Friday Thoughts 70

Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Thoughts, enjoy!

Protein Shakes

People often ask me what protein I like, and the truth is I don’t really drink protein shakes, at least not in the traditional sense of water plus scoop, shake and chug. I put a scoop in my oatmeal. To me, protein shakes are a need to grab when your daily protein is running low, you don’t have time for a meal, or all of your other options aren’t great. Usually when I grab a protein shake it’s from a gas station right after a workout. I love the Fairlife protein shakes, they have 26 grams of protein, no or few carbs, no fat and are 140 calories. They’re expensive. I usually pair it with a bagel for a fast, on the go, post workout recovery meal. The other day however, I was struck by the nutrition label on the Fairlife chocolate milk; 23 grams of protein, 22 grams of carbs, 4.5 grams of fat and 240 calories. It costs less than half of the protein drink, has carbohydrates, which I need, and is more dense with calories. It’s funny, chocolate milk was always championed as a great post workout shake when I was in college, and I’ve finally come back around to it.

Dialed In

I mentioned I was dialed in with my nutrition to someone and they asked what that means, here’s specifically what I mean.

Black coffee - I know a little milk in my coffee isn’t going to make or break me, but I love milk in my coffee and I tend to think I can go over the top with it, so for 8 weeks, I had no milk in my coffee at home. To give me a little bit of hope, I would put some milk in my espressos at the gym.

Delayed first meal - I haven’t been exercising early in the morning lately and I’ve been having this problem of eating my breakfast, and then being really hungry a couple hours later. No big deal, I would have a snack. I wanted to stick to 3-4 meals, not because that’s some secret meal formula, but because it’s easier and the goal here was to be in a calorie deficit. So, by delaying my first meal for a couple hours, which isn’t always the best option for some, I had my first meal when I was had been having my first snack. I found it to be helpful.

No snacking off kid’s plates - this one is huge and it definitely adds up.

No Bars - In part of my 3 solid meals, I eliminated bars to avoid snacking temptation. If I did have a situation when I needed a snack, I ate fruit instead, and have really come around to bananas.

Training takes a backseat - since I was in a caloric deficit, I would sometimes alter my training or skip it all together. It was a nice reminder about how important it is to properly fuel workouts.

Not Typical

Our oldest member, Coach Taylor’s personal training client, Gerry saw me do Coach Alex’s February challenge the other day. It was a bunch of dumbbell snatches at heavier and heavier weights. After seeing my huffing and puffing and laying on the floor, she said, Justin, you have kids, and a business to run, it can’t be healthy to workout that hard! I laughed and explained don’t worry, this is an occasional trip to the pain cave, most of my workouts are very easy, and now and then I tap into the reserves and do something really hard. I looked back at February and I did what I would consider 3 hard workouts. The purpose of bringing this up is to remind you, staying strong and fit is easy - you just have to keep doing the boring, repetitive work. Remember the training poem from Steve Magness:

Mostly easy

Some moderate

Occasionally hard and out of breath

A bit of fast and smooth

Vary it up

and very rarely… Go see God.

GAIN Triathalon

In 2018 shortly after we got the Air Runner treadmill I created what I dubbed the GAIN Triathlon. I’ve done it only twice, as it’s a daunting task, and no one else has even tried. The allure about it is the possibility to go under 60 minutes.

For time:

5000m air runner

5000m row

5000m ski

I first did it 2018 with a time of 1:23 ish minutes.

The following year, January 2019 I completed it again in 1:14:30.

I’ve been thinking about those numbers since the end of December, and I was finally motivated to give it a go again yesterday and am pleased to report that older, heavier Justin beat his previous best time with a total time of 1:08:29.

Training Schedule

I got into the Mount Washington Road Race! I have about 15 weeks to get ready, and I’m planning on at least one other race on the calendar before Mount Washington.

That’s it for this week, see you next time!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain