Every Wish That We Put Into Motion.... (comments welcome!)

[The Expert]

My brain does the same thing, but maybe try to embrace this time as needed rest. I know it hasn't exactly been relaxing, but stressing about this on top of everything else can't be helping. Maybe this nagging injury is your body's way of telling you to give yourself some grace and trust that you've still got plenty of time. Because you do!

 

[lookingforsunshine]

I haven't run in basically 2 months, and I'm signed up for Dopey. I am starting to get nervous about the training, and fitting it in to everything that's going on, and "doing justice" to the challenge since I know there were sooooo many people who weren't able to get registered. Logically I know that I have lots of time, but there's that little part of my brain that's starting to say hey, you really need to start actually doing some stuff here or you're going to majorly suffer in January.

If it makes you feel any better, I also haven’t run in like 2 months and am signed up for all the races. I understand what you’re feeling but I also think this rest is good… January is still a LONG way away, and doing too much running right now might lead to burnout by the time the race comes or it’s actually time to start training. I think you’ll be okay! Accept the rest

 

[Herding_Cats]

@DopeyBadger what are your thoughts on the McMillan base training plans (if you've looked at/had access to them)? I'm pretty sure (not 100% sure) that's what our cross country coaches use for the summer running group, and since the levels go from 1-5, there's quite a bit of variation for mileage.

If you haven't looked at them, it looks like the rhythm goes like this:
Monday: Long Run
Tuesday: "Regular" Run (probably like EB pace)
Wednesday: "Strength" Run (hills/hill repeats, or speedwork)
Thursday: Recovery Run (or off)
Friday: Tempo/Threshold Run
Saturday: Recovery Run (EA/EB Pacing)
Sunday: "Regular" Run

It's 3-4 days/week for the first 4 weeks and then 5 days/week for the rest of the level 2 plan, which starts at 9mpw and ramps up 1-3mpw until week 8 (which is 10mi) and then week 9 peaks at 24mi, with no run over 6mi the entire 9 weeks.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Hmmm. I'm digging around the website and maybe it's not McMillan. Possibly a riff on the McMillan plans?

 

[DopeyBadger]

@DopeyBadger what are your thoughts on the McMillan base training plans (if you've looked at/had access to them)? I'm pretty sure (not 100% sure) that's what our cross country coaches use for the summer running group, and since the levels go from 1-5, there's quite a bit of variation for mileage.

If you haven't looked at them, it looks like the rhythm goes like this:
Monday: Long Run
Tuesday: "Regular" Run (probably like EB pace)
Wednesday: "Strength" Run (hills/hill repeats, or speedwork)
Thursday: Recovery Run (or off)
Friday: Tempo/Threshold Run
Saturday: Recovery Run (EA/EB Pacing)
Sunday: "Regular" Run

It's 3-4 days/week for the first 4 weeks and then 5 days/week for the rest of the level 2 plan, which starts at 9mpw and ramps up 1-3mpw until week 8 (which is 10mi) and then week 9 peaks at 24mi, with no run over 6mi the entire 9 weeks.

Seems reasonable, although it seems less like a base training plan and more like a real training plan. I say that because it has two hard days + LR per week. So to me that reads more like a full fledge training plan. I believe McMillan usually has less hard days during the early base phase, but I do believe he's big into hill workouts in the base phase. I've never personally used his plans, or read his book. Although I have read quite a few of his blog write-ups on his website about training methodology and different types of workouts. But I think McMillan's running philosophy aligns with my own in most cases. I think one place we may diverge the most is on running duration in a single workout, but I'd have to do some digging on that one. So I wouldn't hesitate to follow a McMillan plan if that's the route you wanted to take.

https://www.mcmillanrunning.com/what-is-base-training/

 

[Herding_Cats]

I'll screenshot what I have and let you look at it (since if it IS McMillan it would be behind a paywall, and I'm not sure that it is at this point.) I just feel like I need something a little different, and my other reasonable option for the summer is a Higdon plan. And that plan, while effective, is sooooooo boring.

 

[Herding_Cats]

went for a run. said 'screw it' to paying any attention to my pacing and just ran whatever, and then walked when i couldn't breathe. I did an "out and back" run where ran for 15min and then turned around and tried to make it back to my starting point in the same time. I was somehow successful?! side note: the pine trees are pollen-ing right now and while I was completely fine all morning, my allergies kicked into turbo mode after I got back home.

2.42mi in 30:00. Which breaks down to 12:25 pace, and I should be 60-90sec/mi slower than that for an "easy" run. My avg HR was 158, and my watch says i spent most of my run in zone 4 (Threshold) which seems about right.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Quick trip back to the TDEE/BMR stuff. I'm on day 2 of logging everything into MFP (except for the fudge DH brought home from chaperoning DS3's Mackinac Island field trip.) Today I got around to syncing my garmin app with MFP and now I have all the questions.

