The Training Crucible

Week 4 of Hal Higdon's Spring Training is now done, so here are the numbers:

The world of running changed for me a year ago on Father's Day.  First the back story:
At the beginning of 2009 I left my job as minister in Baton Rouge and began working at a Christian drug treatment center in Arkansas called Capstone. With the move I decided that I need to lose much of the weight that 4 years of catfish, crawfish boils, and other Southern Louisiana cuisine had added (not to mention the fact that during those 4 years I did 0 hours of exercises).
My 3 months in Arkansas I lost 15 pounds simply by changing my diet and working out about twice a week with Wii Fit.  Then Meg and the girls joined me here, we got our own house and decided that before we turned 30 we would run a marathon. The challenge was on. We started running, not really having a plan. A good friend of Meg's who was trying to qualify for Boston at the time (and was successful) recommended that we get Hal Higdon's book on Marathon training and then she showed us on of the greatest toys a runner can ever have: a Garmin.

There are certain blessings and curses that come from being the father of 3 girls.
Blessings:
1. My girls are beautiful.
2. They are the biggest daddy's girls in the world.
3. Each of them has proven to be athletic.
4. They can truly be the sweetest kids in the world.
5. When I'm old I know they'll take care of me and their mom.

Curses:
1.My girls are the chattiest creatures on the face of the globe. I've heard howler monkeys that make less noise that my girls.
2.I am an only child. While I now have 2 step brothers, I never lived with them growing up. In fact I only have one first cousin and she is twelve years younger than me. Having 3 girls ages 5, 3, and 2 really changes the social dynamic in our house in way that I am really not use to at times.
3. Clothes. Girls have tons of clothes! And EVERY clothing decision is very important.

This morning the war of clothes entered into the world of training.

Meg went out for her run this morning while I stayed at home to do my P90X Core Synergistics (tonight I'll also do my 3 mile run). It was only 6 AM, so I figured I had time before the girls got up, but as soon as I started the video Gabie (our oldest) came in. Being the oldest, she is your typical type A personality, the leader of The Sisters.  Gabie quickly informed me that one of the girls in the workout video was not wearing appropriate clothing. This is our own fault really because we have talked with Gabie for a long time about what is appropriate to wear in public. (The offending attire by the way was a girl whose midriff was showing.) Anyway, Gabie let me know that since there were boys in the video with the girl that we needed to change it. Apparently its okay for Meg to watch if the video doesn't contain any boys, but my video was offensive.
At first I resisted. This was my workout. I'm busy doing the workout, not worrying about what the girls are wearing. Those are workout clothes (by the way, the same rule applied to weigh-ins on Biggest Loser). Anyway, I sat there for a second with the video paused wondering what I was going to do.
In the end I turned the video off, grabbed the P90X book and flipped over the the World Cup game between Argentina and South Korea. It ended up being a great decision. Gabie and watched as Argentina scored their first two goals and Gabie's sensibilities remained intact.
I think I am may have also taught her something about priorities.
Caring more about my girls, than myself is what makes me a dad, not just a father.

Also, you have had a chance, check out the Father's Day Contest.

UPDATE: This Contest is now closed.


Is your dad a runner? Would you like to give him a running gift this Father's Day? Then look no further than this contest.  Thanks to Runner's Lounge I will be giving away 5 copies of The Ultimate Runner to readers of this blog.  The contest will run through Friday @ 12 PM (CST) (so I can't guarantee that it will arrive at his house by Father's Day, you can always tell him it's in the mail).

In order to enter the contest here's what you need to do (you can do any one of the options):

1. Email me a picture of your dad (or you and your dad together) running at jdeddins@gmail.com.
2. Link to a picture on Twitter of your dad (or you and your dad together) running. Be sure to add my twitter name @cruciblerunner so that I can see the photo.
3. Share in the comment section why your dad deserves to win this book.

Winners will be selected based on creativity by the awards committee (consisting of my wife and myself).
The photos will not be posted/distributed/used in any way without your permission.
Good luck and remember to honor your father this weekend!

After 3 weeks of using Hal Higdon's Spring Training speedwork plan I have to admit that while I am running faster, I have yet to do any two weeks the same or according to plan.  Such is the life of husband and father of 3 who has other things besides running in his life.  So far I have only missed one workout, but I have learned to make some modifications in order to get everything done.  This week Meg started running again in order to get ready for the Soaring Wings Half Marathon.  We also went with our girls to Hot Springs in order to spend the weekend at the lake with some of our best friends in the world, the Smiths.

