Sunday, December 7, 2014

Napa Training Week 6... Another Nutrition Lesson

Another week down and another lesson learned... or re-learned in my case. I'm either a slow learner or just hard headed. The splits on my long run tell all.

So here's the recap...

Sunday - Rest. I celebrated Thanksgiving with my side of the family and spent the whole day cooking, then eating. Family left and then we had to call in reinforcements to help finish off our wine.


Nothing went to waste...



Monday - 9 miles. I was still really sore from racing Saturday. In fact, this is the sorest I've been since running the Derby Marathon in April. Seems kind of strange since the race distances themselves weren't all that long and I only really raced the 5K. In any case, I was really sore but it was a good kind of sore rather than a hurt kind of sore. I felt better after running a couple miles.

Tuesday - 4 miles. Got up at 4:30 am and spent the whole day at work so I didn't get out for my run until 8 pm. I was dead tired, and STILL sore.

Wednesday - Rest.

Thursday - 13 miles. I got up and realized I was finally over being sore from the weekend.

Hal Higdon's original training plan calls for running a half-marathon at Week 9. Since I adapted his plan and jumped in at Week 4 (so his Week 4 was my Week 1), my Week 6 long run was suppose to be an all out half-marathon. This is also "Nutcracker" week. G performed "Nutcracker" this weekend so I had most of the week off to take her to her dress rehearsal and performances. No way was I going to be able to run a real half-marathon this week so I decided to just run 13.1 on my own and try it as a long pace run; it would equal the longest pace run of this training cycle later on.

This is where my nutrition bit me in the butt. Always before a "real" half-marathon I'm really anal about what I eat the week of, two nights before, the night before, and the morning of... plus I always drink Gatorade along the run and eat at least one gel. When I'm not really truly going for time though, I tend to get cavalier about what I do and don't eat. I guess my brain just thinks, "13.1. You can roll out of bed and run that," and I just don't think about pre-run nutrition.

Wednesday night I had a salad for dinner. I couldn't even tell you if I ate Tuesday night. Thursday morning I had a cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie (yes, I can feel everyone cringing at my diet now). Then I set out to run 13.1 miles... and it was too much trouble for me to wear a fuel belt so I winged it with no water or gels.

 

Goal was 8:45 pace so I spent miles 1-4 trying to slow myself down.

Mile 5 was my flattest mile and I couldn't understand why my time suddenly slowed even though I felt like I was putting forth the same effort. At one point I thought my Garmin was just doing something funky as one second it was showing an 11:30 pace and then 5 seconds later it was showing an 8:00 pace and I knew I was running about the same pace. In reality though I was really slowing down. It was roughly just under 45 minutes into my run and I should have been fueling but didn't have anything to fuel with.

I tried putting forth more effort in Mile 6 and got my time down a bit but then realized I wasn't going to be able to hold my pace. I had more hills coming up and 7 more miles to go. I could either see how long I could hang on to an all out effort and risk blowing up before the run was over or just slow my pace and finish the run. I decided to slow my pace and just finish. I did reserve enough gas in the tank to pick up my last mile.

My finish time showed me how much progress I had made and how much potential there was if I WOULD JUST EAT RIGHT! Back in 2010 when I was training for my first marathon ever, I ran an all out effort supported half-marathon in 2:03:59 (500 Festival Mini-Marathon). So here I am, 4 years later, rolling out of bed, having pie for breakfast, and running ever so slightly faster (on a much hillier course I should add.) If I would have treated this run like the real half-marathon it was suppose to be perhaps I could have held my pace.

Live and learn. One of the points from the sports psychology lecture was to get rid of the "could have's" and "should have's" in my life. This run is done. I need to eat better. End of story.

Friday - Rest. It's opening night for "Nutcracker"!

Saturday - 4 miles. Got up early on a Saturday that I didn't have to go to work or race just to get my miles in before "Nutcracker" shows all day.

Week 6 Total Miles: 30
3 good days. 1 "ehh" day. 3 rest days.

There was an extra rest day on the schedule this week due to the real half-marathon I was suppose to be running. I thought about running another day this week since my half wasn't "real" but since it took me half the week to get over being sore from last weekend I just took advantage of my extra rest day.

Goal this coming week is to eat better!

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