Friday, March 19, 2010

Welcome Spring

I have decided to welcome spring at full force. Armed with a new app for my iPhone (supposed to have a better GPS and tracking devices than the other app I tried out) Saturday (in the low 70’s!!) I will be taking on my longest run to date. I am aiming for 8 miles. I will do 8 miles. I may not do all 8 miles running and it may take me 3 hours, but I will be on the trail until those 8 miles are done! I have tried to round up some friends to go with me since the husband is out of town, but no one is answering my texts or my Facebook messages! I hate running outside alone, especially after a weird incident several years ago (I was thinking about doing some research and a post on running safety; is this something you would be interested in seeing?), but given the wonderful weather expected for this weekend, there should be a large number of people on the trail and that should help make me less uneasy. I am sure you guys will hear about it shortly after, if I am not in the hospital!!!

Since I rely so heavily on the more experienced runners that have offered plenty of encouragement and advice, I am hoping you guys can keep the good stuff coming and help me get prepared for the upcoming Cherry Blossom 10 Miler. What do you recommend my longest training run to be? Should I just do 8, the full 10 or go for 12 miles? What are your prerace routines? What do you do about fueling before, during and after the race? What do you do the night of races to make the mornings easier? Should I bring shoes to change into after the race? How should I dress; on the light side or in layers?

Just wanted to give a quick shout-out to my non-bloggy friend Laura who is running her first half marathon (with a broken arm no less) this weekend down in Virginia Beach. Good Luck and you will do phenomenal!

Also, good luck to Laura who will be running the Suntrust National Marathon in DC this weekend and I will hopefully be heading downtown on Saturday to cheer her (and another friend) on. If you have not checked out her blog, you totally should. She is a Marathon Maniac who is on track to be the youngest female to finish a marathon in all 50 states in June!! She is super inspirational; after reading her blogs I thought maybe I could do these races too (though no where as well as Laura can)!!


Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

3 comments:

TMB @ RACING WITH BABES said...

Good luck with your 8 miles!! You'll rock it. As for the 10 miler ... you'll probably be fine if you only go up to 8, but I would probably get a 10 in. It will just give you the confidence that you can finish!

Kim said...

So much to say!

First of all, I think running safety is a big topic and you SHOULD write about it! Another blogger I read wrote about it last week. She was pretty worried about it. Please be careful on your 8 miler!

You should pick your final mileage depending on what your goal for the race is... finishing? Running it fast? Many programs that have you doing less or exact mileage than the race mileage are just designed for you to finish. They figure you will find the extra energy on race day (you will!). I think the programs that have you doing more are aimed towards people who want to push themselves at the race, so they exceed the distance to prepare the body for it, and usually incorporate speed work. Does that make sense? I would aim for 10, put not worry too much if you only get to 8 or 9, or if you do 11 or 12! It's all very close.

I like to get up two hours (at least) before a race to eat oatmeal and a banana. During along race, or long runs, I make sure to drink a small amount of liquid every 15 minutes, and eat something at the halfway point if I will be running longer than a75 minutes. After the race, I eat something carb-y and a bit of protein (I wrote about this here. I also briefly talked about eating something during running here. They make a lot of stuff (gels, beans, chews, etc.) but I prefer homemade granola bars, pretzels, etc.

The night before, I lay everything out and try to get to bed early if I can! You don't need to bring shoes to change into unless you are running in the mud or water and don't want your feet to get cold. You might want to consider bringing clothes to change in to though. When it is cold, and I race in Under Armour, I have to take it off right away because it gets cold after you start running. I sometimes wear layers but like to wear as little as possible. I usually will wear short sleeves if it is 45! I like to run in the cold!

So... that's my input ;)

Sorry for the novel!

Anonymous said...

I will probably be fine with 8. I farthest I ran before my first half was 10 but it if you have the time and feel good about it, go for the full 10 miles. It will help you feel more confident on race day. And with everything that has happened with Chelsea King, I think a running safety post would be wonderful! I have lots to say about pre race stuff but I'll save that for an email maybe so I don't write a hugeee comment =) Can't wait to hear how the 8 went! Remember, your always welcome to join me for a run!