Books I Want To Read

Last night I spent a good chunk of time reading the entire amazon preview for The New Rules of Lifting for Women: Lift Like a Man, Look Like a Goddess.

From the little I was able to read (actually a surprisingly large amount for a 'preview') I gather that the author believes the best way to lose weight/fat is to build muscle. He's not a big fan of cardio for weightloss's sake. Granted, I didn't read the entire book, so may be missing something. But the jist seems to be:

• People generally spend around an hour - some more, some less - working out. That leaves 23 other hours in a day. When we look at our bodies in this light it seems like the number of calories we burn during the 23 hours is more important than the number we burn in the 1 hour we're working out. This is why it becomes so important to have a high metabolic rate?
• Muscle requires more calories to maintain than fat. The more muscle on a body, the more calories that body requires to maintain itself - also, the more calories that body burns through at rest.
• Cardio is good for your heart. It's good for fat loss when done at a high intensity and is constantly being mixed up. But the body is always looking for the easy way out, and will make accommodations that prevent maximum calories from being used (I talked about this concept in this post). 
• When we talk about health and fitness, we should stop talking about weight loss and start focusing on fat loss.

I'd really love to read this whole book because the physiology of the body has become suddenly fascinating to me.

Dave and his traveling library.

I'm also desperately awaiting the arrival of Eat and Run by Scott Jurek, who spoke at the race expo at the Half Moon Bay Marathon. Unfortunately I'm too cheap to purchase books, so I put them on my library list and wait. I rely solely on bi-weekly visits from the Bookmobile for my reading material.  I am currently #5 for Eat and Run, which means I can realistically expect the book any month now.

Scott is a vegan ultra-marathoner with a slight build and an obviously ginormous calorie requirement. I'm hoping the book touches on how he manages to run the distances he does and stay filled and fueled. I'm mainly interested in this because E is a born-and-raised vegetarian who has blood sugar/fueling/energy problems. We eat a really healthy, well rounded, whole foods plant based diet that also includes cheese, milk, butter and eggs. Without these animal products to 'fill him up', E believes he would  freak out   waste away and die   suffer. I'm hoping Scott Jurek has a magic vegan spell I can perform, or a magic vegan potion I can concoct that will allow us to safely eliminate animal products from our diet entirely. 

Which brings us to the fact that I just finished watching Forks Over Knives, but this post is already too long. Just go watch it yourself. It's on Netflix (I guess it's a book too).

Registration

Holy what!

I just registered for the Half Moon Bay International Marathon. I hope it was a good idea, and I hope I can make it. Paying $150 for something like that really means I have to get myself to the starting line healthy. No refunds!
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I have 12 miles on the plan for today and it seems insurmountable. I am trying to stay positive and hydrate a lot. I will try out some Cliff gel shots and shot bloks on this run.
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Last night I met two local marathoners at a friend's birthday party! I've known about this couple for a while, but finally got to meet them and talk running. It was great. They've run Oakland and Chicago together, training together all the while. It seems like they're three or four years into their running career and had some interesting advise, especially him. They recommended 'Born to Run', which I have on audio book and need to listen to! I also have "Marathon Man" the movie at home for this weekend - possibly on 'recovery Saturday'! Yippie!

Should I do another long run before 13.1 on 5/1??

So... who knew? Reading about everyone in a Boston Frenzy is pretty entertaining! And coincidentally, Marathon Challenge, a NOVA documentary about average joes running Boston, was on our netflix list last night! So I guess I'm in the mood.

Last Tuesday I did an 11 mile run. My longest run to date, it was a tough one for a few reasons. First, I started out at the Skunk Train depot with the realization that even if I ran to the very very end of the Haul Road I still would not reach my 6-mile-out-&-back goal. This put mental stress on me to try and find 'loops' or additional 'out&backs' along the main course. Not what I like to do. Also, Maia dog was hungry-tired-lacking motivation? Not into the run, which is really unlike her.

I added just one spur off the main course, and hit the turnaround at 5.15 garmin mileage, but knew it was more like 5.4 because I'd forgotten to turn it back on after a brief water stop. So the depressing realization hit me that it would only be an 11 mile run without finding a way to add another mile. Then I looked down to a 'battery low' notice and .25 miles later, Garmin was dead. So my hopes of accurately pinning down another mile were dashed.

My legs were shot, the run was hard. I wanted 12 but only got 11. Once again I question how I will ever be able to run 13.1 miles. Will it ever be easy? I'm determined to find out.

The Real Issue:
Avenue of the Giants Half Marathon is in just 13 short days (MAY 1). Question: Should I do another long run? Maybe another one tomorrow (4/19) and allow myself 12 days to rest/taper? I wasn't planning on another long run but 13 days seems like a long time to not long-run. Hmmm...