Category: Nutrition

Posted on

What a Mind F*$k: My First Unsupported 100-Miler

My Setup

Let me start by saying that I have done some crazy stuff in my life. THIS, is right up there. With all of the races I signed up for being cancelled this year, I decided to attempt my first unsupported 100 miler in 2020. I needed something out there to keep me motivated and in shape for what, I hope, will be a big 2021. If you plan on running an ultramarathon this post will provide you tons of insight. If you plan on running it unsupported, this post will discuss the unique challenges of such an endeavor.

It is my humble opinion that the biggest reason for failure at this distance, is poor planning. If you are not prepared logistically, you do not give yourself a realistic shot at success. The plan for this attempt was to have my car be an aid station at a location that was about nine miles from my house, and my house acting as a second aid station. I would run a series of loops and out and backs on mostly trails and some greenway hitting my car and house as needed. The challenges that we thought about were time, weather, darkness, and calorie intake. Let’s look at them each individually:

Time – Being that this was an unsupported attempt, I didn’t put a time goal pressure on myself, but I didn’t want to be out there more than 30 hours either! The biggest time waster, as any ultra-runner can attest, is aid stations. If you are sitting pretty, you aren’t making progress. Beware of the chair! You need to get in, do what you need to do, and get out. This being unsupported meant that I would be the one filling bottles, preparing food, tending to blisters, etc. That can eat up allot of time.

Weather – The forecast for the day was very nice. Low 40’s and sunny. However, the day before, we had torrential downpours (this would come back to bite me later) and it was supposed to drop down to 30 degrees and start snowing overnight. I could live with snow. I knew as long as I kept my core temperature up, I would be fine. I had an assortment of coats, hats, and gloves.

Darkness – As an ultra-runner, you become accustomed to running in the dark, but normally you have pacers, and in most races the night is maybe 12 hours max. Well, for this effort, no pacers, and due to the time of year, it was dark for over 14 hours. That is a long, dark, cold period of time to be alone and, quite frankly, at your worst. Making sure that all of my headlamps and flashlights were fully charged and located at both aid stations was critical.

Calorie Intake – There is so much more to calorie intake than just calories. You need carbs, electrolytes, and protein. This needs to balanced with cheap fuel, like gels or other quick shots of sugar/caffeine. This is the list of food and drinks that I had available:

Water

Tailwind

Flat Coke

Grilled Cheese

Peanut Butter and Jelly

Lentil Soup

Pretzels

Skittles

Salt Tablets

Considering there were no volunteers, I had to keep it simple and portable. The food had to be able to go with me as I ran. If I wasn’t going to hit an aid station for three or four hours, nutrition and hydration had to come with me. I felt like this was a good mix of sweet and salty not knowing what I would be craving.

Obviously, there were other considerations such as shoes, socks, blister kits, etc. but this provides the basic set up and thought construct for the attempt. Now we can get into the fun stuff, the run itself…

Smooth Sailing for 42 Miles (Kind of)

Start slow, stay slow. It’s the mantra of every ultra-runner. And I did just that. I started by running the first 13 or so miles on the greenway since it was dark at the onset, and I wanted to get off to a good start. But I am a trail runner at heart, and as the day broke, I was looking forward to getting on some trails! And here is where the weather from the day before the attempt came back to bite me. The first trail I went on was fairly muddy and had a bridge wiped out from the rain the day before. For the most part, it was passable, albeit it certainly slowed me down. The second trail was so muddy, that I immediately slipped and fell literally within five steps of the trail head. I sat there for a moment, muddy and wet. Time to adjust.

