Aaah, the immortal words of Ron Burgundy. I think we can all learn something from his little nuggets of wisdom. You know what else is a bad choice? A couple of hours before a hard interval workout eating runny, scrambled eggs, bacon and biscuits with gravy from the workplace cafeteria. It's a terrible choice that I made last week. I now know the true meaning of the term gastrointestinal distress.
Besides the gastrointestinal stuff going on it also caused other problems. I think all the blood and energy that would otherwise go into powering my brain was in the vicinity of my stomach trying to process the ball of dough and eggs and grease that I had consumed. I was on the treadmill feeling nauseous, light headed, and generally shitty. As I pushed through the intervals my stomach was complaining and my legs were sluggish. As I slowed to recover my brain felt like it was floating away only tethered by a weak string. Being the stubborn, stupid guy that I am I pushed through anyway and finished. It felt terrible, but I hope to take away something positive from this experience: a valuable lesson as I prepare for my third marathon and second Flying Pig Marathon.
These kinds of mistakes bring to the forefront the importance of my nutritional needs for training and race day, my fuel. It is something that is easy to ignore most days and on most runs. I can skate by on short runs with nothing more than water. I can thrive on longer runs on a Gu or two and some water or Gatorade. The differences between training my longest training run and marathon race day make all the difference.
The first difference is distance and time. My longest run is 20 miles, which I do once. I'm not pushing myself particularly hard usually. The marathon is 26.2 miles. That last 6.2 miles makes or breaks the race. In these last 6.2 miles you find out if you've paced yourself properly, fueled properly, and prepared properly. If those are the standards, then I have to say that I have failed somewhere along the line in the first two marathons. The problem is figuring out which one. There are so many variables to consider: pacing, speed, nutrition, weather...
I think I can narrow it down to two variables. Pacing, which I will talk about in a second, and nutrition. Based on the fact that in both instances I've experienced severe leg cramps I can safely say nutrition is going to be very important going into my next race. What am I going to do? I've tried the electrolyte caps and that seemed to help on duathlons, but not so much for the marathon. My experience was so far outside the norm in terms of weather and climate, that it is tough to say that it wouldn't work under normal conditions. I'll have to give it some thought.
The other big difference in marathon day: pacing. The excitement of the race can so easily lead to a fast start which, in turn, leads to problems at the end. Got to go out easy. That is always tough for me. I'm getting used to the excitement of race day and it's becoming easier, but it is always a challenge. I have two strategies for dealing with this and they are both in training. The first strategy is to run more goal pace runs. I'm shooting for around an 8 minute/mile. I've been running a lot more of my long runs and goal pace runs at that speed. I'm starting to feel that 8 minute/mile. We don't need no stinking Garmin! The second strategy is training for negative splits. I'm teaching myself to start slow and end fast. I get so caught up in getting a fast start that I think I burn too much energy at the start of the race leaving nothing for the finish. That's just no good, and I'm working on it.
I got off on a little bit of a tangent, but what I'm really thinking about is nutrition. I need to devise a smarter nutrition plan leading up to and on race day. That's the goal for now.
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