August 26, 2012

1573 calories

18 miles on the schedule today.

Last night for dinner, I knew I wanted to eat a lot of calories (mainly carbs) and salt. I decided to make homemade whole wheat pizza crust and top it with my favorite pizza toppings--sauce, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, and feta cheese. And a No Pudge Brownie for dessert. It was heavenly!
I was trying not to think about the run, because when I get worried about it, I don't sleep well. I set the alarm for 6:00 a.m., hoping to be out the door at 6:45 and start running just after 7:00.

This morning, I had oatmeal and a banana before heading out; and I took along Gatorade and two Gu's (one chocolate, and one peanut butter). My plan was to do pretty much what I did for my 16-miler (a T-shaped run), only adding an extra mile on the first out-and-back part. So I would run 4.5 miles from my car, turn around, run to mile 13, and then turn around and run back to the car. If I did it that way, I would have a water fountain to refill my bottle at mile 12.

As soon as I stepped out the door, I nearly choked on the humid air (okay, I'm totally exaggerating, but it was VERY humid this morning compared to lately!). Just as I was pulling out of my driveway, I realized I forgot my extra water bottle--I don't always bring it, but it's nice to have a bottle to drink on my way home after my run, so I stopped and went back in for it.
The sun was just coming up when I started
After I parked, I started running, and the first couple of miles went by really fast. I was really hot though, and sweating sooner than normal. Usually, I don't even take a sip of Gatorade until about 8 miles into the run. After just 5 miles today, I noticed that I had gone through half of my Gatorade... which was a bad thing! There aren't any water stops (water fountains, public bathrooms, etc) until mile 12, inside the Metropark.

I started to worry about not having enough water, and that I would dehydrate like I did on the last 18-mile run I did. I was debating whether to try and ration what was left of my water and try to make it last, or to go a mile out of the way back to the car and refill with my other water bottle (the one I had run back in the house for!) before heading to the Metropark. I decided to play it safe and go back to the car. I ate my first Gu at mile 8, a mile before the car.

I really didn't want to have to go to the car and then head out for another out and back, but that's what I had to do. So I followed the same route back to my car, refilled my bottle with water, and then started the next 9-mile out-and-back. It was right after that when I really started to feel horrible. I was so tired, and I was only halfway done.

I kept thinking, I could just go home and finish it out on the treadmill, in the air conditioning... but regardless, I would have to run 18 miles today (outside or inside), so I just stuck it out. There were a ton of people riding bikes on the path today. It was a nice day for riding (not so much for running). I just kept focusing on making it to the water fountain at mile 13 (it would have been 12 if I hadn't had to go back to the car).

When I got there, I refilled my bottle, and also went in to the bathroom (better than peeing in the woods, like I had to last week!) I splashed water on my face and arms, to cool off a little, and then kept running. I turned around at mile 13.5, and then it was a straight shot to the car from there.

I was tempted to call Jerry to come pick me up, but I knew I was just being a baby about the humidity, and that I could finish it out. A couple of times I was completely exhausted, and I noticed that my heart rate was pretty high (high 160's, which is almost 90% of my max!). When it got up high like that, I took a short walk break to bring it down to 155. I told myself I could do one short walk break each mile of the last 4 miles--and that really helped me, mentally and physically.

I finally reached the car, and somehow screwed up the mileage when I recalculated things in the beginning, and I had to circle the parking lot once. That was kind of like torture, but I wanted my Garmin to hit the 18 mark, so I did it.

I'm really happy with my pace. For my 14-miler and my 16-miler, I kept a 10:20/mi pace. Considering I really struggled on this run, a 10:28 pace is really good!
My splits were really inconsistent, but all things considered, I don't give a shit how inconsistent they are!

I was super excited to see my calorie burn of 1,573. That's a LOT of calories burned! But I just wish that I was able to burn more, like a "normal" person. The average person would burn more like 1,800 calories on this run. And an overweight person would burn even more than that. My metabolism just sucks! But I've learned to live with it--I just like to bitch about it sometimes ;)

I'm so glad this run is over, and next week "all" I have to do is a half-marathon! I haven't decided if I'm going to run hard or not. If the atmosphere is super fun, I may just treat it like a training run. But if there isn't much going on, and I feel good, I may run hard. We'll see on the morning of, I'm sure. I'm super excited to go! Not for the race, but mainly to hang out with Renee and my brother's ex-wife, Danielle (oh, and I guess it would be cool to see my brother, too ;) ).