I knew that I had about a nine-mile trail run to get to the house before dark but had no idea what the condition of the trails were. Based on the first two trails, I wasn’t optimistic. I decided to run some more greenway and then hit the trails home at about 1:30 pm. This would give me time to get home, eat, and change for the long, cold night. To my surprise, the trail home wasn’t in too bad of shape and I was cruising right along, and then… “That hurt. Was that a twinge? Was that a tweak? That really hurts.” My mind was racing. As my right foot came down, I felt something tweak, and then pain. Every step was painful, and it seemed to be getting worse. As I approached the last bridge before my house, it was completely washed out. I either had to go through about 20 feet of ankle deep icy cold water or turn back. I went for it. I knew that I wouldn’t want to be in wet shoes for long, but I needed to get home and figure out what was going on with this foot.

Walk it Off

The pain was on my second toe on my right foot. Every step was extremely painful. I switched shoes to a zero drop, hoping that it would take pressure off the toe. I decided to walk around my neighborhood at as fast a pace as I could and see if the foot would numb, get better, or if it was time to call it quits. Whenever I am seriously contemplating quitting, I try and walk for a while. Sometimes walking for a bit while nibbling some food and sipping something just gets you to a better place. My hope was I would soon start jogging again. But every step just kept getting more painful. It was getting darker and colder and the time was approaching when I would have to decide if I was going to venture back into the night. I started thinking that only 2020 would be a year where I would DNF a race that wasn’t even a race. Although I was in allot of pain, I wasn’t ready to quit. I went to the house, heated up some lentil soup, and then told my wife I was going to run in the next neighborhood and see if I couldn’t get this foot under control.

As I was walking in the dark, I decided that I was in pain anyway, I should just try and jog a bit, so I did. It hurt, but it wasn’t too bad. Then I started to do walk run intervals, and suddenly the pain started to subside! Was it the zero drop? Was it my foot going numb? Was I just too stubborn to quit? I didn’t know, and I really didn’t care! I went back home and told my wife that I was going back out for the night! You should have seen the look on her face.

In Case They Ask “What, You Were Wearing?”

As I was changing into my night gear and loading up my pockets with food to make the trek back out to my car and hopefully finish this thing off back out on the greenway and trails, I noticed my wife start snapping photos of me with her phone. I asked her why the heck she would want to take a picture of me looking like death, and she replied, “This is just in case they ask what you were wearing?” I thought that was pretty funny, she wasn’t joking.

At this point, I had 62 miles in the bank and a long night in front of me. I was beaten up, bruised, and bloodied, but I was still standing. I headed off in to the dark and made my way back towards my car. The nine miles out to my car were pretty uneventful. I would walk/jog and my foot felt fine, so life, at the moment, was good. When I arrived at my car, I text my wife, so she knew I made it, I filled up my hand-held bottles with flat coke, shoved some cold grilled cheese sandwiches in my pocket and headed back out. And then mother nature decided to throw me a curve ball…

It Could Be Worse, It Could Be Raining

The forecast had called for snow. The forecast was wrong. At about 2am, it started to rain. 32 degrees and rainy is no good. It’s the worst. I knew if I couldn’t stay dry, I would become hypothermic and this would be all over. Imagine being down to about 25 miles left and having to quit? My waterproof jacket was getting ready to be tested. In my mind, I just kept saying, “I need this to turn to snow. Just a couple of degrees colder and we’re good.” It never happened. The rain went from drizzly, to steady, to a downpour. Consider this a PSA. Whatever it costs to have a great waterproof and very warm jacket, pay it. I have a Hoka, waterproof down jacket, and it saved the day! I was able to stay relatively warm and dry despite some very crappy conditions. I was miserable, but I wasn’t hypothermic.

What did become an issue was that I had to wear two gloves to keep my hands warm. When I took my gloves off to manipulate the packaging for food, they would get wet and cold, and then it would take a long time for them to warm back up even with my gloves on. It got so bad, that I started to skip eating and basically live off of flat coke. It may not have been the smartest trade off, but quite honestly, after over 24 hours of being alone and on my feet, I probably wasn’t making the best decisions. All I can say, is that when my hands were freezing, I was absolutely miserable. Shivering uses allot of energy, so I prioritized warmth over food.