When I put my stuff into the TDEE/BMR calculator, and select "medium active" it gives me 1495 for BMR and 2318 for TDEE. So my goal needs to be (based on this) 500ish cal less than the 2318. With "low" for the activity level it changes the TDEE to 2056.

I have MFP set up for losing 1#/week and being"Lightly Active" (trying to be honest about life right now.) It's telling me to eat 1520cal/day to reach my goal.

Now, right now my Garmin/MFP app says my goal is 1520cal/day + today's "active calories" (606 so far) which totals up to 2126cal for the day. MFP is telling me I have a LOT of calories left today, but it seems like too much. Am I supposed to be aiming for more like TDEE-500cal? Am I essentially "double dipping" my calories from my running/garmin with the "lightly active" in MFP?

 

[azrivest]

If you have tips on logging food in MFP, I'd take them. When I can scan a barcode, great. When it's homemade recipes, I have no clue what to input

 

[Herding_Cats]

If you have tips on logging food in MFP, I'd take them. When I can scan a barcode, great. When it's homemade recipes, I have no clue what to input

There’s a “recipe” section on mfp where you can copy/paste recipes off websites, OR, because I was a control freak and brand variance matters when it comes to calories, you can put all of the ingredients in yourself and then SAVE the recipe. I’ve done this for stuff as simple as overnight oats all the way up to a casserole type dish. When I do stuff like a casserole, it lets you determine how many portions all of the ingredients makes. So I know that when I make a certain recipe that I normally eat 1/12 of the pan (as an example) so I say that it makes 12 servings. It’s super tedious, but I usually make the same 20 things over and over and over, so it works out.

 

[HangWithMerida]

Quick trip back to the TDEE/BMR stuff. I'm on day 2 of logging everything into MFP (except for the fudge DH brought home from chaperoning DS3's Mackinac Island field trip.) Today I got around to syncing my garmin app with MFP and now I have all the questions.

When I put my stuff into the TDEE/BMR calculator, and select "medium active" it gives me 1495 for BMR and 2318 for TDEE. So my goal needs to be (based on this) 500ish cal less than the 2318. With "low" for the activity level it changes the TDEE to 2056.

I have MFP set up for losing 1#/week and being"Lightly Active" (trying to be honest about life right now.) It's telling me to eat 1520cal/day to reach my goal.

Now, right now my Garmin/MFP app says my goal is 1520cal/day + today's "active calories" (606 so far) which totals up to 2126cal for the day. MFP is telling me I have a LOT of calories left today, but it seems like too much. Am I supposed to be aiming for more like TDEE-500cal? Am I essentially "double dipping" my calories from my running/garmin with the "lightly active" in MFP?

So, MFP is designed for you to eat back exercise calories and is aiming for the basic math you did with TDEE -500. Except the TDEE - 500 is probably more accurate over a longer period of time, like a week, compared to a day by day, since your calorie burn will vary. MFP is aiming to give you a base calorie count for your normal day then allowing the exercise to be the variable. Keep in mind that calorie burn estimations off your watch aren’t going to be super accurate And yes, Garmin is likely crediting you for some non exercise active minutes so it’s possible you are double dipping a little. But the small differences in the numbers are likely just different formulas being used and the inexact measure of terms like “lightly active”.
You can use MFP just as a log and set your own goal based on the TDEE -500 math. Or you can use the MFP algorithm but I would probably set it to sedentary if you are auto importing active burn calorie information from Garmin To eliminate any double dipping. You will need to watch this over a week or two and see how the numbers work out. You know the math, so if the numbers are way too low, lightly active may work better.
The choice basically comes down to convenience and what works best for you. The challenge with using the MFP algorithm is the daily variation in the amount of calories can be huge depending on your exercise. It can be hard mentally and physically to feel like you can eat a lot one day and not so much the next. I also think there are some unhealthy habits of “earning” food that get reinforced with this model. Not everyone falls victim to this, but if this is something that could be a problem for you, it is worth considering. If you set a TDEE -500 goal and manually enter it, you are essentially averaging your week out. You would eat basically the same calories each day regardless of exercise. Personally, this was a more sustainable approach for me And kept me from linking exercise to food as a reward.

 

[HangWithMerida]

If you have tips on logging food in MFP, I'd take them. When I can scan a barcode, great. When it's homemade recipes, I have no clue what to input

There’s a “recipe” section on mfp where you can copy/paste recipes off websites, OR, because I was a control freak and brand variance matters when it comes to calories, you can put all of the ingredients in yourself and then SAVE the recipe. I’ve done this for stuff as simple as overnight oats all the way up to a casserole type dish. When I do stuff like a casserole, it lets you determine how many portions all of the ingredients makes. So I know that when I make a certain recipe that I normally eat 1/12 of the pan (as an example) so I say that it makes 12 servings. It’s super tedious, but I usually make the same 20 things over and over and over, so it works out.

