Greg's Running Blog

I’m getting really tired. Tired of not sleeping enough and tired of eating 1,800 calories. I have been very strict on this diet and I’m getting so close to my target weight. But lately it is becoming a chore to eat at my diet level. With all the running I’m just “hungry like the wolf”. But I still managed to eke out a decent week in terms of diet so I don’t have that much to complain about.

I have averaged 1,852 calories a day for the week which is not that bad. I had one low day and several higher days over 1,900 calories. I definitely feel like I’m easing up on the diet even if the numbers show otherwise. Protein wise I have eaten 119 grams on average which is the lowest number I’ve had since Week 10. I have actually slowed down with the protein shakes, I don’t have one every afternoon and as you can see I’m eating more and more carbohydrates. I’m trying to limit my fat intake and some days it works some days it doesn’t.

I’m particularly happy with how the weekend turned out. On Saturday we went to a big party with 60+ people and everyone brought cookies, coffee cakes and the like but I stuck with my diet and had none of the sweets and only a handful of the savory snacks which were all home baked goods. Then after the party we went to a birthday party with my kids and I resisted any and all temptation over there too, I had nothing to eat or drink. Then we ended up going to Macaroni Grill for dinner before we headed out to see John Bon Jovi at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

At Macaroni Grill I ate a whole bread, 510 calories, but it was OK. I had very little food up until this point so I could afford to pig out on the bread plus I knew I was going to do a long run Sunday morning and I needed the extra carbohydrates. But after eating that much bread I went with their new dish, the Aged Beef Tenderloin Spiedini. It was basically a couple of pieces of beef tenderloin and roasted vegetables with some roasted potato. It was a total of 410 calories, low on fat and great on taste. It was an awesome meal! I’m so happy to see that Macaroni Grill is offering entrees like these. The really weird thing though was that while the steak only had 620 mg of sodium, the chicken version had more than twice that much. It’s a good thing I had the beef, especially after that peasant bread that was smothered with salt.

So I had my long run of 10.7 miles on Sunday morning and overall I ran 37.7 miles (60 km) this week. It was a great week with lots of hard workouts. It was one of the hardest weeks so far and the one with certainly the most mileage. This was the last week with hill training, starting next week I’m heading to the track for speed work instead. I have burned a total of 4,367 calories this week, an average of 624 calories a day but most of the calories came on Tuesday from the hill training and from Sunday’s long run. Combine the daily average of calories burned with the 1,852 calories in and you get 1,228 net calories a day. I have lost 1.8 lbs (0.8 kg) this week which means I have lost 6,300 calories, that’s 900 calories a day bringing my calculated BMR to 2,128 calories. It seems to be correct.

I didn’t work out as much as I should have, Friday was just too hectic and I didn’t have time at lunch and I had to leave on time to take my son to soccer in the afternoon. Bottom line, I only lifted weights once instead of twice last week.

All in all I think it was another pretty successful week. I’m getting a bit worn out by the whole process, I feel like I need a bit of rest and a bit more calories to sustain my running. But just as much as I’d like to slow down I’d also like this thing to be over with so instead of dragging it out longer I’ll just keep my focus and determination for another 5-6 weeks and call it done after that.