What a Mind F*%k

All of this was just a prelude to what are always the darkest most difficult hours in a 100 miler. This being unsupported, it was even worse. You don’t realize how much you draw from other people during these events, until they aren’t there. No one was cheering me on, no other runners were making any quips or small talk, there was no one at the aid stations asking what I needed, and there was no pacer looking out for me. Around 4:30 am, after hours of running in the rain, and almost 24 hours on my feet, it started to happen. “Did I just swerve? Where am I? I know I am running, but I don’t remember the last bit?” I was falling asleep on my feet. While I was moving! I didn’t think that was possible. I started to remove my hood and lift my hat to get some cold air and wake myself up. But it was still raining, so now my head was wet, and my ears were cold! I’d put my hat back on and pull my hood up, and then I’d start falling asleep again.

I started looking forward to what every ultra-runner does when they are in that deep dark place. Sunrise. The light of day always brings renewed energy and signifies that the end is almost near. Just keep moving I told myself. If I can make it to sunrise, I can finish. The next two and a half hours felt like an eternity. I would pull my hood down and lift my hat until I was freezing, and then bundle back up. As much pain as I was in, the sleep deprivation was worse. It was such a strange feeling to be moving and sleeping at the same time. My eyes and mind played tricks on me. Trees started to look like animals and people. I heard noises that I wasn’t sure were there. It was all so surreal. And just when it seemed like I was losing faith, the dark turned to gray. Gray was all I was going to get, since it was still raining, but it was enough.

I put my headlamp and flashlight away at the car and headed out for the last three miles. At this point, you know you have it, but you just want it to be over. Three miles is a 5k! I could run that in 25 minutes easily. No problem at all. That last three miles took all of an hour. And to add to the weirdness of the experience, when my Garmin hit 100 miles, there was absolutely no one around. It was gray, cold, and raining. Instead of a race director congratulating me, a kiss from my wife, and high fives from my crew, I limped to my car. By myself. Because it had been raining all night, the windshield had frozen over, so I actually had to sit there, in the cold, for ten more minutes while me car heated up and the windshield defrosted. Perfect. I’m not saying that sarcastically, I mean it. I ran for the love of running. I ran for the challenge of a lifetime. This showed me that I didn’t need a race to push myself to my extreme limits, I just needed the heart.

All of that being said, I made my own damn buckle! And it is the one that I am the proudest of. 2020 certainly sucked, but at least now, it has a redeeming quality.

Final Statistics

Total Time – 28 hours 35 minutes 49 seconds

Moving Time – 25 hours 22 minute 33 secondsMileage – 100.12 miles

If I can help you on your journey in any way, please reach out to me!

For behind the scenes photos and comments on my training and personal life, follow me on Instagram: joe_the_runner  Strava: Joe Randene  YouTube: Joe Runner  Facebook: Joe Randene

Posted on

Your Relationship With Food

When people find out that I lost 130 pounds, the first thing they ask is “How did you do it?” To answer that question is much longer than one post, but here is where I tell them it starts. It’s not your mouth, it’s your head. Anyone can lose weight by severely restricting calories, but to sustain your weight loss, you need to change your diet. You don’t want to be “on a diet”, you want to “eat a healthy diet”. And for that to happen, you need to understand and change your relationship with food.

What does that mean? Well, most people who struggle with weight, over eat or eat unhealthy for a reason that is other than hunger. In my case, it was simply that I was exposed to bad eating habits growing up and I carried those habits with me. That’s not to say that my family are terrible, I love them! But I come from a family of big eaters and big drinkers. Some of us exercise enough that weight doesn’t become an issue, and some of us don’t. Some of us have changed our diets over time to be healthier, and some haven’t. That’s not the point. The point is, I had to realize that my relationship with food was unhealthy because I was propagating those habits, and then change those habits. My relationship with food went from, eating and drinking anything I wanted and as much as I wanted, to eating healthy and almost no alcohol. I’m not hungry and I still enjoy what I eat, and I feel great.

