Winter Weight Gain : A Paradigm Shift?

Stepping on the scale, I recently have been wracking my brain on the reasons for my recent weight gain.  I have fluctuated slightly over the last year, because I naturally plateaued, which is fine.  But as of late, I noticed the number slipping back up.  I noted it to my friend and my wife.  In my head though I began to recount the new snacking I have been enjoying in the evenings.  This must be the culperate.  Or the few chocolates I enjoyed over Christmas.  I beleive this is part of it.  But there is another part that I needed to face.  Its the part of my new regiment that I couldn't factor in with out another's opinion and observation. 

What my beautiful wife pointed out was that my 3-4 visits per week to the school gym for my new gym program on top of my regular runs with students may be the culporate.  DUH.   However, my thoughts are, how much is from muscle tissue?  I am in a unique situation for myself, because I have not wanted to be huge, just fit.  Will this affect my times in a negative way now?  IS it really from the workouts in the gym?  I think trusting the process has something to do with this.  I am a pretty clean snacker.  Whole grains, fruit, yogurt, milk.  These I have replaced from the old wings, chips and nachos from days of old.  Being in an unhealthy paranoia is not one of my 2010 fitness goals.

Keeping healthy and active is my life time goal.  Not paranoid.  I will continue to allow my food to be enjoyable, sensible and reflective of my activity level.  Once training for a timed event starts, so does changes in my body's needs.

This is where people might begin to roll their eyes and think, "nice problem to have".  But what I ham facing with this paradigm shift is the fact that our fitness and dietary goals and needs constantly shift and need to be re-evaluated.  I am going to need to dig deep, face the previous paradigm and rely on the facts of the new activity level I have.  I will be researching this in other's running info.  Has this happened to anyone else?

Supplimentary:
Here is an interesting article on gaining weight while training for a marathon.  Fodder for thought.  A running friend of mine feels that I need to attribute how much you need in terms of caloric intake to what you are actually doing.  It could be both increase in muscle and fat both.  Any increase effects running times, as you have more to move if you gain. 

Mid Week Winter Run Routine

Not sure what is normalout there, but I have gotten use to winter early morning runs in a way.  For Christmas I got a headlamp from Santa, so my routine has taken a couple of turns as barriers were removed! To be honest, I have allowed myself to sleep longer occasionally because in the past two winteres, I had moved my running to after work, but this was inconvenient and took away from my family time. 

*Night Before: Lay out running gear so as not to disturb my lovely sleeping beauty bride when I am looking in the dark for those STUPID TIGHTS.*

Wearing: Thermal running tights, compression Tshirt, pull over wicking sweatshirt, marathon illuminating jacket, gloves, shoes  and skull cap, headlamp.

5:30 (or 6 am depending on my schedule) - alarm goes off, turn it off, will myself to get up. "GET UP GET UP IDIOT, GO RUNNING!"

5:35 - make a quick pot of coffee, visit the bathroom

5:36 - get dressed whilst playing a couple turns of Facebook Scrabble, checking email

5:38 - pour elixer of life into my groggy brain.  Wait for effect which is immediate and amazing, play another scrabble turn.  Think about the run, make adjustments to length if weather or time is an issue.

5:40 - Step out of door and on my run for ususally 10 k - 14 k.

7 am-ish arrive home and jump into morning pre-work routine

Now, this is all good if it all goes as planned, but often somethings been washed, moved or tampered with in some way to make me run around looking for items.  You may notice I did not mention my beloved IPOD.  Well, i have given up for the most part bringing this item with me, it was just too finicky for the trouble of all I am wearing and the cold often makes the battery die quickly.  So no music, which is okay considering I am blind with darkness the whole run, so who needs to be deaf too! I run my shorter runs on an empty stomach, only coffee keeps me energized then.

So how abnormal am I?  Anyone have a similar routine??

New PR!

It just felt right.You ever had one of those days.  The sun was out, the temp was warmer and I knew if I went and applied myself I could make a PR.

New PR:

5 Km : 19:49
10 km : 41:02

This brings me so much closer to realizing my goal of a sub 40 10k.  I felt pretty tired just before the 5 km mark, but I pressed through and let up a bit adding over a minute to my second split time.  But that being said, I still rocked my previous bests.

The Stretch Experiment

So I quit stretching.There, I said it.  Well, to be honest, I quit stretching post run for the most part out of laziness and my mind being elsewhere.  So far, I havent really noticed.  Is it really that necessary?  The reasonI ask is due to one particular friend of mine who shall remain nameless (Jerry) who refuses (Cook) at times around me to stretch.  If he doesnt have to (like the robot that he is) take care like this, then do I?? 
I give the obligatory calf stretch a few seconds, but then just stop.  I stretch all the time, much to my wife's mockery ("bend your knees when you are looking for things on the floor you look so ridiculous!"), but my habit has slid from performing stretches rigourously post run to not stretching much at all after my shorter runs especially.  I know I have rarely let myself stretch for as long as recommended.  Maybe in the shower to let my nether regions get a good rinse off, but not really as long as I should.  So I am going to call it my stretch experiment.  Thats right, it sounds more noble if it sounds intentionally exploratory.  I still sit at my desk and figure four my ITB and I stand naturally work on my hips (piriformis accasionally too), but for record I have been a undisciplined stretcher.  Anyone else drop habits like this?  Has it caused any grief?? Maybe its the rebel in me questioning the legitimacy of all the calf, hamstring and quad stretches I have not really felt the benefits from.  Great now that I have said this, I will be extra diligent, I am sure.

SOWA 1/2 Corked Marathon May 29th/30th

News:Right on my front doorstep we are having a new marathon put on by the local wineries.  This is fashioned after the French Marathon Marathon Du Medoc .  Very exciting! More details will come, but it sounds like a lot of fun and will be encorporating visiting the different abundance of wineries in the area.  The Okanagan, specifically where we live in the south are world reknowned for the wonderful red wines produced by our hot dry climate in the summer.  I recommend coming and visiting just for the wine touring alone!  We have our local favorite wineries, and Jackson Triggs is about a five minute drive from our home as are Silver Sage, Nk’Mip Cellars, Desert Hills Estate Winery, TinHorn Creek and Burrowing Owl Estate Winery just to name a few of my personal favorites.  There are too many to list here, but on the website of the Association is a list of the predominant ones.  I look forward to seeing any of you there who dare to come out and run!