Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

My hip felt no better when I woke this morning. Since I am not one to rest, I decided to just do my best to keep the impact low. And since I had a rare day off from work, I managed to complete both CrossFit and bike intervals... and to reward myself for all that hard work with a glass of organic wine and a piece of my favorite raw chocolate!

THURSDAY
5 AM CROSSFIT
Strength:
pull-up practice
(finally figured out the Kipping pull-up! band-assisted, but still my 1st pull-up without jumping off a box to get over the bar-yay!)
WOD:
For time:
800m C2 rower
50 toes-to-bar (T2B)
400m C2
35 T2B
200m C2
20 T2B
Total = 19:48 (and some pretty torn up hands...ouch)

4 PM BIKE
(Tri bike set up on a Kinetic trainer)
Short intervals (from the CrossFit Endurance website):
6 x 1/4 mile with 1:1 recovery, hold within 2-3 sec

And of course stretching and PT - after which my hip is feeling like new!

"Happiness is running the quiet streets in freshly fallen snow."
- from my local running shop

Woke up this morning with mild hip pain, and decided to go out in the falling snow with my dog anyways. Amazingly, my pain actually improved as I ran! 2h post-run, I have no pain.

AM RUN
30 min easy, with some technique & drill work

Saturday morning yoga: Althlete's Guide to Yoga with Sage Roundtree

As much as I love yoga studio yoga, I just can't bring myself to pay $15-20 a class - especially when I already have memberships to CrossFit and a local athletic club (for the pool). Yoga in my home gym is almost as good!

7am - green powder supplement
7:45am - big bowl of my favorite raw cereal (pummelo, dried figs, banana, ground flax, hemp protein, sprouted buckwheat, goji berries, and homemade raw vanilla almond milk), white tea
8:30am - banana
10:30am - YOGA
12pm - humongous salad (with mixed greens, daikon radish, fresh garlic, ground sesame seeds & nooch, pine nuts, olive oil & balsamic vinegar), 1/2 bottle Kombucha, piece of raw chocolate
Dinner - THRIVE black-eyed pea & quinoa pizza, topped with red pepper hemp pesto, sweet potato, beets, red onion, cauliflower & red pepper, plus arame seaweed salad - yum!!

I have to work the overnight shift tonight on L&D - hopefully delivering lots of healthy babies so I have something to smile about on tomorrow morning's long run!

No babies, but all the sleep I got instead set me up for a great morning run. When I work the overnight shift, I like to head out for my morning run straight from the hospital - after which I usually head home to shower, refuel, and sleep all day! No excuses.

5:30a: Vega Endurance bar, fresh berries, Yerba mate
8:30a: LONG RUN, 70 minutes HR zone 2
9:45a: Vega Recovery Accelerator
10:30a: Smoothie (Vega Sport Protein, maca, goji berries, cacao, strawberries, blueberries, banana, & spinach)
1:30p: Massaged Kale Salad with avocado and lemon, 1/2 piece raw chocolate, blueberries

Early dinner of local squash and greens, likely with a nice glass of wine (and maybe a little more chocolate...)

I've been thinking a lot lately about redefining my goals. My original goal for 2012 was to run the Kalamazoo marathon on May 6. Given my recent injury, trying to get into marathon shape now would be nothing short of stupid. Luckily for me, the race festival includes a half-marathon - perfect! I'll downgrade to the half in May, take a brief bit of time to recover and refocus, and then continue to build for a late summer marathon. By that time, I should have a good strong base to build upon.

My long term goal in all of this is to run an ultra. Ever since my first reading of Dean Karnazes' "UltraMarathon Man" and cheering my husband on at the Vermont 50 Mountain Bike race (which has a coinciding 50 mile ultra), I've dreamed of someday running one myself. I even bought a t-shirt recently depicting the progression: 5k, 8k, 10k, 13.2, 25k, 26.2, Ultra!

For a little extra motivation, I'll do my best to cross the distances off one-by-one in my own 2012 progression. And I think I found the perfect marathon: Michigan's North Country Trail Run. The event includes a half, full marathon, and 50 mile ultra. And supposedly a pretty sweet post-race party Sounds so much more fun than a crowded road marathon. Trail marathon here I come!!

And since I need super strong legs to get there:

MONDAY 1/16
CROSSFIT

STRENGTH:
Back Squat
3,3,3,3,3
-> 85,95,105,110,115 (tied my previous 3RM)

WOD:
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Wall Ball
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 Box Jump
-> 6:55 (14/14") (still a little hesitant to put to much impact on my hip, stuck to a low box)

Chocolate [Nut] Milk:
5-4-3-2-1
Deadlift
Box Jump
-> 1:56 (95/20" step up) (again, the hip)

TUESDAY 1/17
RUN
30 min HR zone 2
2.55 miles

After being up most of the night with moms-to-be, new moms, and new babies, I attempted a post-call run straight from the hospital. I felt tired, weak, uncoordinated, and my HR was at least 10 bpm lower at any given point that I would have expected based on my RPE. Oh, and it was raining. What did I expect? I was operating on a couple of very poor quality 1-1.5 hr naps, and the adrenaline of being on the labor & delivery floor had faded. I've had some truly great post-call morning runs in the past (followed by some truly great naps), but today it just wasn't in the cards.