In my opinion, I have one of the easier food relationships to address. I just needed to reeducate myself and change some habits. However, there are much more serious issues around food relationships such as people who use food as a replacement for love, or as a defense mechanism. As an example, some people eat because they were abandoned, and they could always count on food to be there and comfort them. Others eat because they were sexually abused, and they think being overweight will make them less attractive to a predator. Many of these types of issues fall under eating disorders and must be addressed in order to change your relationship with food in a healthy way. The mind needs to be addressed first.

The great news is that you are not alone! There are many places to get the help that you need and get back on track. The National Institute of Mental Health is a great place to start.

The next area that you need to understand, and address is “triggers”. Again, this starts in the head. After sitting and analyzing my eating habits, I realized that when I drank alcohol, I binge ate. So not only was I getting the empty calories from drinking, I was doubling down with really crap food even if I wasn’t hungry. Drinking and eating went together for me. Once I grasped that, I made sure that I put controls around my drinking. I went from drinking moderately most weekends and some weeknights, to I rarely drink alcohol at all now. And when I do, it’s usually a beer or a glass of wine. This has made a huge difference in my calorie intake.

What are your triggers? Is it stress? Is it boredom? My experience was that I knew my triggers, but I had to admit them to myself. This is work that has to be done, because your triggers normally are the pathways to your underlying issues. I’m not going to tell you it is easy, but it is achievable. And if it is something that you need help with, I suggest you go get. I know it can be scary, but change is always scary. On the other side of that fear is your dreams though, so be brave and get help.

Once I recognized that I was simply following the pattern that I had been exposed to, and took the time to reeducate myself on nutrition, the scale started moving in the right direction. And when I removed the “trigger” of alcohol and stopped binge eating, not only did the scale continue to move in the right direction, it became sustainable. Finally, as my weight came down and I started to feel great, running went from exercise to a passion. Not being hungry, feeling great, and pursuing a passion, sounds like something I can do for a long time!

For behind the scenes photos and comments on my training and personal life, follow me on Instagram: joe_the_runner  Strava: Joe Randene  YouTube: Joe Runner  Facebook: Joe Randene

Questions, comments, feedback? Please leave them in the comments section BELOW and we can have a discussion!

 

Posted on

Joe the Runner Interview in Dure Magazine

Dure

This amazing new endurance athlete magazine called Dure, as in endurance sports, just published an interview where we discussed topics ranging from weight loss, ultra running, to the state of the sport, and much more! Click here to read the article in it’s entirety.

I hope that this post and this blog helps! To receive new post notifications, newsletters, and post previews, please SUBSCRIBE!

For behind the scenes photos and comments on my training and personal life, follow me on Instagram: joe_the_runner  Strava: Joe Randene  YouTube: Joe Runner

Questions, comments, feedback? Please leave them in the comments section BELOW and we can have a discussion!

Posted on

Eating with Intention

Fridge

Anyone who has followed me and read most of what I have written in regard to diet, knows that I believe diets do not work. In my humble opinion, you shouldn’t be “on” a diet, what you eat “IS” your diet. What I’m trying to say is, when I restricted the amount of food that I ate so that I could lose weight, I failed to sustain my weight loss every single time. Losing weight is as simple as calories in vs. calories out, but there are many levers that you can pull. My experience has been that by putting my calorie burn on hyper drive via running AND changing my diet, I have been able to lose 130 pounds, and more importantly, sustain it.

So, what do I mean by eating with intention? Great question! When I went on diets and restricted the amount of food that I ate, I was very often hungry and irritable. I didn’t change my diet, I was simply eating the same type of crap that I was eating before I went on my diet, but much less. Did it work? Well; yeah. Temporarily. And, because I was still eating crap, my body was still getting revved up on sugar and then crashing, causing me to have stronger and stronger cravings to eat. Pissed off, hungry, and craving food like an addict is NOT sustainable.

