half marathon weight

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I was extremely excited to run my first half marathon last Sunday. 2:09 and faster than my training runs!! The only problem is ever since i seem extremely bloated. I usually go by the fit of my clothes rather than weighing but everything feels tight, even my zip up knee high boots. I have swum 3 times this week and still walk 4 miles a day (to and from work) but tried to run today and my legs hardly worked. Has anyone else had experience with this? Surely any water weight/bloating should have gone down by now? Am i doing recovery wrong and when should i start running again?

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  • vespiquenn
    vespiquenn Posts: 1,455 Member
    edited February 2016
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    I wish I was not on mobile or I would link to an article about gaining weight during marathon training.

    Simply put, have you been counting calories and weighing food with a scale? It is possible that the "I'm training for a marathon so I can eat more" mindset took hold subconsciously and you're just noticing it now because you're mind wass preoccupied. This is not horribly uncommon.

    But it still could be water weight from repairing muscles. I have instances of water weight taking a week or two to go down, depending on factors such as TOM, sodium intake, and overall muscle repair.
  • dreamitstrue
    dreamitstrue Posts: 4 Member
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    Thanks for the rapid reply. Thinking hard about this. Yes I have been counting calories. Since December I have been eating 1450-1720 calories depending on the day. I don't use a scale as most of what I eat is already pre-packaged and weighed (no kitchen to cook in). I was eating at just below my maintenance (1950 calories) (yes that mindset crept in maybe a bit) for one week before the half, but not enough to gain, especially considering it was only 6 days.

    Maybe now is the time to get a better handle back on the diet side of things. But still not sure what to do with the exercise. It is odd, but my body feels entirely shot!
  • vespiquenn
    vespiquenn Posts: 1,455 Member
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    Thanks for the rapid reply. Thinking hard about this. Yes I have been counting calories. Since December I have been eating 1450-1720 calories depending on the day. I don't use a scale as most of what I eat is already pre-packaged and weighed (no kitchen to cook in). I was eating at just below my maintenance (1950 calories) (yes that mindset crept in maybe a bit) for one week before the half, but not enough to gain, especially considering it was only 6 days.

    Maybe now is the time to get a better handle back on the diet side of things. But still not sure what to do with the exercise. It is odd, but my body feels entirely shot!

    Unfortunately, you cannot trust pre-packaged items without weighing them. FDA allows those to be estimates. For example, this morning I had a Fiberone bar with a prepackaged serving size of 40g and 150 cals. I weighed it and it was actually 46g, which brought that bar up to 172cals. Over the course of the day, those little miscalculations can put you at maintenance or above.

    Because you no longer are training, it may be benefitial to pick up a cheap digital food scale from Amazon or Walmart, especially if you're switching back to deficit mode. Even if you don't cook, those prepackaged items can be sneaky. It's hard to say for sure the reason behind the bloating/clothes not fitting right, but accurate logging will fix that in no time. Good luck, and congrats on completing the half marathon!

  • Madame_Goldbrick
    Madame_Goldbrick Posts: 73 Member
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    I did the Great North Run half marathon last year. Gained a whopping 7lb on the scales after. Obviously I hadn't! Give your body time to recover.
  • Mapalicious
    Mapalicious Posts: 412 Member
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    vespiquenn wrote: »
    Thanks for the rapid reply. Thinking hard about this. Yes I have been counting calories. Since December I have been eating 1450-1720 calories depending on the day. I don't use a scale as most of what I eat is already pre-packaged and weighed (no kitchen to cook in). I was eating at just below my maintenance (1950 calories) (yes that mindset crept in maybe a bit) for one week before the half, but not enough to gain, especially considering it was only 6 days.

    Maybe now is the time to get a better handle back on the diet side of things. But still not sure what to do with the exercise. It is odd, but my body feels entirely shot!

    Unfortunately, you cannot trust pre-packaged items without weighing them. FDA allows those to be estimates. For example, this morning I had a Fiberone bar with a prepackaged serving size of 40g and 150 cals. I weighed it and it was actually 46g, which brought that bar up to 172cals. Over the course of the day, those little miscalculations can put you at maintenance or above.

    Because you no longer are training, it may be benefitial to pick up a cheap digital food scale from Amazon or Walmart, especially if you're switching back to deficit mode. Even if you don't cook, those prepackaged items can be sneaky. It's hard to say for sure the reason behind the bloating/clothes not fitting right, but accurate logging will fix that in no time. Good luck, and congrats on completing the half marathon!

    oh my god i have to weigh my prepackaged stuff 0.0

    that may be a game-changer!
  • dreamitstrue
    dreamitstrue Posts: 4 Member
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    @Madame Goldbrick. This makes me feel better. Hopefully with this and a tightening up of the logging ill start to see drops in the scale over the next week. @Malpalicious know right! Something i'm gonna keep an eye on. My hope is that if packaged weights are 10% out its by normal distribution over the week so 50% of the time there under 50% over balancing out over a long period...
  • snikkins
    snikkins Posts: 1,282 Member
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    It usually takes me about a week to get back to normal after a half. It's generally a combination of water weight and food weight since I tend to eat a lot after the run.

    You've kept being pretty active, even if it is normal for you, so that may also have something to do with it. I know on race days that I totally nail it it seems to take a bit longer to get back to normal.
  • SusanUW83
    SusanUW83 Posts: 152 Member
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    Congrats on the race --
    Couple of things -- It is very easy to overeat calories right before and day of race. You might eat something before the race, gels and powerade during race, snacks afterward. Then you might reward yourself after. I do that. But other thing is that if you hydrate heavy before and during a race, you will have consumed a lot of liquid and have a lot of water in your system. But that's way better than not hydrating and risking dehydration. Running longer distances doesn't always help the scale, but I would say that the NSV is the important part for me.