Post Race Recovery

The day after my half marathon I was sore. My legs could hardly function and I may or may not have been that person who took the elevator 2 floors. I went for a long walk followed by some intense rolling on the foam roller, and by the next day, my legs felt great. Sweet! Time to run again. About 5 minutes in, my legs were screaming and my knees felt like they were going to give out. I accepted reality, realizing that I am not super-human and do actually need to take rest days. A few days of walking, rolling, and yoga and my legs are feeling great. Lesson learned, take a rest day!

Here is a good post run yoga routine over at Runners World

Half Marathon Training: long or short run?

Last Sunday I did another one of my long runs for my half marathon training. I am having issues staying mentally motivated for these runs but I keep telling myself that the race will be even further so suck it up. Since we've had some nicer weather here and the snow on the race course has started to melt away, I decided it would be a good time to run a bit of the course.

Map of Race Course (green = race course, red = what I ran)

I felt like it was a good idea to run the course because now I'm aware of some of the challenging sections, like the steep hill at the 15km point. But I also feel like it might not have been a great idea because when I finished I thought "oh crap! I have to run how much further on race day?" Then I mapped it out and f-bomb, that is far! Oh well, I know I can do it but I definitely think I need to work on my mental game. So the long and the short of it [haha pun intended] is that my long run really wasn't so long in the end. *Tear*

Half Marathon Training: The Long Run

Well it's Sunday today and you know what that means? Long run day *insert a bit of nerves and excitement*. I have mixed emotions about the long run days. I love them because I love running, plain and simple. I am the most relaxed mentally when I run and the feeling of my body working and pushing itself is kind of addicting. My reservations are that the distances seem FAR. Today, we are planning to run 18 km....yikes. I am slightly nervous but I try to tell myself that next week will be even further so this week will seem like a breeze in comparison. I also try to keep my eye on the goal, which is to complete my first half marathon in April.

Over the past few weeks I have been taking notes and trying to improve on my long run training days. Here are a few things I'm going to try out today for my long run:

1. Drink lots of water before AND after - I have an issue where I get headaches when I run and it is likely caused by dehydration. So today I'm going to attempt to drink 2 water bottles before and 2 after. (I've already downed one bottle this morning)

2. Take some Gatorade with me on the run - Last week when I ran 16 km, I was tired at the end. I ran 12 km at a solid pace but then I just faded for the last 4 km. This week I'm going to try a bottle of water with some Gatorade powder in it. I'm not one to have water or any drink while I exercise, but I think I'm going to need it. We'll see if this works or not.

3. Pre-run Snack: Chocolate Earth Balls *Insert immature giggle*
I made a batch of these bad boys the other day, using a recipe from Whole Foods. The only substitution I made was Rice Krispie's instead of chopped nuts. It's all I had on hand. The combination of ingredients seemed like an energy bar to me so I thought I'd give these a try before the run. Hopefully they give me the right amount of energy for the whole run. I'm no nutrition expert so it'll be good old trial and error on this one.

So that's the plan for today. I guess now that I've made it public that I'm going to run, I better actually follow through. Later.