They say what you do in practice, you do in the game.
With that in mind, when you are training for a marathon, your weekly long runs take on a whole new meaning.
With a month until my marathon, I have an 18-mile long run planned for tomorrow.
Before I learned about marathon training, I’d just head out for my long, weekend run. No distance really planned other than giving my husband a ballpark idea of how long I’d be gone. Which generally was something really vague like “hopefully more than an hour, likely less than two”.
And then out the door, I’d go. No meal other than two cups of coffee. No water. No gel packs.
I prided myself on not being what I called “a bolter”.
You know those people. The ones that go out for a run armed with two water bottles on either side of a massive fanny pack.
Although I had no clue how long they were running, I looked at them with a judgmental eye. I was sure they also had a small picnic in that fanny pack and they were only going on a 3-mile jog.
Now, I’m that girl. Although my fanny pack only has one water bottle, thank you very much.
And I believe when training for a half marathon or more, it is really important to make your long run a practice for the actual race.
How else will you know what breakfast you should eat? And P.S. if your run is more than 45 minutes, you should have something to eat before heading out.
You also need to practice keeping your pace while drinking water. And give that race day outfit a test run before the big day.
But for me, the biggest lesson so far has been the importance of fueling. Before I started my training I ran for two reasons:
- To lose weight
- So I could eat more and still lose weight
That was it.
To be honest, I still run for those two reasons, but they aren’t necessarily #1 and #2.
With my new goal of finishing a marathon, I understand my body needs fuel to keep it going. That means when I’m running for more than 75 minutes, I have to have a different game plan.
First, I eat something high in carbs, preferably an hour before I head out.
Tomorrow I’m going to try out a hardy slice of pumpernickel bread from my local bakery, with a tablespoon of almond butter, and maybe even a little honey for a quick sugar burst.
Second, I eat a gel within the first 5-miles of my run.
This prevents me from having a gap between when my breakfast burns off and when my bloodstream gets the quick carbs it needs to keep going. So far, my favorite gels have been by GU Energy.
This is a very general rule of thumb and every runner is different.
Many things need to be factored in, including your pace, weight, what your stomach can handle, and if you like to drink your calories or you don’t mind eating them.
Sooo, back to the whole point of this post- I highly recommend doing many test runs to figure out what works for you.
Try different breakfasts and different fuels during those long runs. Write down what works. I’m sure you’ll remember the ones that don’t, but maybe write them down too 🙂
And most important, have fun with it.
Two things I really enjoy are running and food. So it’s actually fun to figure out what nutrition leads to feeling my best.
I believe you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your running prince. So enjoy experimenting and getting to know what works for you and what doesn’t.
Much better to figure it out on a random Saturday than on the big race day!