However, once I started to look at food as fuel and my diet comprising everything that I eat and drink, I realized that I could eat a lot of the RIGHT foods and I wouldn’t be hungry and irritable. This is eating with intention. I look at my diet AND what I’m trying to accomplish comprehensively, and then eat accordingly. Let me provide you with some concrete examples of what I am trying to say.

As a runner, I look at my year and build my race plan and training around several goal races. I literally will schedule training blocks and training breaks for the entire year. If I am in a training block and my goal is to feel good for my workouts and runs, and possibly lose some weight (running is easier when you are lighter), I’ll eat “clean”. Clean for me means very little refined sugar, no alcohol, no junk food, plenty of vegetables and fruits, and lots of lean meats and fish. Normally I’m running 50 plus miles a week and I can eat as much of this type of food as I want without gaining weight. It’s easy for me to say no to a beer or a piece of cake, because I know that it will harm my training and take me further away from my goals. Honestly, I am very rarely hungry during these training blocks when I am eating clean. I believe it’s because I can eat large amounts of food and with no refined sugar, my body isn’t having the blood sugar crashes and creating those hunger cravings.

You’re probably thinking “Yeah, that’s great, but you never eat junk food?” Rest assured, I absolutely do! During my break periods, I still run 25 to 35 miles per week, just to maintain my cardiovascular fitness and keep my metabolism primed, but I eat and drink what I want. THAT is still eating with intention. If I know that I am taking a month break and I want to drink some beers, I don’t feel guilty about it at all. In fact, give me that second piece of cake as well! Why? Because I earned it and it’s good for my soul. I also know that at the end of the break there will be another training block and I have the discipline to start eating clean again and I’ll burn my break food off. The great thing with scheduling these things is that I can choose to take my breaks when I know I would be at my weakest! Thanksgiving and Christmas anyone? Fourth of July cookout? Why make life hard on yourself?

There you go, some real-life examples of eating with intention so that you can apply them to your own life. Every piece of food and every beverage that I consume has meaning, and I make sure that I understand what and why I’m consuming something. Even if it’s a simple “Hey, this beer your drinking has no nutritional value, but you are on your break and you love a good beer so, enjoy!” I make sure it fits with my current goals and if it doesn’t, I stop myself.

I hope that this post and this blog helps! To receive new post notifications, newsletters, and post previews, please SUBSCRIBE!

For behind the scenes photos and comments on my training and personal life, follow me on Instagram: joe_the_runner  Strava: Joe Randene  YouTube: Joe Runner

Questions, comments, feedback? Please leave them in the comments section BELOW and we can have a discussion!

Posted on

Recovery Process – Science and Art

Recovery Drink

In the last blog post “The Four Inputs of Recovery”, I spoke about the four areas that cause the need or impact the length of recovery: base fitness, activity intensity, nutrition/hydration, and rest. In this post, I want to address the recovery process itself and how you can determine the duration of your recovery. Unfortunately, this is not an exact science, but again, understanding the process will allow you the opportunity to create a successful recovery plan.

Recovery is tricky because you need to recover during your training, and after your races. Depending upon your race schedule, you may have time requirements that force you to minimize your downtime as well. In fact, you should plan your race schedule with recovery in mind, if you want to avoid injury and perform at your best. That in and of itself is another blog topic! For now, let’s focus on the recovery process after an intense training session or race. I look at the recovery process itself in three parts.

Nutrition

Assuming that your nutrition is fairly clean in general as you are preparing for a race, I’ll discuss nutrition during your run and immediately after your run. During your run or race, if you take in the proper amount of protein, electrolytes, and carbs, you will help to minimize the amount of damage that you do to your body and create the foundation for a quicker and higher quality recovery. As an example, if you do not hydrate well and ignore your carb intake during a long run, the potential to bonk or significantly deplete your glycogen levels and dehydrate increases a great deal. If you put your body in to a great deficit, obviously you will need a longer recovery and will need to make sure that you get the electrolytes, carbs, protein, amino acids, and nutrients back in as quickly as possible. On the flip side, if you do ensure that you are replacing all of those essential nutrients sufficiently during your run, you will probably recover much quicker. Check out this post on nutrition during your runs here: Handy Little Hydration and Calorie Guidelines by Distance.

