Well, I hate to say this, but my Saturday morning long run was terrible.
I had planned to do an eight mile run. I felt okay for the first five miles or so, but then I started to struggle and I let some mental doubts get the best of me. I ended up feeling defeated and walked most of the last 1.5 to 2 miles back home.
Obviously, I am pretty disappointed that I didn't finish an eight mile run with a smile on my face, but I think I know some of the things that contributed to my crappy run.
1. Pre-run nutrition. Ironically, at the end of the podcast I listened to on Friday night, they talked about the absolute importance of having enough calories in your body to fuel (and recover from) a run. Friday, I had a pretty big lunch and wasn't really hungry for dinner, so all I had to eat the night before my run was a granola bar.
Additionally, I set my alarm wrong, so I didn't get up until about 7:45 in the morning (I had wanted to be up at 6). So I was in a rush to get out the door before it started to get too hot, and I didn't eat anything before I left.
I definitely think the combination of a lackluster dinner the night before and an empty stomach meant that I didn't have the right fuel in my body when I set out on my long run. It probably would've been fine to do 3-5 miles, but eight miles is really long for me, and it didn't help that I wasn't well prepared in terms of nutrition. Lesson learned: I need to make an effort to be sure that I eat properly leading up to a long run!
2. Hydration. I have mentioned this a million times before, but it is really freaking hot here. In my hurry to leave this morning, I had a few chugs of water, and I put $2 in my pocket to buy something while on the run. I stopped at a 7-11 around 5.25 miles to get some water, but all the bottled water was more than $2! Fail. So I kept running, hoping that I'd find another store soon.
Unfortunately, after my 7-11 stop was when things started to really go downhill. I kept thinking about how I really needed something to drink. What I really wanted was some Gatorade. Thinking about nutrition on the run made me reflect on my lack of proper nutrition before the run. My stomach started growling, and I felt like I really needed some calories. Obviously, five or six miles is really not that long (in the grand scheme of things), and there was no way that I would die of calorie deficiency or anything, but I. My head, I just started to think about how I had no fuel in my tank. It was all I could think about.
I thought about when I was training for the Jack and Back, switching from drinking water to drinking Gatorade suddenly gave me a miraculous ability to finish a long ride. I thought about how I should get something that allows me to bring a water bottle along with me when I run. I thought about how tired I felt. I thought about how hungry I felt. I thought about how a few calories might help me miraculously find a second wind. I thought about how I saw zero open stores coming up.
And then I stopped running and started walking. At that point, in my mind, I had given up. I would run little bursts for the rest of the way home, but I walked for most of it. I kept looking for stores to get something to drink in, but most stuff wasn't open yet. Close to home, I saw a Vitamin Water vending machine and was so ecstatic. Vitamin Water sounded delicious!! Unfortunately, it cost more than the $2 I had :( Finally, I saw a Coke vending machine and went over there hoping they'd have Dasani as a choice that I could afford. They didn't. Coke was $1.90, Coke Zero was $2, and there was some sort of "isotonic drink" called Aquarius for $2. It was clear and the label said that Singapore's Olympians preferred Aquarius, or something like that, so I bought it. It was some sort of carbonated sugar water. Gross. And definitely not what I wanted or needed.
So, I'm going to try to be more cognizant of my hydration before I run - including the days before, and I need to start bringing water with me on long runs. I'm going to start by just carrying a water bottle and seeing how that works.
3. Muscle prep. I've settled into a bit of a routine in Malaysia in terms of my running habits. Tuesdays I do speed work and Thursdays I do hill work. (Or at least what speed work and hill work mean to someone of my running caliber.) I can only go for about 30 minutes since the hotel gym doesn't open until 6:30 am. Monday mornings I have been travelling, so I don't work out then, and I don't really like to work out on mornings when I am checking out of a hotel, so I don't work out on Fridays either. Wednesdays I just take as a day off. On the weekends, I run one long run, and then sometimes I will do a shorter run on the other day, but sometimes I won't.
Well, I don't think that running for 30 minutes twice a week before a long run is cutting it. And I've noticed that my second weekend run hasn't been happening lately. I don't think that I didn't have the physical capability to finish the eight miles, but I do think I could use some improvements to my routine.
So my plan going forward is to do three days of running during the week, one long run on the weekend, and then use the other weekend day as a freebie where I can rest, run, or do some sort of other random activity if I want to. I also want to get back into doing some easy strength training exercises to help too. Hopefully, working in Singapore for a while will help me stick to this schedule!
This post turned out to be much longer than I had anticipated, so I'll stop here. I'm going to aim to do these eight miles again - I still need to figure out when (Formula One race is next Fri - Sun, and the whole city is apparently going to be a madhouse), but hopefully next time will be better than this one!
Thanks for all the encouragement peeps.
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