suppose I can justify a holiday break of running.

Main reason I’m writing this down is because I don’t really feel like it, but I know it gives me stress and puts me in a bad mood if I should be running and I can’t because of whatever reason.
Trying to turn this around I’m putting myself on holiday break figuring that I’ll just be extra happy if I could get a run in.

I don’t know if this makes a lot of sense, but it sure does to me, so there it is … my holiday break starts today (instead of a 30k run :-))

Enjoy your sunday!

 

Will you be running a lot during the holidays?

2014_running

Slowly Saying Goodbye To 2014

December 20 2014
Only 11 days and we can start cursing again when we write down the date (oh right 2015 *grmbl*)

2014 wasn’t too shabby. Not running wise nor personal.

Quick personal recap: I became a dad for the first time! She’s already eight months now and boy does it go fast!

Running wise:

  • Tracked 2274km to date (~1413 miles)
    I guess if all goes well I could add another 50 or so in those 11 days but we’ll see
  • Bought 2 pair of new shoes
    • Pearl Izumi: a brand I had never heard of and will continue buying
    • Scott: a trail shoe that fits like a glove
  • Ran 6 races which means an average of one every 2 months, way better than expected
    • A very low-key trail of 25k that wasn’t a real race (no bibs, no timing) but helped me convince I was ready for longer distances & trails
    • A 5k race where I PB’d below 19 minutes
    • A 50k which went waay better than I had hoped for – 7 min below my aimed time and relatively fresh (see my PB page for exact timings btw)
    • A marathon in one of the nicest settings there are ‘In Flanders Fields’ at Ypres, great way to start the remembrance of WW1. Did this one as a pacer and ended just above 4h. Was very happy with the recovery afterwards etc
    • A 56k trail with 1200m of ascension (~3937feet).
      This was my ultimate goal of 2014.
      I suffered, but in a good way and finished just below 6h.
      Distance record, duration record, busted quads record 😀
    • 10k run where I broke my PB. Sadly not below 39 minutes, but since short distances weren’t my focus this year, I’m happy that I PB’d!

2015 goals post coming later, just give me some time to look back at this post with a content smile 🙂

I’d love to read about your year, be sure to link me up in the comments!

EndomondoLogo

App Review: Endomondo

Disclaimer: i do not get sponsored in any way, felt it was necessary to tell this as i see a lot of discussions going on at blogs about this topic

When I started running I did not want to spend an awful lot of money on a GPS watch. Not sure if running was something I would keep on doing, I went looking for a cheap alternative and stumbled in the wonder world of running apps.

There’s a lot of choice in running apps now, but in my day it was pretty scarce. Endomondo got a lot of thumbs up then so I went for that one.

A lot has changed since the early version and I think that many bugs and irritations have evolved well down the road.
Important to say: I am an Android user and can only judge the app on this OS.
For screenshots and general features I point to The Play Store

I know this is somewhat lazy, but I figure there’s no point in showing a bunch of screenshots, I just will list the top 5 and the worst 3 parts IN MY OPINION.

Worst 5

5. Social Part IN THE APP

I honestly swear with Endomondo social wise. It’s a clean layout with a nice timeline and user-friendly way to add comments etc. In the app hower they force it and it’s rather slow going even on Wi-Fi

4. Random crashes 🙁 No notification when en route

I have a decent phone (LG Nexus 5), yet the app sometimes crashes for no apparent reason. Okay, it happens. Downside is that you (obviously) do not get a notification, which can result in logging loss.

3. Pages – Who uses those?

Section of Pages. Nice try Endomondo, only reason that’s used is for shoving ads up our face.

2. Sharing to Facebook

It’s either yes or no. You can activate or deactive it, you cannot choose to share some runs.
(Actually there is a way, to do it afterwards, but that’s just a nuisance)

1. GPS (Device dependent…)

This is very device dependent, but the GPS is picky. For example ‘Swarm‘ can get my location instantly, yet Endomondo keeeeeeeps on searching for GPS signal and can suddenly let you know that GPS signal is lost. Resulting in some weird GPS routes.

Boggy GPS Endomondo
Exhibit A: weird GPS results

Best 5

5. Easy pause & unpause

Because of the nice clean main page (see below) it’s very easy to pause and unpause your workout without delay.
You can even set autopause on if you’d like, just be sure you do not turn 180° to head back, because more often than not it will autopause on the spot.

4. Ending the workout

As easy as you pause the workout you can end it. At that point it’s very easy to add some text about how the workout went and pictures if wanted.
Everything with a hashtag gets tidily stored in your workouts so you can search on them later (I use it to track mileage with my different pair of shoes)

Endomondo - End Of workout
Sorry for the dutch interface 🙂

3. A LOT of sports are available

The list is actually waaay too big, but I suppose that some kite surfers would actually take their phone on the water 😀

Endomondo - list of sports
Part of the list of sports

2. Startup interface

One thing that hasn’t changed all that much between versions is the startup screen. It’s clear and easy to use. Very user-friendly, very to the point and very customisable (3 fields that you change to anything)
Endomondo app main screen

1. Audio coach

What I really like the most about the app is the audio coach. You can customize it in a lot of ways so you can get all the feedback you want at any time you want. Very handy to just plug-in some headphones and no need to bother to look at your phone during your run.
Even during intervals it works great, but that’s a PRO feature.

Endomondo audio coach 1
Endomondo audio coach 2
Endomondo audio coach 3

For totality:

Main site
Endomondo blog
My Endomondo account – Feel free to add me!

Review of the website and advantages of the premium may follow later.

Do YOU like Endomondo?
Do you KNOW Endomondo?
Would you consider using it after reading this?