What an
AMAZING weekend!!! I couldn't have asked for more from the weather ... sunny & about 55-60 degrees both days, with a light 8 mph breeze and only about 45% humidity. It was perfect running weather ... and I had two perfect training runs for my back-to-back marathons in two weeks!!!
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| 2009 Kansas City Marathon |
Saturday ... 24 miles @ 8:24 pace
Sunday ... 22 miles @ 8:05 pace
"Throw up your RAWKFIST if you feel it when I drop this!"
(Still don't know what that means, do ya? Neither do I!) I'm so stoked about these runs ... and now I can't wait until the back-to-back marathons!!! Usually my last long run before a marathon gives me a pretty good indicator where I'm at for the race. After yesterday and today, I feel pretty great about these two!
Ya know how sometimes when you run you feel like you're just maintaining, and not really improving much. Well I really felt like I grew as a runner this weekend. And 46 miles in two days with a negative split from yesterday to today felt AWESOME! Yesterday's run was nice and smooth. I felt like I could have easily ran another 10-12 miles at that pace. It was the less hilly of the two with about 948 ft of elevation gain. And today wasn't too bad either for less than 24 hours after the first run. I had to focus a lot more, but I never really had to push it too much to keep pace. It was a little hillier with 916 ft of elevation gain with two less miles than the day before. Plus, I ran "The Jack" at mile 6 ... my hill training course with about 150 ft of rise in about 1 mile. But mostly I think I learned quite a bit about the whole back-to-back upcoming experience.
I really tried to simulate what's gonna happen in two weeks when I run the Kansas City Marathon (my second time running this one) on Saturday, and the Des Moines Marathon the next day on Sunday. I prepped the same way. I refueled the same way. And I ran a fairly similar pace. I know tons of people run back-to-back marathons all the time, but this is my first attempt. So it's all kind of new to me. Plus, as always, I have a certain time I'm shooting for on both of them ... but the first priority is simply to make it through without killing myself. I want to run sub 3:30 in the second on, but I absolutely WILL NOT be disappointed if it doesn't happen.
I think the biggest factor in such a great second run for me was how I refueled yesterday. Here's what I did ...
Post Run Refuel ...
- Used Roller Pad immediately after run (like about 10 minutes after)
- Light Stretching
- 32oz bottle of G2 Gatorade
- Banana
- Smoothie (based on the recommendation of Jason at CookTrainEatRace) made from banana, plain Greek yogurt, whey protein, orange juice, a couple of drops of honey, strawberries, blue berries, peaches, and 2 packets of dry oatmeal
- Full stretching with roller pad again about 45 minutes after run
Lunch (about 1-1/2 hour later) ...
- Subway 6" Turkey on Wheat
- 3 oatmeal & raisin cookies (sorry, sue me)
- 2 bags of apple slices
- Blue berry Vitamin water
Afternoon Snack
- Banana
- All natural Builders protein bar
Dinner
- Chicken & Pepperoni Pizza - about 6 slices
- 32 oz bottle of G2 Gatorade
- Full stretching with roller pad
Also, I wore the CEP sleeves on my calves almost all day and they really seemed to do the trick. I'm not a big fan of "recovery tools" like this - I would always prefer to let my body recover on it's own. But I'm really growing fond of these and have them on as I write this. They seem to work fairly well.
But back to today. Today's workout also marked a couple of milestones for the year. Today's run was the 20th time this year I've ran at least 20 miles or more, and I also passed 2,300 miles for the year!!! (I really want to get to 3,000 ... if for no other reason than just to say that I did it. I think I need like 52 per week from here on out ... which should be doable.)
I run so many miles during training that sometimes I don't get as excited anymore with just an "everyday run". But this weekend really invigorated me as a runner. It made me feel like I'm making huge progress with some really great things to come. We'll see! Have a great week!
