A Year’s Worth of Updates

It has been nearly a year since my last blog post. Wow. Time certainly does fly. School keeps me incredibly busy, but I am still running pretty consistently. I ran another half marathon in the fall, and I have several running races fast approaching this spring. The triathlon bug has bitten once again, so I’m thinking about signing up for a race or two this summer as long as the scheduling works.

The next race I have is Dog-N-Jog 5K/10K on April 6. This is the same race I did last year with my German Shepherd Dog, Tara. I’m leaning toward doing the 5K again this year instead of the 10K. The 5K course is being altered a bit so that it is closer to the correct distance, as last year it was a little short at only about 3 miles exactly. The next day, April 7, I’ve organized two teams for Brew to Brew, which is a 44 mile point-to-point relay race from Kansas City, MO to Lawrence, KS. We had two teams last year and it was a blast, so I’m really looking forward to doing this race again. I’ll be running two legs for a total of 8.8 miles. It will be a good warm-up for my next half marathon on April 21, the Kansas Half Marathon, which is the same race I did last spring.

In other news, I’ve been trying a more Primal-style nutrition plan in my daily life. I started a 30 day self-challenge on February 27, so I’m over half-way through. I will freely admit that I am pretty lenient in the dairy department, and usually eat one serving of dairy per day.  I have had a few servings of indulgences, but not many overall and none in the first two weeks of the challenge. The biggest benefit so far is that I’m not as hungry all the time and between meals as I used to be. I also lost about 8 pounds within the first week. I’ve since evened out at about 5 pounds lighter than my starting weight. Since I was already happy with my weight, I’m glad the weight loss has stopped. The only downsides are the meal planning and the expense. It’s a lot more expensive to eat so many fresh veggies all the time, but I do think it’s healthier to eat more fruits and veggies.  Meal planning does take a little more time than a more conventional diet, but I don’t think it’s prohibitive.  I usually plan meals for the week on the weekend and do all my grocery shopping over the weekend. One other observation I made was that initially, I felt extremely thirsty all the time, but that’s no longer the case.

I haven’t noticed an extreme difference in energy levels or inflammation, so I don’t think grains have that much of an effect on me in those aspects. With only 10 days of my challenge left, I think that I will not stick to the restrictions on grains long term, but I will probably keep to the main principles and not feel that my meals have to be centered around a grain or a starch.  I want to be able to eat bread or pasta on occasion and enjoy the occasional dessert indulgence. 🙂

I will not pretend that I will be able to post on a regular basis over the next few months, but just wanted to jump in and do a quick update while I have some time. I hope to at least write some race reports for the upcoming races, but life may have other plans.