WEDNESDAY 1/18
CrossFit

Strength:
Muscle up practice

WOD:
21-15-9
SDHP (73)
KB swing (35)
Results: 10:41

After 9 solid hours of sleep last night, today was a much better day. I even picked my highest weights to date for both the sumo deadlift high pull and the KB swing. I expect I'll be sore tomorrow!

Today's food was 100% raw, with the exception of my favorite vega products:
4:40a Vega Sport pre-workout energizer
6:15a Vega Sport recovery accelerator
7:15a giant smoothie with Vega Sport protein, berries, bananas, spinach, and chia
8:00a banana
12p massaged kale salad with avocado, lemon, & hemp seeds; kombucha; piece of raw chocolate
1p fresh blueberries
4p apple
6p Thrive almond flax burger with hemp pesto on a giant bed of greens, 1/2 grapefruit
8p Sunfood raw chocolate protein shake w/ added glutamine

Two-a-Day Thursday!!
Day off work, so it was easy to fit in both planned workouts, plus a little recovery time, AND date night with my husband tonight!!

5am CROSSFIT
Strength:
Deadlift 3,3,3,3,3
-> 95,105,115,125,135

WOD:
15 min AMRAP:
3 GI Janes,
5 Pushups,
7 Ball Slams (20 lbs)
-> 10 rounds

Fuel: Vega Sport Pre-workout Energizer, post-workout Recovery Accelerator, giant blueberry super duper smoothie with Vega Smoothie Infusion

11am BIKE
From CrossFit Endurance:
5 x 3:00, spin/rest 3:00, hold highest average distance possible across all
Tri bike set up on kinetic trainer
-> 0.8, 0.81, 0.8, 0.8, 0.81; 55 min total

Fuel: Coconut water, post-workout Recovery Accelerator, giant blueberry super duper smoothie with 2 scoops chocolate Vega Sport Protein

FRiDaY 1/20
RUN
30 min HR zone 2 + drill work -> 2.3 miles

It was a mere 6 degrees F in SW Michigan this morning, too cold to bring my dog along, but not so cold I had to resort to the dreaded treadmill. My hip was a bit angry from the get-go, but didn't get any worse over the course of the run. I see the orthopedic surgeon Monday. I do NOT want surgery, but I do want to run without pain. And that's exactly why I am signing off to do my PT before I go to bed, despite the fact that I am completely exhausted and would love nothing more than to lie on my butt and eat raw chocolates. Happy weekend everyone!

I love reading your journal. Your workouts ROCK. Do you ever take a rest day?

@vivalasvegans - yes! As a matter of fact, today I am taking a much needed rest day (from formal exercise at least). I always try to listen to my body and allow it the time it needs to recover. As one of the CrossFit coaches likes to say, every once in awhile you need to take a day off and do nothing but eat!

SUNDAY 1/22
Long Run Day (my favorite!)
80 min HR zone 2
6.15 miles on packed snow (turns out snowmobiles are good for something after all!)

Great news - I saw the ortho hip surgeon today and he encouraged me to continue to go the conservative route. I'm pain free 85-90% of the time, and no activity seems to make the pain worse (although I do occasionally have some pain when I run). Phew!

This is exactly what I wanted to hear, especially since Coach B and I put our heads together this weekend and laid out a back-to-basics injury prevention plan. Essentially, I'll go back to day 1 of my 6 month marathon plan, refocusing my efforts on Michigan's North Country Trail Marathon in August (so much more fun than a standard road marathon and one step closer to my ultra dreams). This time around, Coach B is taking me out of CrossFit and putting together a traditional strength and conditioning program of compound movements (think deadlifts and squats) designed to boost my base strength and protect me from future injury. It's brilliant really, although I know I'm going to miss my daily WODs!

The new plan kicks off next week, but until then I plan to have a little fun with CrossFit, like today:

Strength:
Bench Press
12-9-6-3
(45-65-75-85(fail)) this is exactly why I need to go back to basics! Weak.

WOD:
"Annie"
50-40-30-20-10
Double unders
Sit ups
9:22, scaled to single unders 3:1

Definately, rest is CRUCIAL. If there was one thing I could change or alter back in my running days I probably would have taken a little more time off ~ on my big running weeks I was clocking up close to 200km, usually around the 150km mark though.

Good luck anyway, I just jumped in and read through this second page. What are your race goals for this year?

@Mini Forklift - my race goals are constantly evolving (mainly due to work schedules and this recent injury). My goal for 2012 is to run my first marathon, and make it to the finish line injury-free. I hope to build on that in the long term with ultra running and/or ironman. At present my target marathon is Michigan's North Country trail marathon in August.

Today's workout:
AM
30 min RUN, HR zone 2
2.87 miles

PM
Home PT exercises

Felt amazing! Mild discomfort in my hip still, but my fastest avg pace in target HR zone since before my injury. Form is coming back!