Day one of training consisted of what was intended to be cross training. Initially I left my apartment in cleats with a soccer ball at my feet and full intentions of doing some drills in the field next door, however I found myself pretty quickly in what resembled more of a marshland than a soccer field and dropped that idea.
Returning to my apartment, I donned my running shoes and headed out to a patch of pavement behind the school, in whose field I had intended to play soccer. In the end, I did a few sprints back and fourth across some basketball courts and a bit of fast running across as well, but found myself quickly remembering two things: First, how hard it is to catch your breath after doing a few sprints. Second, how bad my side stitches really are if I've been running like that. I need to find a new way to cross-train, but that's for another post.
Today, day two went much better. I was planned for a 2.5 mile run as well as some strength training. My impression of strength training is that it is more intended to round out your training, rather than to actually build muscle, so strength training ended up with a few sets of crunches and some time with my 20 pound barbells - curls, presses, and that type of thing.
My run went well, specifically the first mile or so before I started to run out of gas a bit. Thanks to my Garmin Forerunner 210, I can show you exactly where I ran and how quickly: Click here if you want to see that specific workout.
In sticking with the idea that I went out too fast, I ended up adding about a minute per mile -- from a 15:43 pace in the first 1.25 miles, to 16:55 pace for the second half of the run. Because, on my aforementioned GPS watch, I set it to 1.25 mile intervals (to remind me when to turn around,) I can only see my splits (mile times) in a 1.25 mile split, so I will be looking to change this in the future but for now it provides me with enough information to know that I went out too fast, and ended up slowing down because of it.
I would be much happier with a 16:55 pace for the first half, followed by a 15:43 pace for the second half -- showing that I can get stronger and faster as I run, as opposed to getting weaker.
In terms of nutrition, my day wasn't good overall. For breakfast and lunch, as well as the small snacks between, I was doing well. In the evening I got a Muscle Milk shake to help rebuild the muscles I had used through the day, and some salted peanuts to help round it out. I ruined it all with that late night trip to Taco Bell, which is an absolute killer. I ordered two items and ended up with just over 1400 calories worth of food. I still ended up right around my "budget" of 2500 per day (I'll explain more on this later, as well) but could have done really well if I had chosen to eat at home instead of going out. This is a habit I have to break.