1. The recipe feature is such a big help if you have things you make a lot.
2. Use entries that contain a brand name. Because the info on MFP is crowd sourced, there are some super bogus ones that sneak in. The branded ones are usually straight off a label and tend to be more accurate. I also will scroll through 15-20 entries and see what the average seems to be if it is an ingredient I am unfamiliar with. You can usually get a decent feel. I never use things that are clearly people’s homemade versions of things. I just assume they are not accurate.
3. I would strongly recommend getting a food scale. Measuring by cups/tsp/etc can be very misleading. Food labels almost always have a weight associated with the serving size. Also, when you are cooking, you can just put the bowl on the scale, tare it, then measure ingredients straight into the bowl. Fewer dishes to clean, faster, and more accurate to boot.
4. If you are entering fruits or vegetables, look up whatever and usda. Like, honeycrisp apple usda. That will get you a weight based count and not something like 1 medium apple And a calorie count that could be way off for whatever your apple actually is. After a while you get pretty good at knowing that what the stuff you eat weighs and you won’t need to do it. Like, I buy these bags of small apples. The first several, I cut them up and weighed the fruit. After that first bag, I know they are 75-80 cals, so I just say 77 for my meal prep plan as an average And don’t weigh every apple I eat.
5. Plan ahead. Even if you aren’t meal prepping, take the time each morning to plan a little. You can pre-enter food for the day so you don’t get to dinner and only have 300 calories left over. Like a lot of things, this also gets easier the longer you do it.

Edit: One last thing. Shameless plug for a food blogger that I love! Peanut butter and fitness. She does meal prep recipes, but you could easily just make the meal for dinner for a family and get 4 servings from it. The thing I love is her meals are well balanced with good protein levels, lots of veggies, and not a lot of extra sugar. She also eats like I do with smaller meals and plenty of snacks in between. And, she creates MFP barcodes for her recipes that you can directly scan. I have spot checked some of her recipes myself and her entries are very good. She clearly weighs things and makes good choices for entries. I have never come across a recipe that was way off. She also has a couple of e-books with more recipes that aren’t on the website.

 

[Herding_Cats]

So, MFP is designed for you to eat back exercise calories and is aiming for the basic math you did with TDEE -500. Except the TDEE - 500 is probably more accurate over a longer period of time, like a week, compared to a day by day, since your calorie burn will vary. MFP is aiming to give you a base calorie count for your normal day then allowing the exercise to be the variable. Keep in mind that calorie burn estimations off your watch aren’t going to be super accurate And yes, Garmin is likely crediting you for some non exercise active minutes so it’s possible you are double dipping a little. But the small differences in the numbers are likely just different formulas being used and the inexact measure of terms like “lightly active”.
You can use MFP just as a log and set your own goal based on the TDEE -500 math. Or you can use the MFP algorithm but I would probably set it to sedentary if you are auto importing active burn calorie information from Garmin To eliminate any double dipping. You will need to watch this over a week or two and see how the numbers work out. You know the math, so if the numbers are way too low, lightly active may work better.
The choice basically comes down to convenience and what works best for you. The challenge with using the MFP algorithm is the daily variation in the amount of calories can be huge depending on your exercise.

Yeah I remember getting to “eat back” my exercise calories from last time I did this...8 years ago(?), but it was really throwing me off yesterday when it wanted me to eat almost 2200 calories (instead of the baseline 1500ish.) Like...my 30min run did NOT burn that many extra calories?!

 

[HangWithMerida]

Yeah I remember getting to “eat back” my exercise calories from last time I did this...8 years ago(?), but it was really throwing me off yesterday when it wanted me to eat almost 2200 calories (instead of the baseline 1500ish.) Like...my 30min run did NOT burn that many extra calories?!

Yeah, I think that’s the combo of the lightly active setting in MFP and the active calories from the garmin. If you are going to import from garmin, you will probably need to set MFP to sedentary. If after that adjustment the calorie counts set by MFP are still routinely above the TDEE -500cal you calculated, you may be better off setting a manual calorie target and unlinking the Garmin.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Weekly wrap-up. Weight lost: 0lbs. Last week's goals were 3 runs, meal prepping, and checking about PT.
(run goal) Actually achieved: 1 run.

