Spent four days with my family back in Utah. We visited Idaho on a whirlwind trip (drive up on Saturday morning, drive back Sunday afternoon; fortunately only ~5 hours each way) and saw lots of relatives. And lots and lots of relatives' children. There are only a three adults in my generation who have not spawned, and given the nature of LDS families (7 of my cousins are Mormon), that makes for a lot of wee ones running around underfoot. Of course, I like kids when they want to run around and play, so I was frequently escorting anklebiters down to the creek or joining them in a jump on the trampoline.
After the Saturday of family togetherness was finished, I took the opportunity to do a long run, to keep up with my training even while away from home. It was about 5.5 miles from my aunt and uncle's house to the motel where I was staying, on a mostly downhill road with very minimal traffic. Thank goodness it was mostly downhill, because there is a big difference between running at sea level and running at over 5,000 feet. Normally the first mile is the hardest; this time, the first two miles had me huffing and puffing for air before I hit my stride. Of course, if I could have stayed there and trained for the next three weeks, I would be in great shape for the race!
In other news, the "High Performance Body Recomposition" program that I joined officially started on the 20th. (Technically, I started executing it on the 22nd.) The first month is all about getting introduced to the level of weight lifting we'll be doing, and establishing a baseline of nutrition that maintains our weight. In terms of the nutrition, to keep track of everything I have been recording my diet over at fitday.com. I'm doing my best to have a relaxed attitude towards what I eat, and not let the total calorie count (aiming for 2100-2200, a maintenance level determined by two different formulas for my 5' 7", 150 pounds) or my macro goals (~20% of calories from protein, 25% from fat) overcome my intuitive eating.
Since no single day of "unhealthy" eating can overcome a majority of healthy days, I figure that I'll also calculate a weekly average and focus on that, rather than any single day. I know that on Wednesday, my fat consumption was up around 35-40%, whereas yesterday it was more like 20%. Wednesday involved a company-provided lunch, including potato chips and a chocolate chip cookie. If I'd completely forbidden the chips, I probably would have eaten my own bag and grabbed one of the extras, feeling guilty about it the whole time. Instead, knowing that I could have potato chips if I wanted them, I chose the flavor that was most appealing (hot jalapeno!), and then I ate a few alongside my sandwich until I was no longer hungry, saving the rest of the bag to be eaten when I was hungry again later. This was a great psychological victory for me! Every time I can approach a highly-palatable food and eat it in an intuitive fashion, I smile.
In the weight room, I'm back into squats and deadlifts, plus a few new exercises I'd never heard of before. I'm doing my best to follow the program, but realizing at the same time that my short-term goal is keeping up with the running training needed to succeed in my 12K coming up in...21 days. When one's quads are aching from a morning of squats, it's awfully hard to run. Plus, it's awfully hard to recover from heavy lifting by running. So I'm working on maintaining some level of balance. Tomorrow will be a rest day (hooray!) with just some pleasant walking planned, plus housework. Sunday I'll do a trail run, and then Monday I'll be in the weight room again.
I'll close with this shot taken by my Dad, of me explaining to a 3-year-old cousin that the flower is, sadly, too short to wear in my hair.
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