I think the title is enough of an introduction, so here we go:

• Anne Jackson has become one of my favorite authors.  This year she is following in the footsteps of another favorite author of mine, Donald Miller and riding across the USA with RideWell. The goal, like my goal with Team World Vision is to help raise money/awareness of the poor water conditions in Africa and help communities there drill wells so they can have clean water.
• This just makes me sick.  I can't imagine eating this much food, especially after watching Supersize Me and Food Inc.
• Good news for Triathletes looking to track their swimming leg.
• Seth Godin does not write about running, but he's a genius! His Fear of Shipping and Cheating the Clock have so great implications for endurance athletes. If you haven't read his latest book Linchpin yet, you really need to buy it this weekend.
• Want to make sure you are drinking enough water during your workouts, here's a helpful post from @cyberpenguin.
• A review of Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald. I've been working for awhile to lose the last 10 pounds in my weight loss goal.  Week to week my weight ebbs between 5 lbs. I really need to cut the amount of sugar I take in, mainly through my sweet tea addiction! Needless to say, I'll be looking for this book soon.
• Continuing with the weight-loss theme, here's a post from a friend, The Nashville Nutrition Expert on healthy eating for the summer. If you like what you heard in the video then look for her page on Facebook. Sarah is also trying to gain a spot on Oprah's new network, but she needs your vote.

I am continuing to use various types of supplements and sports drink to aid in my training, especially at this point when I am focused on building speed.  Right now I am training 6 days a week so I am really for the supplements that will help me with recovery so that I can get out there tomorrow and achieve the goals of each workout.

The latest sports drink that I have added to the mix is Cytomax.  I was introduced to Cytomax at the Country Music Marathon in Nashville earlier this year.  Having never had it before (and knowing that it would be used during the race) I had sure to find their exhibit at the expo and try the stuff out.  At the expo they featured both the citrus and tangy orange flavors.  There was also a sample that came with the race packet of the citrus flavor that I could take home for later use.  Immediately I liked the taste! It doesn't have the chalky taste that is associated with many powdered sports drinks.  In fact, as far as taste goes, Cytomax is by far my favorite!  It is also easy to mix and doesn't stain my containers.

One down side to Cytomax Performance Drink is that it lacks protein to help aid in recovery (however CytoSport does make drink mixes that are targeted to recovery). In the Performance Drink formula, there is also crystalline fructose, which is essentially a powder form of fructose corn syrup (maybe that's why I really enjoyed the taste).

I have enjoyed using Cytomax Performance and it will probably remain my drink of choice to take out on runs with me.  However, when it comes to looking for a recovery drink to have once the run is over, I think I'll be looking for something else.  Not sure what yet, any suggestions?


Also, here are a couple of other reviews of Cytomax that might be helpful:
1. Coach Levi
2. Kmax Trax: this review also features Acclerade, which I am also using, which I my start using as my recovery drink after workouts.

This week was a little hectic, but I found time to get the all of my runs in except one.
Here we go:

Monday: Easy 3 miles. Went 3.12 @ 25:33.
Tuesday: 3 X Hills. 3.67 @ 40:06.  I started of with a 1.5 mile warm up at a 9:30 pace. Then I went out to the big hill behind the house I did repeats.  This is major hill.  I still need to check the grade on it (anyone know how to determine that?) so I can compare it with other hills, but needless to say its a beast. Sprinting up this thing 3 times really took it out of me, so on the return trip to house I was "running" at a 10-11:00 pace.
Wednesday: Rest. I moved my rest day because Meg and the girls returned home from Florida today. It had been a week and a half since I had seen my girls so I wanted to spend some time with them without anything else to distract me.

Thursday: Another Easy 3. Went 3.12 @ 27:50, returned home and did P90X Core Synergistics.
Friday: 30 Minute Fartlek. 3.64 @ 31:00.  This was a fun run of varying speeds. I loved using the workout feature on my Garmin, which would beep when it was time to change speeds.  I just need to create a more individualized plan for future workouts.
Saturday: 7.01 @ 1:02:00. Missed the heat of the day this time and had water waiting for me at the halfway mark, still it was hot.  We left mid-morning to go camping for the weekend at the lake.  While we were there we took in a mile hike with the girls.
Sunday: I missed my 3 miles + strength training session for this week.

This week will be crazy again as we leave on Friday to go to another lake and spend the weekend with great friends from Louisiana. I think I am going to skip the day of rest on Thursday and move everything up, but we'll see how the week goes.  Today's run was pretty easy in prep for the speed workout that will come tomorrow on the hills.

Good luck to everyone in your training! 
What resources do you use to analyze your training?

Over the last month I have tightened the focus of this blog to examine running/training.  Since that time, I have also added more running blogs to my reading lists.  As I continue to read and get a better sense of who these writers are I'll be adding their blogs to my blogroll (right now there are none on there).  In the meantime I wanted to share a few links from running blogs that I thought were particularly good: