Today was yet another long run day. This week was a recovery week in my program, so my long run was only 10 miles. With all the training I've been doing, that 10 miles felt the same as 6 miles did a few weeks ago. My pace was consistent, my stride was smooth, and I finished strong and feeling confident.
Also, I'm really ironing out my pre- and during-race fueling strategies. I think I'm finally finding my "perfect" fuels. And I seemed to have stumbled on them accidentally. Last week, when I almost skipped my long run, I'd made myself my all-time favorite comfort food: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Of course, it was on whole grain bread with natural peanut butter and all-fruit preserves, but comfort food nonetheless. After 2 hours of letting the meal digest, I went on my run and felt GREAT!
So I repeated history again today. Two hours before my run, I made my sandwich: 2 slices of whole grain bread, 1 ounce of peanut butter (yes, I weigh my high-fat/calorie foods since tablespoon measures can vary wildly...but this comes to 2 tablespoons), and 1 tablespoon of all-fruit blueberry preserves. During my run, I sipped on about 20 oz. of water mixed with 2 scoops of Gatorade powder from my hydration pack (I buy the powder because the liquid Gatorade contains high fructose corn syrup -- a good reason to read ingredient labels!). This amounted to about 200 calories of Gatorade, which admittedly is undercutting my calorie needs, but I find any more than that tends to upset my stomach. Plus, I start "sloshing" with that much fluid. These fuel combinations worked PERFECTLY -- I did not "bonk" during my run and finished with enough energy to kick it in at the end. So this means I need about 100 calories of carbs for every 4-5 miles of race for distances over 7 or 8 miles.
I've experimented with other carb sources too. During the Stockade-athon, I used Jelly Belly Sports Beans, which contain sugars and electrolytes. I've used them previously after completing strength workouts as recovery fuel and they work great when coupled with a good protein source like skim milk or a protein shake. But I found that the act of chewing while running makes me nauseous. So no solid food. And last week I tried an energy gel (Clif Shot... Powerbar and Gu make gels too, but they contain chemical preservatives and dyes, depending on the flavor). I found that I was distracted with the act of opening the gel and trying to squeeze it from the packet without making a sticky mess....you know OCD me, if I were to spill any, I would freak OUT. And then when you get to the end of the gel, it's like trying to get the last little bit of toothpaste out of the tube (and yes, you WILL fight for that last little bit of sugar when you are carb depleted...you would steal a lemonade from your grandmother in that kind of state).
After my runs, it's nothing fancy -- just a protein shake and a banana to kick off the recovery process. It's so exciting to start nailing down these details and to create a solid plan for marathon day. It also helps that all of these foods are very portable, so I will have no problems bringing them with me to Vermont. I have to thank my sister Laura, my brother-in-law Shawn, and my niece and nephew Meghan and Ryan for getting me an awesome training notebook for Christmas. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to document all these little details and realize what was working and what wasn't.
It's very scientific to record what you've done to prepare and what the outcome was (i.e. what you ate vs. how your run went). I would highly recommend keeping a training log to anyone thinking of tackling a marathon. It's been an integral component of my training thus far.
So....next week's long run is the dreaded 15 miles (GULP!). It presents a mental hurdle for me because 15 miles was the longest distance I've ever run, and during that run, I self-destructed and finished limping, hurting, walking during parts, and tottering around like Frankenstein for 4 days afterwards. I have to admit that I ended up doing 15 accidentally (yes, you CAN run 15 miles accidentally...especially when all these country roads look the same), but all the same, this 15 miles seems as big a challenge to me as the 26.2 that I'm training for in May.
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