After an intense run or race, it is crucial to get some carbs and protein down within 30 minutes to an hour. Your body is craving those things and this window will allow your body to efficiently process the protein and start to help with muscle repair. I know some people who prefer to do this via foods, like a banana with peanut butter on toast, or some type of whole wheat pasta with chicken. For me, I like the convenience of a recovery drink. I use SIS REGO recovery powder and one serving provides 23 grams of carbs, 20 grams of protein, and a bunch of amino acids and electrolytes. I am not sponsored by this company, but I can tell you that compared to most other recovery drinks I have tried, these taste the best and have provided the best recovery for me. Flavors are chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla.

Rest

There are two types of rest in my opinion. There is “active” rest, such as walking, yoga, and low intensity cycling, and there is “non-active” rest such as massage, sitting with your legs elevated, icing, baths, and sleep. Both are very important.

In regard to active rest, after an intense effort, your body may feel sore due to lactic acid build up, and moving in a gentle manner, can help to flush the lactic acid and improve circulation. This will aid in the recovery process as improved blood flow delivers oxygen to your healing muscles. The majority of the time, after an intense effort, I feel much better if I move around, then if I just sit still. My favorite “active” recovery is simply walking. This is usually a great opportunity for me to take a nice long walk with my wife and spend some quality time getting some exercise and catching up on the day’s events. Good for the body and soul!

Non-active rest is just as important. Doing things to reduce inflammation, such as icing or soaking in a bath, go a long way towards you feeling more relaxed, and recharging mentally. There is always a lot of discussion around these types of activities and you can throw yoga and massage in to the discussion as well. There are camps of people who say there is no scientific proof that stretching and massage help runners recover, and there is a group of people who say that it absolutely does. Here are my two cents on the matter. You have to try these types of activities out for yourself, and if it helps YOU, then it helps. I find that all of these activities help me and I enjoy them. That in and of itself goes a long way.

Finally, there is sleep. For the most part, you won’t find many arguments here. The overwhelming majority of people agree that sleep is the time when the body recovers, and as athletes that are pushing the limits of their body, this is absolutely essential. I try and get at least seven hours of sleep on average per night. There always seems to be things that pop up and prevent me from achieving this goal, but honestly, that is on me. When I am disciplined enough, I seem to get this in just like I do my runs.

Duration

The ultimate question! How long? The worst answer. It depends. Sorry, but this is the truth. It depends on all of the factors that we discussed in the last two posts. General nutrition, level of intensity, rest before, during, and after. Etc. But here is the thing. You have to experiment and learn your body. One of the greatest things that I have discovered over the last three years is that through this process of becoming an ultra-runner, I am extremely in tune with my body. I know when I need to eat more or less. I know when I am tired but can still train, or exhausted and need extra rest. I even know the difference between a minor niggle that I can train through and an injury. Some people seem to be able to get by with very little rest, while others need more time, and that is OK. Work on figuring it out and stick with what works for you.

I have a thumb rule I’d like to share though. If I have to choose between an extra work out or extra rest as a race approaches, I always take the extra rest. Here’s why. I would prefer to show up at a race well rested and as injury free as possible, then toe the line injured and have to try and figure out how to get through the race. At that point in the game, your fitness level is either where it needs to be or not and one more workout won’t change that, but an extra day of rest may well be worth it.

