The Running Thread - 2018

[TCB in FLA]

I believe that is what the WISH board is now for.

I’m aware of that board, but it’s seems to be a little more general weight loss-centered. Not much specific discussion about running/wt loss. Plus, I’m a creature of habit and pretty much only visit the Run Disney board on the DIS unless I’m researching a trip.

 

[Chasing Dopey]

the last time alabama lost lost at tiger stadium i was there, so my bama friends have issued a moratorium on my attending another.

This seems a sensible policy to me. We all have to do our part. RTR

 

[rteetz]

I’m aware of that board, but it’s seems to be a little more general weight loss-centered. Not much specific discussion about running/wt loss. Plus, I’m a creature of habit and pretty much only visit the Run Disney board on the DIS unless I’m researching a trip.

I understand. A lot of people who are regulars to the DIS only come to one board typically. The only issue is we have specific topics on each board and we have to try and stick to those topics as best as possible.

 

[LSUlakes]

the last time alabama lost lost at tiger stadium i was there, so my bama friends have issued a moratorium on my attending another. when they lift it and i can get back to BR, i'll let you know.

but, if you leave out the fried items, cajun food offers a lot of good quality running grub. particularly if you prepare it yourself. for example, red beans and rice is magical for post long-run refueling. and i eat collard greens by the pound when i get into the big miles portion of race training.

For some reason I hate red beans and rice... They smell awful to me, and if it doesnt smell good I just dont eat it. On behalf of LSU fans we lift your ban and welcome you to Tiger Stadium with open arms! The LSU / Bama game is always the weekend I celebrate my birthday. For many years now it has been all fun and games, until game time... It's downhill from there. Its usually a fun game regardless of the outcome, but getting a W would improve the overall experience for me lol.

Moving along from the football discussion and onto cajun cooking! I love to cook!!! I grew up in Opelousas, LA and learned to cook from my mom, some friends from Eunice and Ville Plate, and at the hunting camp in Gueydan, LA, home of the duck festival. I can cook a mean sauce! I live in Gonzales now and while my jambalaya isnt up to par to the locals standards, it doesnt suck either. lol We will have to exchange some cooking stories at a later time.

 

[SarahDisney]

Not cajun cooking but general cooking: I just discovered today that I hate cooking.
Side note: vegetables get very small when you cook them.

 

[sylkai]

Not cajun cooking but general cooking: I just discovered today that I hate cooking.
Side note: vegetables get very small when you cook them.

I've gotten a lot better at cooking over the past few years and find it fun now, but it definitely has a learning curve if it's not a skill you've practiced a lot.

Today I made banana bread (had three bananas that needed to get used up) and then a pasta and chickpeas dish for dinner with some homemade Italian sausage from my freezer. This got a much higher thumbs up than yesterday's new dinner recipe, which was a variation on a hamburger helper-type meal using couscous and some Moroccan flavors. That one will need more tweaking if it's going to go into the regular line-up, which ...I'd kind of like it to, since it was easy/fast.

 

[LSUlakes]

I've gotten a lot better at cooking over the past few years and find it fun now, but it definitely has a learning curve if it's not a skill you've practiced a lot.

Today I made banana bread (had three bananas that needed to get used up) and then a pasta and chickpeas dish for dinner with some homemade Italian sausage from my freezer. This got a much higher thumbs up than yesterday's new dinner recipe, which was a variation on a hamburger helper-type meal using couscous and some Moroccan flavors. That one will need more tweaking if it's going to go into the regular line-up, which ...I'd kind of like it to, since it was easy/fast.

When it comes to eating healthy, the cajun cooking get put on hold. I have a book or two for healthy items and some of the things with HomeChef we have order are healthy as well, so we just go buy the stuff needed and make it. Simple instructions and take no more than a hour from prep to plate. Then there is always the plain ole chicken breast... which gets boring after the first bit. But to bread! Baking is a different animal. Exact measurements and all kind of stuff when making something other than a cake. I make my own pizza dough which is simple enough, but making king cake is a little more complex in steps. I would love more about baking because DD enjoys helping daddy in the kitchen. All this baking conversation reminds me of this show on Netflix called Nailed it. Highly entertaining! Those poor people dont have a chance with the time and skills required to make the stuff they have to, but its funny.

