Day 50 - Starch Solution

Today’s stats:

A very early start today - I got up at 5:30 to go for a little run. Little in this case being the operative word as I was planning to use an app to help build up my fitness level in time for the 10K Standard Chartered run. I’ve actually lost 25% of my training time due to my stupid foot. I had waited for it to get better (which is what everything I could find online) and well, it basically didn’t. I saw a podiatrist and with some extra corporeal shock therapy combined with some insoles, things started to improve. I’ve had the insoles a week now and although there are still problems, I’m comfortable enough to run on it.

In addition the trainers I have been wearing have been the lightweight, flat bottom type of shoe. Apparently due to my stupid ankles, I need to have more ankle support as well as more cushioning on the heel. The running shoes I have do have that, so I’m trying to wear those a bit more now and see if it improves things further.

In any case, today’s run (which involved 90 seconds of walking followed by 60 seconds of running) went pretty well and there was no issue with foot pain during that time. There was only 20 minutes of cycling between those, but as I hadn’t done any running for such a long time, I decided to start slowly and then work my way up. The problem is that this would take 14 weeks and I don’t have 14 weeks before the run. So rather than doing the running three days a week (say Monday, Wednesday and Friday), I’m going to have to do it just on alternate days.

This should be okay I think because I was able to run 7k before relatively easily after very minimal training. Whether I was doing it safely is a completely different matter of course, and that’s why I intend to build up slowly this time. Still, it’s not like 10k is totally way out there. If this was a half marathon that we were talking about, then I’d be crapping myself already, but given that it’s not too far from what I’ve achieved before in much less time than I have remaining, I feel pretty good about it. Hopefully this isn’t a case of pride coming before a fall…

Breakfast was beans. Yes I know I said I wasn’t going to be eating beans, but it was such an early start that I figured if I had the cereal (which is known not to be all that filling), I’d be hungry again by 10am and would probably end up eating beans anyway, which would mean an extra load of energy going into the system for no good reason. I figured it was better just to eat the beans at the usual time rather than having to worry about doubling up. Again, I’m not really meaning to focus on calories per se, but I am aware of how my body seems to use the resource I give it, and I’d like to be mindful of how I provide those resources. My body of course will keep on doing its thing regardless of what I’m doing or planning, but if I want to keep my bodies needs in sync with the needs of my mind - then a bit of resource allocation fiddling isn’t a bad thing in my opinion.

Lunch wasn’t the usual lunch box as there was a huge chunk of broccoli left over from the night before and I decided to have that with a huge bowl of mash. That went pretty well. I admit I used a fair bit of salt on both but it wasn’t that much and it greatly improved the taste. It didn’t feel me up that long though and by 3:45 I was starting to feel hungry - usually that doesn’t happen until around 4:30 or so and hasn’t been happening much at all recently.

Dinner was the usual bowl although this time it was pretty big. I did get through it but was starting to struggle. Needless to say I didn’t go to bed hungry :)