It’s been a while since I trained for 42.2 and I sort of forgot about a couple things…like how freaking hungry I am ALL the time, even waking up in the night and needing a snack. I also forgot about the extra-gross feet, as well as how quickly my energy gels disappear!
Speaking of the gels, I’m practicing fuelling pretty specifically at this point and I’m happy to say that on yesterday’s 2.5 hours steady, the every-30 minute calories+water went down great and no poomergencies were had. I’ve been sticking with Maurten gels since I tried the brand last fall, and yesterday I had a caffeinated one at the 2 hour mark for the first time. So far so good! These things are expensive though, so the first of 4 calorie intakes was actually a trusty Go-Go Squeeze apple-peach baby snack thing. Yum. Only 45 calories…but something’s gotta give or I’ll be broke from buying so much Maurten!
It would be so nice to be an elite and have bottles available every 5k with the Maurten drink mix, but this is amateur life, so gels and annoying hydro-pack for the long runs is how I roll. It looks like there are 14 water/Nuun stations along the full marathon course on race day which is fantastic.
As I tend to do, I’ve been looking at the Eugene course and elevation plot on the regular, trying to become as absolutely familiar as possible before May. The course is mainly flat with a couple hills that look pretty minor. The entire elevation gain is 123m, and I ran more than double that gain yesterday in just 28k, so that’s a nice confidence booster!
The hills around here are unavoidable but they do make us stronger, that’s for sure. I’ve become a better runner since accepting the local terrain and just getting after it with a more effort-based approach vs. obsessing about pace.
Last week was an 85km week and I’m tired but great. Eight weeks to go and I see some hard workouts later this week! Time to run easy and EAT until Thursday! LOL
JammieKomadina 