 

[kleph]

Moving along from the football discussion and onto cajun cooking! I love to cook!!! I grew up in Opelousas, LA and learned to cook from my mom, some friends from Eunice and Ville Plate, and at the hunting camp in Gueydan, LA, home of the duck festival. I can cook a mean sauce! I live in Gonzales now and while my jambalaya isnt up to par to the locals standards, it doesnt suck either. lol We will have to exchange some cooking stories at a later time.

i know the st. landry/evangeline parish area quite well. i prefer their style "dark" gumbos. and that's where you go for great sausage (and tasso). the red beans they served at the Palace were the best i've ever eaten, by far.

for folks taking a stab at cooking on their own, one good solid basic cookbook i would recommend is Cooks Illustrated's Family Cookbook. it's comprehensive and very straight forward in terms of instructions. they keep things simple and emphasize faster preparation times. i use it as a starting point when i want to try something new. its more effective than doing an internet search and getting pages of recipes that you have no real way to evaluate. once i've tried making something, then i can branch out to attempt more ambitious versions of a given dish.

cooking can be a challenge but it doesn't have to be a chore. we've had a pretty good discussion on diets recently. if you want one single thing to help you eat healthier; stop eating out and start cooking at home. it's cheaper as well.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

My wife hates cooking but is very, very good at it. She just has a "feel" for it. Her first attempts at a dish generally turn out remarkably good and only get better as she tries them again. Her advice to her friends who ask is simple - cooking is not a science project - it is an art. The recipe is the basic formula, but the secret is in the hands of the person trying to make every dish their own.

As for me - I lack the patience to ever become a good cook. My tastes are too simple, and I just want to eat.

 

[Waiting2goback]

QOTD: For todays topic I wanted to discuss running while on a diet. For those who have done it, what was the plan? What are some lessons you learned that you wish you knew before learning it the hard way? What worked vs did not work?

ATTQOTD: I've started my diet since I've returned from our trip and I forgot how much it kinda sucks only into day 3. What sucks more is my weight so I'm in it for the long haul. Currently at 232 with a goal of getting back into the low 210. At my largest I was 255, so I know I can do this. I follow a low carb diet, with some intermediate fasting in there 1-2 per week. As my mileage increases I will have to introduce more of a balanced diet to fuel my runs, but hopefully by that time I am getting near my goal weight. Lessons learned last time doing this! Do not fast on Friday with a long run on Saturday as part of the normal schedule. It took a while to figure out why my runs seemed so hard, but as I learned more about fueling, i found the error in my ways. However, in some cases this idea can work towards training if done once in a while. I think @DopeyBadger probably has a more scientific approach to this, but in simple terms you are starting your run on a low tank and teaching your body to use other fuel sources to keep going. It can simulate the later miles of the marathon. The low carb approach works, and can be made into a lifestyle change, I just got to relaxed and my weight kinda snowballed out of control. With 6 months to marathon weekend I have a big mountain to climb to get ready, but I will be ready!

I think the lifestyle change idea is better than a diet. When I first started running and trying to lose weight I cut out all diary, gluten, and soda. 6 months later I'm down 30 lbs and for the most part I kept it off. I have added a few back on mostly because I was stressed with the divorce but it has pretty much stayed off.

Dieting is so hard, there are so many options and everyone is saying that their way is the best. I am the type of person that gets paralyzed by too many choices and end up making no choices at all.

Everyone wants their diet to seem like the best. As I have told my girlfriend, who used to use weight watchers, weight loss/diet is a multi billion dollar industry. These weight loss systems/programs don't teach you how to eat, they make you buy their foods and pay for their system to get you to a certain weight. Once most people hit it they haven't learned how to eat right to maintain it and they put the weight back on. This starts the never ending roller coaster effect. When I changed I mostly went by the, "if God didn't make it, I don't eat it" approach. You can't go wrong with fruits and veggies, proteins, whole grain rice, etc... it's when the foods come in a box or have been processed that you fail. Find the documentary "Fed Up" and see if that helps.

Having never had a chafing issue in that specific area before, but having never run a marathon before either, I appreciate knowing this can happen and that I should take preventive measures before it does. Where else can we ask these kinds of questions even somewhat comfortably?

Yeah, this forum is a great resource. And you will find that there are things that can happen in a marathon that don't happen in shorter distances. Losing nails, pains in muscles you never expected, you name it.

 

[Waiting2goback]

 

[Miranda]

When I changed I mostly went by the, "if God didn't make it, I don't eat it" approach. You can't go wrong with fruits and veggies, proteins, whole grain rice, etc... it's when the foods come in a box or have been processed that you fail.

It's still tough though, even when you are eating whole foods. Mediterranean, Nordic, Whole30, Paleo, Keto, intermittent fasting... it gets overwhelming.

 

[Waiting2goback]

It's still tough though, even when you are eating whole foods. Mediterranean, Nordic, Whole30, Paleo, Keto, intermittent fasting... it gets overwhelming.