I'm already getting uber-nervous to fly again, though. Last time I was on a plane was coming home from The Dr. Oz Show! I'm getting better about it though. A few years ago, I wouldn't get on a plane for a million dollars, and now I'm doing it voluntarily!

21 comments:

  1. An average of 83 calories per mile sounds pretty darn good to me! (The huge downside of being around 95 pounds is only burning around 60 calories per mile.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Holy baby jesus! You've inspired me to re-charge my Garmin and get my lazy ass out of the bed tomorrow morning and see what I can do. Dear god, you have no idea how badly I want to see 1573 calories burned, woman. Good on ya!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm pretty sure Garmin isn't able to take your metabolism into consideration when estimating how many calories you burned on a run.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was thinking the same thing...

      Delete
    2. It factors in my age, sex, weight, and (most importantly) heart rate. As accurate as it can be without a lab setting.

      Delete
    3. The Garmin lets you know that small females don't burn as many calories as large males. How do you figure that means you have a slow metabolism?

      Delete
  4. Well done on the long run, Katie. One thing I've noticed as you're training for this marathon is that you haven't mentioned your knee all that much compared to when you were training for the last one. I trust it's feeling better and you're strength training/stretching/foam rolling has totally helped. As always, I thoroughly enjoy reading your blog. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's AMAZING... a completely different experience training without knee pain! I haven't been doing the foam rolling anymore, but the strength training + using the treadmill for my shorter runs has helped tremendously.

      Delete
  5. AWESOME time Katie!! Simply awesome!

    And what did you spend your calories on? Did you use some fueling up with your pizza and brownie?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I ended up eating ice cream for dinner ;) It was delicious! I hate that using Gu and Gatorade during the run uses up some of those precious calories, but they are necessary for me.

      Delete
  6. To hop on the calorie question, what do you mean about burning calories like a normal person? I'm curious as I would love to learn more about how you can accurately figure that out.

    And congrats on your run!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whenever I've run with other people, they ALWAYS burn more calories than me. Using a heart rate monitor, you can pretty accurately calculate the calories burned. Jessica and I are about the same size, but our calories burned were always drastically different while marathon training together.

      Delete
  7. Way to get your run done! My big half marathon in California is coming up next Sunday, I'm SO nervous!! The heat and humidity has kept me from training my best, so I went form hoping to pr to just wanting to finish, which feels disappointing. Oh well!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm a few days late suggesting this but considering all the work you put into the cookbook, have you considered selling them? I would totally buy one!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Actually, most of the recipes I used are already on my recipes blog: www.runsforcookiesrecipes.blogspot.com :)

      Delete
  9. that is a great run! when is the marathon? I just did my first 18 miler last saturday.. actually it felt great, which I was surprised and I didn't even eat anything during the run, which is really unusual. I have the same crappy metabolism.. like, only burn 1000 calories a day if I don't exercise. SO, I was loving the calories burned from that long one!

    ReplyDelete
  10. you rocked this 18 mile run. sorry it was so humid though.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Rock on you. Well done for sticking it out! I'm a long time user of sparkpeople and I just found your blog the other day. You're so inspiring!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Do you think your Garmin watch is working properly? I'm beginning to wonder if mine is on the fritz.

    I've noticed how drastically my calories burned has changed over the last couple months. I went from 276 pounds to 203 pounds (as of Saturday). I understand I'm going to burn less calories now because I weigh less (and I'm far more athletic now than when I first started) but the difference is quite remarkable. I have a Garmin 610 and here is a following example of the drastic difference:

    I ran 8.01 miles on 07/02 in 90 min - weighing 222 pounds and burned 2080 calories

    I ran 8.33 miles yesterday on 08/27 in 90 min - weighing 203 pounds and burned only 1016 calories

    That's more than a half the calories in just under 2 months and only 20 pounds difference! If I did a manual computation based on my weight and distance (also factoring in the fact that my heart rate is consistently working in the 85-90% range) I would have burned at least 1300-1400 calories from yesterday's run.

    I did call Garmin a month ago because of the discrepancy and also because the heart rate monitor was acting up (reading my heart rate as 90-100% and higher while at rest). They sent a new HRM strap because they figured the problem was the strap. While the new strap helped resolve the issue with reading an accurate heart rate - I'm still thinking something is amiss with the calorie computation.

    Maybe it's not you after all - maybe it's the watch!

    ReplyDelete

I used to publish ALL comments (even the mean ones) but I recently chose not to publish those. I always welcome constructive comments/criticism, but there is no need for unnecessary rudeness/hate. But please--I love reading what you have to say! (This comment form is super finicky, so I apologize if you're unable to comment)

Featured Posts

Blog Archive