Saywhatnow??
by mickiruns
I’ll preface this blog post by saying I had a crappy run today. I started the day thinking ‘14!! that’s a 10 miler with a 4 mile bonus!’ which quickly turned into ‘meh, 10 miles sounds good.’ and from then on went to 8, then 6 – I ran 3. And it was awful. I have had a string of bad runs lately, and I cannot stand it. This doesn’t happen to me. No way is this overtraining.
I thought about how tired I am lately. And that at night I get *maybe* 3 hour stretches of sleep because Spud is still nursing. In fact, I think he’s nursing more overnight now that he’s older, but I could be making that up. I thought that maybe it’s because I have a lot going on exacerbated by slight anxiety in regards to Army plans and school. Stress/anxiety isn’t anything new, so this whole no energy for a run was making me downright pissed.
Why am I so sluggish? Why does recovering from a long run seem to take longer? I’m drinking enough water, what gives? Do I seriously need to make another cup of coffee?
My stomach answered me with an overwhelmingly loud grumble, and the instant it did that my toddler yelled out, “MOMMY, your tummy is MAD at you!!!” Glaringly freaking obvious, and perfect timing.
So I did some digging, and found this amazing little calculator. Once you switch the ‘male’ to ‘female’, new options show up, with one of them being ‘lactating’. Which of course, sends me into hysterics. Lactating. Such a funny word. I also did a 40 minute run as an example because on any given day I’m either cross training, and even with speed work I’m doing 40 minutes worth of work considering warm up or cool down.
My results:
I seriously don’t know what to make of this. I personally think this is super high. Spud isn’t taking to solids very well and basically still exclusively breastfeeds, so who knows. When K was born she didn’t latch very well and the doctor suggested I supplement. With her being first born, we were scared to not follow doctor’s orders, and supplemented with formula before even leaving the hospital. I pumped for a few weeks, eventually made less and less milk, until the decision came at 3 months to just go with formula. So this whole breastfeeding thing is definitely new to me, let alone doing it for nine months AND training for a marathon.
But, at least I have my answer. I need to eat more; admittedly I only eat about 1,800 to 2,000 calories a day. I HATE calorie counting, as it is a slippery slope for me because I become numbers obsessed. I also don’t want to go the whole ‘just eat calories’ route, I want the nutrients to matter as well. *sigh*
I’m off to make a smoothie before dinner and follow it up with a yogurt bowl. My poor grocery bill… RIP.
Holy crap, 3,200?! That definitely explains your sluggishness, though. I hope you can have some great runs soon!
I dunno about that calculator.. I just did mine for “somewhat active” (since I sit most of the day, ugh) and 30 min of 5.2mph running and it says I should eat 2,800 cals a day. That’s just… crazy to me.
yikes, three hour stretches! I had to supplement with both my girls when they were born to help flush out their jaundice. I kept up with one bottle of formula a day until I eventually weaned both at six months. I hope you get some rest/energy soon. I am trying to train in a sleep deprived state and it is not easy.