Exercise Log 4.27.14 (Half Training Run #4)

Today is leg day, which as part of my temporary program change is now half marathon training day. So today I wanted to do a run on pavement, as much of my half training was on trails (to get elevation change challenges). I need to preface this with the fact that basically everything went wrong, which is good because I’d rather learn some of the lessons needed now before race day!

First big problem was last night, due to being out and socializing, I had dinner at like 6pm with no substantial meals before bed. Then when I woke up this morning, had a lazy morning and didn’t get a proper breakfast around (maybe 600 calories of my very macro balanced oatmeal raisin cookies… not a ton of sugars though to boost my glucose levels). So I started today’s run on an empty tank. I realized quickly while running that this was going to be a problem, and that running the distance I had intended (originally 14-16 miles) was not practical or even effective. Second problem, my heart rate monitor which I use to give myself benchmarks on exertion was acting all out of wack, believe it’s battery was running low (replaced the battery and all seems fine). Final problem was attire, I was wearing some cargo shorts I had intended to wear on race day and they were too bulky, felt uncomfortable after a while… plus the layers I wore also felt uncomfortable. I would rather start the race a little chilly I think and warm up as the race progresses than get smothered near the end of the race.

So all in all said, ran an uncomfortable 10.3 miles. However I did learn a couple things as I ran aside from the above which I will have fixed by race day. First is that my race goal of 2 hours 30 minutes or better is possibly feasible if I can exert my energy levels a little higher on race day. Second is that running on pavement definitely does require a little mental adjustment, going to have to be strict to form, short fast striding and landing on the right part of my foot.

Will see if this combined with all the other long runs I did this month result in a race day I’m happy with or not. In the end, I’m happy to have gotten this far!

A bit tired, just hoping the effort put in was worth it.

Well this is the last big run… next week is the half!