Hi,
There's a wealth of information out there on each of these topics, but I'd appreciate some personal opinions and pointers back instead of my google searches...
I've been running on-and-off for a few years now, and a few weeks ago decided I'd run a marathon this year. In particular, at the end of May of this year. The weather is poor enough that I haven't been running outside lately, but I've been doing lots of treadmill training to try and keep my body ticking over; without an incline, I can run 5km in under 21 minutes, and can run 10km in around 46 minutes 30 seconds. I have a couple of marathon training schedules which involve five runs a week, some fast, some slow, some long, some short, which I am going to dig into properly. In principle, all this is fine...
I'm aware, however, that stepping up my exercise requires that I step up my food intake also. I'm 6'0" tall and weigh about 148 pounds, which I think is just above the underweight category. While I'm comfortable with my figure at the moment, I'd like to nudge my weight up just a bit to 154, so I have a bit more leeway with this training and my health. So I need to be eating huge amounts of calories per day. What's the best way to go about doing this, without spending all my time in the damn kitchen cooking/cleaning/cooking/cleaning? Currently, I eat pretty healthily, in the sense that I eat lots of fruit, drink fruit juice, nibble on nakd bars, cook food from fresh, don't drink fizzy drinks, take plenty of water, and try not to have too many of my calories in the form of chocolates or sweets. I expect I need to take more carbs and fat, but I'm no dietician; I think I want to remain healthy while maintaining the energy I need and possibly boosting testosterone, etc. (Currently, sometimes after a long run, I just feel knackered until the next day, which I take as an indicator that I'm either doing too much, or my diet is missing something.)
One other objective I have is to tone up my upper body. I'm not talking anything crazy here, but I've almost never focussed on my upper body, and it shows. I have thin arms without definition, practically no pecks, and the only definition on my stomach comes from the running. I don't want to add too much muscle, I just want to add some definition. What might a good set of upper-body exercises be for a runner to help with his upper body?
So, marathon running, weight gain, and upper-body toning. All at once. Easy, right?
There's a wealth of information out there on each of these topics, but I'd appreciate some personal opinions and pointers back instead of my google searches...
I've been running on-and-off for a few years now, and a few weeks ago decided I'd run a marathon this year. In particular, at the end of May of this year. The weather is poor enough that I haven't been running outside lately, but I've been doing lots of treadmill training to try and keep my body ticking over; without an incline, I can run 5km in under 21 minutes, and can run 10km in around 46 minutes 30 seconds. I have a couple of marathon training schedules which involve five runs a week, some fast, some slow, some long, some short, which I am going to dig into properly. In principle, all this is fine...
I'm aware, however, that stepping up my exercise requires that I step up my food intake also. I'm 6'0" tall and weigh about 148 pounds, which I think is just above the underweight category. While I'm comfortable with my figure at the moment, I'd like to nudge my weight up just a bit to 154, so I have a bit more leeway with this training and my health. So I need to be eating huge amounts of calories per day. What's the best way to go about doing this, without spending all my time in the damn kitchen cooking/cleaning/cooking/cleaning? Currently, I eat pretty healthily, in the sense that I eat lots of fruit, drink fruit juice, nibble on nakd bars, cook food from fresh, don't drink fizzy drinks, take plenty of water, and try not to have too many of my calories in the form of chocolates or sweets. I expect I need to take more carbs and fat, but I'm no dietician; I think I want to remain healthy while maintaining the energy I need and possibly boosting testosterone, etc. (Currently, sometimes after a long run, I just feel knackered until the next day, which I take as an indicator that I'm either doing too much, or my diet is missing something.)
One other objective I have is to tone up my upper body. I'm not talking anything crazy here, but I've almost never focussed on my upper body, and it shows. I have thin arms without definition, practically no pecks, and the only definition on my stomach comes from the running. I don't want to add too much muscle, I just want to add some definition. What might a good set of upper-body exercises be for a runner to help with his upper body?
So, marathon running, weight gain, and upper-body toning. All at once. Easy, right?