Tomorrow I’m going to arrive for my second monthly biometric weigh-in, and the results are not going to be pretty.
I realize that statement opens the door to all kinds of follow-up questions. What’s a biometric weigh-in? It’s a chance for me to stand on a body-fat scale and learn if I’ve built any muscle over the past four weeks. Why do it? Because after reading Matt Fitzgerald’s book Racing Weight, I realized I wasn’t going to get any faster until I upped my muscle content. Who performs it? The free nutrition coach at my office, which, let’s be honest, is a cool perk. Who’s my favorite ninja turtle? I’m embarrassed you had to ask.
For years, I didn’t give a darn about fancy things like BMI and muscle mass and Donatello, assuming that because I ran upwards of 40 miles a week in training for an annual marathon that I surely boasted a healthy body composition. But after I read Racing Weight, I decided to make sure. I made an appointment with my local nutritionist, stood on her shiny scale, and learned the disheartening truth: I have the muscle composition of a 47 year old woman.
Also, the celebrity crushes of a 47 year old woman. Thank you, Joe Biden.
I know what you’re thinking: doesn’t bulky muscle weigh a runner down? It could if you look like the former California Governor, but for most runners, a little lean muscle goes a long way toward injury prevention and higher metabolism and proper alignment and street cred with a West Side Story snap gang.
With that knowledge, I approached the circuit of strength exercises my nutritionist gave me with the ultimate vigor. I did squats. I did lunges. I did alternating superman, or as I preferred to call it, the Christopher Reeve/Dean Cain. And I felt sore and tired and awesome, and vowed to keep it up three days a week between now and the marathon.
I then I went on vacation. And oh man, when I go on vacation, I do it right.
I went to North Carolina and drank all the wine on the Eastern Seaboard.
And chased it with seafood doused in butter by the pound.
Then I went to a wedding where the main course was pig.
And there ate several slices of a real, authentic “cheese cake.” They were just blocks of cheese in a pile. I fell in love.
With that kind of month in my recent history, I can’t imagine there’s anyway I could step on that scale leaner and stronger tomorrow than I was a month ago. There’s no way around it: the numbers are not going to be pretty.
Fortunately, my last four weeks were pretty pretty themselves.
Do you work strength training into your running routine? How about cheese cakes?
Riled Up Runner 