The past few weeks of my marathon training have been eventful to say the least.
Cold and flu season seems to have hit me harder this year than in years past. I think a lot of it has to do with being at the local elementary schools more for Roots of Empathy with Teagan, and Lincoln being in pre-school this year. I have been battling some version of a cold/flu for what seems like forever and as hard as I tried to not let it affect my training it did to a certain extent. Thankfully, I am feeling better and am back on track with my training plan.
On Saturday I ran my 3.5 miles in under 40 minutes. It was over 2 minutes faster than my previous times and I was super happy about it.
One thing I am not happy about is the condition of my yak traks. Given the road, snow, and ice conditions I have to wear them on my runs or risk slipping and hurting myself. But the coils are starting to unravel from the rubber and I have to stop to readjust them often on my runs. It’s more annoying than anything and I am looking forward to clear, dry pavement and trails once again.
Sunday was long run day. Last Sunday I only managed to run 5 of the 10 miles on my schedule and was a tiny bit nervous about venturing out for my 12 miles run yesterday. But I was feeling good, the sun was shining, and I broke the run into 3 mile increments. I decided to test out some fueling for the upcoming Snake River Canyon Half Marathon and decided to take in some fuel every 3 miles. I brought 1 pack of Clif Shot Bloks and a vanilla-flavoured Clif Shot Gel. I also carried my hand-held water bottle with me (it didn’t freeze this time!).
I ate three shot bloks at mile 3, the gel at mile 6, and the other three shot bloks at mile 9. I felt like this was adequate and my energy levels didn’t drop too much – the last few miles were tough but I think that had more to do with the fact that I was running my longest run yet.
Glenn joined me on my run and I did both the top and bottom dump roads again. I ran 3 miles out on the bottom road, turned around and ran back to the top road then ran 3 miles out on the top road and turned around to run home. The sun was warm and I had to unzip my jacket at one point because I was warm – I’ll take it for the middle of February.
I finished with an average pace of just over a 12-minute mile. I’m happy about that especially since I know I can push it more in a race situation. I want to take my long-runs slow during training to help prevent injury and to get used to being on my feet for a long time.
I felt good after my run but am a little stiff today especially in my hips. I am going to focus on stretching and foam rolling today to help my muscles recover before my run tomorrow. We start to incorporate some hill training this week and I will be using the treadmill for my hill runs. It will be fun to mix up my treadmill runs this week with some hill training.
Yes, I just used the words fun, treadmill, and hills in the same sentence.
82 days until my first full marathon…
This is great! I’m training for my first marathon right now too (did an 8-mile run yesterday). Thanks for sharing what you did for nutrition during the run, I’m still trying to figure out what kind of products I want to use and when.
Happy to help! I prefer the chews (shot bloks are my fav) over the gels but still use them from time to time because I have a bunch in my stash. I’ll definitely be bringing my own fuel to the marathon. Good luck and have fun with your training!
Ha, how funny is it that when you said treadmill and hill runs I was cringing!! I loathe the treadmill for running, but with rainy weather today I will ace to run on it.
I’m starting to love the treadmill more and more with each run. I definitely need something to distract me on there, which is why I love Netflix