October 2, 2010

Goodbye, Recovery

Tomorrow will be exactly three weeks from Ironman Wisconsin and I couldn't feel more out of shape than I do right now. At first recovery is delightful. I enjoyed sleeping in, having a Sunday that included brunch as my big activity and having my "long" workout be 1.5 hours. But inactivity breeds inactivity and I'm starting to feel the need to get going again.

In addition to being minimally active, I've been eating and drinking everything I shouldn't. It started with my usual race-week and post-race indulgences, but it's a slippery slope and I've now turned into a sugar-craving beast and feel awful after every sweet morsel. Exhibit A to the left, an ice cream made with beer that we had as our second dessert last night. After a couple low points last week involving an entire bag of M&Ms and two Nutella pizzas I decided it was time to clean the diet back up. After all, I have that offseason goal to lose 13 pounds, which is now 14 thanks to my recent lifestyle.

I thought about doing something extreme like a juice cleanse to break the bad eating cycle, but was concerned I'd be too low energy to continue workouts. So instead I'm going back to my no sugar, no refined grains, no processed food diet and will kick it off with 3-4 days of lower calorie, extremely clean eating. Absolutely no exceptions. I'm even going to skip the coffee in an attempt to detox the system a little.

I did my first post-race run last night and it went well. It was only 20 minutes but was pain-free and my legs aren't feeling fatigued anymore. I had a good ride Wednesday and a solid interval ride in the park today as well so I think I'm ready start again. I'm hoping to re-join the Prospect Peloton next week and see if I can keep up.

1 comment:

  1. Good luck with the nutrition plan. I definitely agree that balance clean eating is the best way to go!

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...