Setting myself up

As always training goes in waves of good and bad. Recently it’s been bad mostly from being sick. I’m finally about 95% better. Today was a very good day for training. I hate to be one of those people who sits there says “look at me and my amazing life” but I’m not ashamed of talking about my bad days as well.

Today was a long run with some harder mile repeats. My last attempt at a similar run during training camp went pretty poorly. I was a little afraid of how today went. Today I did everything I could do to set myself up to be successful. I got a lot of sleep. I woke up plenty early before the run so I wouldn’t be rushed. I made myself a full breakfast and had plenty of time to digest it. I spent 10 minutes foam rolling and digging into spots I learned about in camp. I drank plenty of fluids. During the run I had to practice race fueling and hydrating so I carried OSMO and ate Chomps on schedule.

I had the pleasure of running with two friends whom I haven’t run with since… oh maybe summer? It was really nice having company during the first easy 45 minutes. Man do easy miles go by faster when you aren’t really thinking about running. At the same time I was totally ok running by myself after that because I like to focus when it’s time to put some harder work in. I think for the first time ever while running with other people I kept my heartrate in check.

All of these things added up to a really good run. Those things and perfect running weather and an awesome terrain which was mostly downhill during the mile repeats. Those things of course help. I was really happy with how the run went and it was far better than I expected. It also happened to be the furthest I’ve ever run and after I was done I felt like I could have easily kept running. And better yet, I apparently set a new open half marathon PR during the workout.

I also tried some Amino Energy in my OSMO for the first time and holy shit between the sugar and caffeine while doing Whole30 was I bouncing off the walls when I got home. My husband kept looking at me like I was insane because I wouldn’t shut up or stop moving. Alas, I shut that energy down to do the next important part of training… recovery. It’s a nice excuse to spend some of the weekend eating a lot, sitting on the coach and doing an easy swim.