Whole30 Running

First long run since I started Whole30. I set out this morning with Sara (you remember Sara, right? From this race and this race?) to accomplish our 8 mile training run.  I haven't gone that far in about a year and Sara had never gone that far, so we had high hopes! My knee has still been bothering me so I foam rolled before I left this morning. We had a pretty awesome morning - high humidity but the temp wasn't as high as it's been in the last few weeks. We decided to do an out-and-back so that we had no choice but to finish our complete 8 miles (once you're four miles from the car, there's not much to do but run back!)


The first few miles felt pretty easy.  When we hit mile 4, we turned around on the track and headed back and my knee completely went out. A few hobbles, some tight strides and I was back in business. Except then I got all in my head. I started thinking about the pain in my knee, trying to compensate in other ways. My feet started to go numb and I actually was a little panicked. Around mile 5.8, I really focused on my quads - I really pushed myself to LIFT my leg and move. At that time, I felt my whole body change. My knee relaxed, my feet felt better and instead of just pounding the pavement, I was PUSHING OFF of it.  We decided right in the beginning we weren't going for time on this run, just completing our 8 miles, so my average min/mile isn't my race pace. And I am OK with that. Because at the end of hte run, I FELT GOOD.

How does Whole30 tie into this? Well, my run was 1:29 long. I usually require some kind of fuel (Honey Stingers have always been my fuel of choice) after about an hour of running.  Today, I fueled with water and coconut water. I felt energized, I never "hit a wall" and I actually felt STRONGER in the second half of my run than the first!

Food the last two days - delicious. Friday I made pizza from scratch (top 5, if not the best I've ever made, according to my hubby). I had chicken sausage sauteed with onions, peppers and portobello mushroom caps. I didn't even miss the cheese I would have put on it!


Saturday we hit up our favorite BBQ place and when I asked, all of their smoked meat has sugar in the spice rubs - of course. Boo!!  But I was able to get a double grass fed burger, double tomatoes & lettuce and balsamic onions, with a side of green beans.

Today after my run I had a chicken breast and a sweet potato. Then I had breakfast for lunch - sweet potato hash, 3 eggs, yellow pepper and a ton of blueberries. Dinner was a PHENOMENAL grass fed sirloin steak, roasted potatoes and roasted broccoli.