Training for a Belt Buckle

55 pushups! You rock! Too cool!!! Guitar hero! You are a super rocker! Any my new favorte song is the "Going through hell" one. It's my new theme song!

What a way to work out.

I'd gladly give up half of my pushup capacity for some Guitar Hero skills.

push ups suck!!

Maurine:

Some thoughts on your training. I see no reason why you could not run a 4:20 marathon if you adjusted some things in the training and in the life style.

Starting with the principles. Avoid anything impulsive, and choose steady. Steady training, steady eating, steady rest. No hero acts, but no slacking either.

More detailed. Train 6 days a week, and take one scheduled day of rest. Your day must not end until you've run at least 4 miles. No walking breaks. Just plod along at 13:00 pace or so, but do not walk for any reason. Even if your running pace slows down to a near-walk, still move the legs and the arms in a running motion. Do not count your walking mileage.

At this point do not worry about long runs. Learn to run at least 4 miles 6 days a week without skipping. No excuses, no exceptions.

Diet - if you know it is bad, do not eat it. If you know it is good, eat it to satiation. If you run 30 minutes after eating it, and it makes you throw up or feel extremely uncomfortable, it is bad, do not eat it again. This would take some paradigm shift, and self-control, but that is ultimately the secret to eating right. Stay on the trail. Do not look for a short cut. Suggested shortcuts are a trip up a mountain through some nasty thick bushes.

Sleep - early to bed, early to rise. I find having a strict bed time curfew very helpful.

Other - true commitment and 100% consistency are very important. You need to be willing to sacrifice lesser privileges to achieve higher goals. Work on doing it without a grudge or looking back and saying "I miss my old behavior". The fruits of the old behavior are a 5:00+ marathon. The fruits of the improved behavior are 4:20 marathon. A tree is inseparable from its fruit - the quality of the fruit is determined by the quality of the tree. You must have the courage to abandon the tree that yields 5:00+ marathons.

Part of the ability of the 4:20 tree to grow lies in how well you can do the right things even when you are not in the mood to do them. While having the right attitude can provide some physiological benefits, those benefits still accrue at nearly the same rate when you do the right thing with supposedly the wrong attitude. Human physiology is a very just, in a sense, but at the same time very merciless judge. It does not care about intent very much, and rewards you primarily according to your actions.

Thank you, Sasha. I appreciate the advice and will put it into practice after St. George!

Sasha- About the eating before the run. Do you mean never eat that ever again, or just before you run?

If a food takes a long time to digest, 30 minutes after you've eaten it you will still have a hard time running. Usually this means it should not have landed in your stomach in the first place. I am not suggesting running 30 minutes after you eat. Rather I am suggesting only eating foods that would allow you to run with a reasonable degree of comfort 30 minutes after you've eaten them. Rather than say - do not eat food X or food Y because it has too much fat, etc, have your body tell you how well it can handle the food.

I understand. The 30 minute test is a test of how your body handles a particular food for everyday consumption, not just for running.