My legs are shot!

I don't know what is going on, but for the past week or so, my legs have been totally shot. It is everything I can do to keep them turning over at 7:45 pace on runs; my short, nearly flat bike commute is killing them; I have had no power in them on my fixed gear for the past couple of rides. I'm not sure what the problem is, but it's not good. I'm hoping to start mixing in some basic weight training next week and up my protein intake - maybe that will help out a bit.

My workouts have been rather infrequent the past week or so. Part of it is a lack of motivation, but part of it is also a lack of time. I'm getting into exams and whatnot in school, and things just seem really busy. Couple that with the lack of motivation, and I'm not getting in the basic steady-state work that I need to be doing.

50% fatter!

I hit up the mighty BodPod today for a body composition analysis. You may recall that I first did this last February to get an idea of my lean body mass and body fat percentage. Let me say that the summer has not been kind to me: over the past six and a half months I managed to increase my bodyfat by 50% and decrease my lean mass (muscle) by 2.3%:

Today:

• Weight: 133.114 pounds
  
• Body fat: 8.0% (10.604 pounds)
  
• Free mass: 92.0% (122.511 pounds)
  
• Thoracic gas volume: 3.867 liters
  
• Resting metabloic rate: 1453 kcal/day

February:

• Weight: 132.293 pounds
  
• Body fat: 5.2% (6.880 pounds)
  
• Free mass: 94.8% (125.413 pounds)
  
• Thoracic gas volume: 3.862 liters
  
• Resting metabloic rate: 1480 kcal/day

In running the test today we used the Brozek Density model and in February we used the Siri model. I'm not sure exactly how this changes things, but it adjusts the algorithm that the computer uses. This may have resulted in some of the change, but I'm not sure of that. Also, in both tests we used the Predicted Thoracic Gas Volume Model, so those numbers may not be accurate.

I was pretty sure that this would be the result before I went into the test: I haven't been logging nearly as much run volume (or workouts in general) as I was in February, so I didn't expect my body fat to be as low. Also, I was fairly sure that all of the distance running last spring actually ate away at some of my already minimal muscle mass, and I have not done anything to build this back up. It was still a bit depressing to see that I have considerably more fat and less muscle than six months ago though.

I haven't been good about my running recently, but hopefully this will kick me into gear a bit more. Also, I want to find a good lifting program for endurance running and cycling and start getting into the gym a couple of times a week - hopefully the extra muscle will actually make me faster!