Carnivore...or not

On Monday, I had a fantastic run.  I thought I'd go out for about an hour and just get my blood moving.  I ended up going for 2 hours and about 13 miles, without my fuel belt, without getting winded or sore.  It was fabulous - completely the "runner's high" that you hear about.  Sometimes the runner's high seems like a myth, one of those lies you tell yourself to force yourself to run.  But it really exists and if you can find it, it's one of the best feelings ever.

Then I did a really hard Pilates class on Wednesday - my butt is STILL sore.  

And then 5 more miles this morning with speedwork...

And now more on nutrition.  I have to admit that I'm struggling with nutrition and eating properly.  I'll do okay for a few days and then it all collapses.  You don't realize it all the time, but your body REALLY responds to what you put in it, and I find that I'm an extremely sensitive eater (shocker!  not really, I'm extremely sensitive in general).  I used to be a very picky eater when I was little, and while I've managed to expand my food tastes, food can be very mean to me.  I guess it's revenge.  I'm slightly lactose intolerant (a recent and self-diagnosed discovery) and if I don't eat enough or if I eat too much junk food, my body rebels like a teenager with blue hair.  So you'd think that I'd learn by now to take care of myself...

Today I had meat for lunch and meat for dinner.  I had pork tenderloin (leftovers) for lunch, which I had with roasted vegetables.  That's healthy, hooray!  But then I went out to dinner with a friend to a place we've been meaning to try here in DC, and got burgers and I had a, get ready for this, toasted marshmallow milkshake (not recommended, not getting an endorsement).  Now I just feel gross.  Ugh.  For those of you who didn't know, I was a vegetarian for almost 8 years and I've only eaten meat again for about 2 years now.  I enjoy it, I find that I get a lot more variety into my diet, but I still am not a crazy meat eater.  I don't crave meat.  Some people I know will just CRAVE a steak.  Me, I crave chocolate sometimes and every once in a while I go crazy for bagels, but meat is not something that I ever just scarf down.  It makes me feel heavy and too full.  Don't get me wrong, I certainly enjoy a good quality steak or even a burger.  But I think I've learned, also from eating tacos the other night, that I can't eat red meat before a race.  It upsets my stomach just enough that I don't notice it if I'm not working out, but if I try to run the next morning, I can just feel my stomach mooing.

These are the kinds of things that I'm trying to learn as I approach race day.  What I can and can't eat, whether or not I should stretch, how much I should eat, how early I have to get up before running.  It's an interesting process and kind of hard to monitor...it will be interesting.

New mileage: 18 miles

Total mileage/bribe $ earned: 46/$46