It sure does and I fell in the same boat as you did a while back where I would read and read, and it would be so much information I did nothing. Then I found P90X and that came with the perfect recipe for me, a program I could follow and nutrition guide I could follow. All I needed to do was eat sensibly and push play and I would get in shape. Then I stopped pushing play and eating like crap and the weight went back on. When I began running I just realized that all the companies out there pushing their products were making me fat and not helping me lose the weight. They have fancy packaging with great marketing and they hide bad stuff under different names in their ingredients. I read a couple of books that helped me understand food better, and I just made my own decisions from there. It became easier. The simplest thing to understand for me was, "What I am doing now isn't working so I need to change it". The ice cream, breakfast cereals, chips, soda, candy, etc... Now instead of ice cream I have a bowl of strawberries, grapes, watermelon, etc... They actually taste better to me now, and I don't feel at all guilty eating them. It's just a change in outlook really.

 

[LSUlakes]

A little more on the diet topic for me. The diet for now is just that, a diet. It's being used to kick start things, and after a while I will go back to the healthier lifestyle that I was living about 1.5 years ago. I just let it get out of control and need to make a drastic change to swing things back in the right direction. Things I need to stop are drinking soft drinks daily, fast food, baked goods, and white carbs (for now). I found after a while of eating healthy and then one day getting some McDonald's just how bad that stuff makes me feel. But when I am living a unhealthy lifestyle I feel terrible most of the time without even really noticing it, and the food from McDonald's doesnt stand out as something bad, it just continues my overall not feeling well.

 

[LSUlakes]

QOTD: What is one of the craziest decisions you have made regarding running?

ATTQOTD: I registered for the WDW marathon yesterday without a POT that will probably do much for me and basically no base mileage over the last 12 months. I am looking at 1 or 2 10 mile races (August 25 and Oct 7) to turn in to improve my current and only half in the required timeline of 2:40:01. The August race is a trail run that is very easy but the race is at night and the only lighting is the head lamp you bring with you. It's semi local race so it is most likely to happen. The other race is October 7 in Houston which is just before the deadline to update POT. Hopefully they update race results with the quickness, but that race may not be needed if the first one goes to plan. So, its a little crazy I've stacked all this stuff on my plate and have little to no room for error to get prepared!

 

[rteetz]

QOTD: What is one of the craziest decisions you have made regarding running?

Signing up for the Dopey Challenge. I never imagined myself running a marathon 4-5 years ago.

 

[TheHamm]

ATTQOTD: I decided to run.
Lots of people ran in grad school, and I joked I had to save my speed for walking home at night (It was a bad neighborhood, I recommend no one walk home at night). Then I agreed to run a 10K with a friend, so I had to start running (I realize now that I could have walked 90% of it). And then I signed up for a half, with little to no plan of how to get it done. But I have time to figure it out!

 

[LSUlakes]

This week we have the following folks with races:

21 - @rootbeerkid - Halfway to Christmas Half Marathon (1:50:00 / N/A)
24 - @tidefan - Castaway 5k (NG / N/A)

Best of luck to each of you this weekend and enjoy the cruise @tidefan


Also, January of 2019 is now open for those who have races. In a effort to help me keeping the list current please follow the format: 13 - LSUlakes - Walt Disney World Marathon (3:59:59 / N/A), which is the day of race - username - Race - (Goal / Result). Following this format allows for me to copy paste which makes life a little easier when we have many races. Your help is appreciated! Good luck with registration everyone!

 

[BuckeyeBama]

QOTD: What is one of the craziest decisions you have made regarding running?

The decision to run the marathon last year was crazy. It was too late in the year, and I knew that I wouldn't have time to adequately prepare for it given the fact that I was already registered for the half so would really be jumping to the Goofy. I finished both races, but I did not have a POT for the marathon so had to start at the back, and I was not adequately trained for the Goofy. In hindsight, it was a mistake. You would think that I had learned from it, but I just registered for the NYC virtual marathon with only 16 weeks to go from a 7 mile long run to a marathon while recovering from my surgery earlier this year, so I guess that my running stupidity is still strong.

 

[Slogger]

ATQOTD-crazy running decisons?

A few years ago I was on vacation in Hilton Head and running with my wife while our two kids rode bikes. My wife stopped after 3 miles but I wanted to make it a 5 mile run so I kept going. My daughter stayed with me on her bike. I had never run more than 5 miles before.
It was summer. It was hot. It was humid. It was in the afternoon. I had no water. No shade. No common sense.

After 5 miles I wanted to keep going and decided to make it to 8 miles, then 9, 10, and after 10.....why not try to run my first "unofficial" half marathon. I ended up doing 14 miles that day.

#2>Running Dopey a few weeks after surgery seemed crazy to everyone EXCEPT me. I thought it was a blast.