Marathon training is kicking my trash! I went the furthest my poor little body has ever gone this weekend, 20 miles! It took me 3 1/2 hours to complete that run, but I’m just proud I finished at all.
My first ever marathon is 8 weeks away (yikes!) and I’m kind of starting to panic, any wise words of wisdom would be truly appreciate 😉 But it seems that every long run I go on just knocks me on my butt for the rest of the day; the idea of going 6 more miles than I did Saturday scares my pants off!
While I felt dead to the world the rest of the night on Saturday, I did have a few wins on this run! I ran the entire thing by myself; I knew I was going to have to do it alone this weekend and I was worried I would quit early without the support of a friend going with me, so I was very proud that I was able to keep my mind in the run and go the whole way.
There are 2 reasons I amount to my ability to do the full 20; a new form of fuel, Nuun, and the advice to listen to an audio book.
As many of you may know I’ve been on the hunt for a fuel that will be nice to my stomach; I’ve gone through GUs, Huma, and even baby food, but everything made my stomach urk. So finally some of my instagram friends introduced me to the idea of using the drink Nuun to re-hydrate and refuel while on a long run. I have nothing more to say than THANK YOU!
I tried the triple berry flavor and found it to be a nice refreshing flavor without being too overpowering. But the thing about Nuun I really liked was the little bit of fiz it has. I think just that little bit of carbonation helped keep my stomach from turning soar. So yes, I am now a Nuun convert and will be using these amazing tabs on many of my long runs!
The second life saver of this run was my good pal “The Maze Runner.” I decided to listen to the book on Audible while I was running and it worked really well! I was a little concerned that much like when I listen to music, I would pay attention for a few minutes and then stop listening and get really lost in the story. But I didn’t! The story was really interesting and I was captured, wanting to learn more about the story for the full 3 1/2 hours I was on my run. I think this was a great way to keep my mind off of what I was doing to my body and make me want to keep going so that I could learn more about Thomas and his adventures in the place they call the Glade.
What kinds of things do you do to survive your long runs? Do you have suggestions for this amateur? I love testing new things so please throw me any suggestions you may have!