Monday, May 10, 2010

Fred's Bread

I have always had a passion for doughy goodness. I looooooove bread.

As a kid I clearly remember coming home from playing hockey or being outside, and making a bread sandwich. Yup, that’s 3 or 4 slices of bread stacked on top of each other, with nothing else in the middle. The softer and doughier the better.

Sara and I have always tried to eat fairly healthy and I think that all things considered when you look in our cupboards and fridge, we do a pretty good job. Recently, however we have started taking a closer look at some of the foods that we assumed were healthy choices, but when you look at the label, you can’t pronounce many of the ingredients. Bread included!

Just take a look at what’s in most of the whole wheat breads in your local supermarket and you’ll see a whack of ingredients that don’t seem so healthy.

With that in mind we decided to start making our own bread and bought a breadmaker. As with most items in our house, our breadmaker had to have a name, so we named him Fred….Fred the Breadmaker.

Fred is super easy to use. Just dump in the few ingredient (that you know how to pronounce), turn it on and a few hours later, Fred has made a perfect loaf of doughy, yummy goodness. Easy, healthy and delicious!

The only problem with Fred’s Bread is that when training hard and putting in high mileage, it is not difficult to have an entire loaf eaten within the few hours that it takes to make another.

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Training Week Summary:
Going into last week I changed the focus a little. My daily volume had consistently been pretty good, but I felt like I could use a few recovery days to allow my body to recharge and get the jump on a few little nigglies. I also wanted to get in a pretty long run, so this worked well.
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John was visiting his family in Kingston, so we arranged to get together for a long run at Frontenac Park last Friday. The weather was perfect and we ended up getting in a solid 6hrs that just flew by. This was really good for both of us as it was my longest run back since Haliburton and was a great final long run before John does Sulphur in a few weeks time. I felt strong structurally and like I got stronger over the course of the run, other than a little glitch at about 4hrs when I realized that I had been spending too much time talking and not enough time paying attention to refueling. My bonk was a good reminder how sensitive my body is to fueling. Once I got a couple of gels into me quickly, I rebounded and felt strong again for the rest of the run (though probably could have used a few more gels spread out over the run).
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I felt like my body recovered well from the long run, but only did an hour the next day. All systems were good. I then finished off the week with a nice 3hr run with Sara in Frontenac again. This was my third run in Frontenac between Sunday to Sunday, but it was extra special as it was nice to get out for a long run with Sara again. This was Sara's longest run back since her injury and she seemed really strong during it.
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For the coming week, I'll continue to get decent volume in during the early part of the week, but know it will take a hit this weekend with organizing the 5Peaks race on Saturday. Looking forward to the race and hoping for great weather.
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Total # of hours last week – 16:35
Total # of hours this year – 206:42
Streak – 7,440 days of running in a row

3 comments:

  1. I see you keep your log based on hours. Just curious what that means in terms of mileage? I am still trying to figure this whole ultra training thing out

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  2. Hey Chris,

    I really have no idea what it means in terms of mileage (well, maybe a rough idea). My feeling is that it’s all about time on your legs. Do you really need to know how many miles/km’s per day or week that you run? It’s important to stress your body in workouts and long runs and then recover from it. I’ve had one hour workouts that I’ve probably run at 10:00/miles on hilly/technical trails that were considerably more difficult than 6:00/miles on roads.

    Just think about it…many would think of a 10km run as possibly being an easy recovery day, which it could be if you’re doing it on a flat surface/route. However, that same 10km run in the mountains could take you twice as long as on the roads. Not so easy recovery run right?

    Going by time seems to make that much more sense as you know exactly how long you are going to be out there as well instead of having things like how you feel, weather conditions, terrain, technical footing, etc…all playing a factor.

    Not sure if this fully answers your question. I switched to time vs miles/km’s fairly early and have long viewed this as a much more enjoyable and effective way to train.

    Having said that, I do feel that it’s important at times to have benchmark workouts where you run at specific intensities. I have a regular 20km and 50km route that I check out in training from time to time in addition to doing certain other workouts where I will do mile repeats (for example) at a certain pace.

    Good luck in the wonderful world of ultras!

    Derrick

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  3. Fred is only getting started with all the creations he will build for us!

    Why is it all of our appliances are male?

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