(phone call goal) I am 100% that elder millennial who will avoid making phone calls as long as possible. So at this point I am probably going to just stick with whoever they put me with and then if I don't get the PT i wanted, I'll ask to switch. My one run bothered my foot/ankle for the rest of the week. Not terrible just annoying, but definitely more than it had been for the last while (when I hadn't run at all for weeks.)

(food prep goal) As far as lunch prep, I'm finding out that if I just eat leftovers from dinner that it's easy to do lunch stuff in MFP because I already took the time to input it previously and it's just a matter of putting in quantities.

I did order a kitchen scale, and it should be delivered today. That way I can quit guessing at stuff for food. I did manage to stay within my calorie counts for almost the entire week. The weekend got a little rocky, but not completely derailed. DH and I have been putting our garden in and installing drip irrigation in the evenings for about a week now. We finished that up yesterday and wow have I lost all of my muscles in the last 2 months of not working out.

Big schedule changes are coming our way as the oldest 3 finish school this week, and that's going to majorly impact my workout availability times in (hopefully) a good way, since I'll have kids at home to watch the tornado toddler while I lift or run. Fitting runs in seems like so much more of a struggle this year than it was last year. I think I sucked it up and used the stroller more last year, but wow has the change in DD from "almost 2" to "almost 3" been huge as far as me being able to get things done. My stress level is through the roof right now, and I'm realizing how much I used exercise as a way to cope. I know that part of it is that I just need to go down to the basement and DO SOMETHING, but DD cannot be trusted at.all. right now and it's mentally exhausting and I'm getting no breaks.

This week's goals: 3 runs, sticking to the calorie counts *all week*, and figuring out where I can shoehorn some lifting into my life.

 

[striker1064]

I am 100% that elder millennial who will avoid making phone calls as long as possible.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Another run yesterday (when DH refused to allow me to make the excuse that *I* had to do everything to get the rest of the family ready for evening basketball and a baseball game.) By the time he got home we had just over an hour for me to get my run in, shower, eat dinner, pack the car, pick up the porta-mound, get DD and all of her paraphernalia together, etc and I was more than willing to say “oh, so sad. Don’t have time to run.” But nooooo. He had to point out that he was more than capable of cooking dinner and getting DD ready, so out the door I went. And I reeeeeally needed it. I think he is realizing that I need to get some “me” time in more often and that running is something that works really well for that.

It was an uneventful 3mi. Did unstructured intervals. 13:14 avg pace, which is still a touch too fast for EB pace, and the HR shows that.

I’m super annoyed with how much cardio fitness I’ve lost since January, but I also know that I’ll get it back with time and training.

My ankle was annoying during the run but I’m not feeling any after-effects from it this morning. One week until PT and hopefully a plan to get rid of this issue.

I’m going to try to get at least 3 days/week in for this week and next week to get back into a rhythm and then I can start back into a Higdon half plan that will line up with the local “trail” half in mid-September and then transition to a Dopey plan. Of course, all of that will depend on what the PT says, which is why I haven’t made myself a full-fledged calendar for the next 2.5mo.

 

[SheHulk]

Another run yesterday (when DH refused to allow me to make the excuse that *I* had to do everything to get the rest of the family ready for evening basketball and a baseball game.) By the time he got home we had just over an hour for me to get my run in, shower, eat dinner, pack the car, pick up the porta-mound, get DD and all of her paraphernalia together, etc and I was more than willing to say “oh, so sad. Don’t have time to run.” But nooooo. He had to point out that he was more than capable of cooking dinner and getting DD ready, so out the door I went. And I reeeeeally needed it. I think he is realizing that I need to get some “me” time in more often and that running is something that works really well for that.

I'm so glad to hear this. Support is so important, not just for running.

 

[azrivest]

Agree with @SheHulk

Good going taking time for you too, it's not an easy job of having 4 kids and managing all of your family life!

 

[HangWithMerida]

Also agree! It’s great that your husband is aware that you need this time and is willing to nudge you out the door when you need a little push. You guys have a lot to manage! Hopefully having the other kids around will help with tornado management this summer. And good work on figuring out a meal planning/logging method that works for your life.

And as a fellow elder millennial/baby gen x’er I commiserate with the phone call avoidance. Why can’t things just be done online? I’m sure the person on the end is a completely nice human. I just do not want to talk to them. I don’t want to sit on hold. Ugh I hate it! We have done a couple guided tour trips with adventures by Disney. I love these trips. They are awesome and you don’t have to plan anything. But, you have to do everything on the phone. They want to chat with you, talk about what adventures you’ve done before, and give you all this info that is easily found on the website. And they ask if you have any questions about 500 times. I think our family is a touch on the young side of their average demographic and the concierge-y hand holding style reflects that. I make my husband book them now because as much as he also hates making phone calls, once he does it, he handles is so much better than I do.