Conclusion

While everyone is built different and may require different recovery periods, the levers are basically the same. So, if you review the last two posts and really get a grip on what causes the need to recover and the components of a recovery, you will have everything you need to ensure that you create a successful recovery plan FOR YOU. Don’t be afraid to make adjustments based on how you feel, as you learn more about your body, you’ll get better at knowing its boundaries and needs. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me for questions or suggestions on this topic!

I hope that this post and this blog helps you achieve your dreams! To receive new post notifications, newsletters, and post previews, please SUBSCRIBE!

For behind the scenes photos and comments on my training and personal life, follow me on Instagram: joe_the_runner  Strava: Joe Randene  YouTube: Joe Runner

Questions, comments, feedback? Please leave them in the comments section BELOW and we can have a discussion!

Posted on

The Four Inputs of Recovery

Recovery

I get a lot of questions around recovery. How long should I recover after a marathon? Is it ok to run two days later? Three days later? Should I take a week off? What should I eat? Etc. This is another one of those “It depends.” Kind of answers. I’ll break this topic up in to several posts, and I’d like to start with what I’ll call the “inputs” of recovery. What are the things that cause us to need to recover in the first place and determine the length of that recovery?

Base Fitness

This is the foundation for everything. If you are a beginner and have maybe only run 10 miles a week for a short period of time, then racing a 5k or 10k may leave you very sore and require a significant recovery period. On the other hand, if you are someone who is training for an ultra-marathon and have years of experience and average weekly mileage of 50 or 60 plus, you are probably doing back to back runs of 20 miles or more every weekend and require little if any recovery for that distance. Basically, the better your fitness level and the more miles that you have run, usually equates to quicker/better recovery periods for various distances. Better Base Fitness = Faster Recovery

Intensity

The second input is the intensity of the activity that you are recovering from. If you jog 10k as an EASY workout, it takes a very different toll on your body than if you raced a 10k as hard as you could, trying to achieve a PB. If you do a 25-mile long run, it has a very different impact on the body than a 10k training run. Runs with elevation are harder than runs that are flat. The list can go on and on, but the point is that the more intense the activity, the more recovery you may need. And I would be remiss to not once again highlight the link between base fitness and intensity. If your fitness level is high, you can push your intensity level up and still recover fairly quick and the opposite is true. If your fitness level is low you either need to lower your intensity level or you will need to recover longer after an intense effort.

Nutrition/Hydration

The third input is nutrition and hydration. If you are in a training cycle and have been eating clean, ensuring that you have sufficient complex carbs, and maintaining good levels of hydration, this will all help with a quicker and better recovery. Your body will have all of the calories and nutrients it needs to repair the damage from your effort. If your nutrition and hydration is less than optimal, it will not only have an impact on your performance, but on your recovery as well. I documented this in the post on “fitness interrupters” using myself as the guinea pig. I was amazed at how quickly my body responded to poor nutrition and lack of sleep while I was on vacation. Which brings us to my last input…

Rest

Getting sufficient rest before and after a run will facilitate a better and quicker recovery. To this day, this is still what I personally struggle with the most. Being a husband, father, runner, blogger, etc. means that I have to be disciplined to achieve this goal, and quite frankly, I am not always as disciplined here as I need to be. However, I speak from experience, and can assure you that when I sleep seven plus hours on average, I feel better during my runs as well as after them.

So, there you have it. These are the “inputs” in to your recovery needs. In some follow up posts I’ll speak to details around what I do to try and facilitate recovery specifically, but knowing these inputs is a great first step in to creating effective recovery plans. As for me, I plan on getting to bed early tonight so I can hit my goal of seven hours of sleep. Wait, it’s Monday night and Monday Night Football is on, hmmmm…

I hope that this post and this blog helps you achieve your dreams! To receive new post notifications, newsletters, and post previews, please SUBSCRIBE!

For behind the scenes photos and comments on my training and personal life, follow me on Instagram: joe_the_runner  Strava: Joe Randene  YouTube: Joe Runner

Questions, comments, feedback? Please leave them in the comments section BELOW and we can have a discussion!