November 2004...a letter written to clients on November 8th, 2004...
Hello there! How was your weekend?
Mine was spent doing my 2nd 10 mile run. Really!! And this time my husband went with me and we enjoyed the heck out of it! After doing the 7 mile trail run at Umstead a couple of times, I was sure I could do a 10-miler and tried it last week. I enjoyed it so much I decided to try and make it a weekly long run.
The 1st time I ran it (last week), I had a sore foot from the trail run which is on uneven terrain and forces your feet into different angles, which my feet don't like after having my ankles shattered 3 times! So I was slower, and it was painful, and it took 3 miles to warm up to it. After I warmed up it was still work, so much so that I had to walk the last 1/2 mile. I was extremely pleased that I had done it, but I had to work to get through it. How did I do overall? I ran the 10 miles in 1 3/4 hours -- 10.5 minute miles, but I stopped for 10 minutes in between to refuel, rest and use the bathroom.
One of the reasons it was so hard is because I ran out of fuel. The body can only process so much at a time and it's difficult for it to find fuel in a lean body (yeah, baby!), so even though I stopped at the 5 mile mark to get a shot of accelerade (see http://accelerade.com) I hit the wall at about mile 8 and struggled to finish.
To better prepare for yseterday's run, I bought a fuel belt which is an elastic belt that fastens with velcro and has 6 elasticized loops for holding little bottles of fluid. I made a pitcher of accelerade and carried the 6 containers with us. We each had one at the 4.5 mile, the 6.5 mile and the 9 mile, and guess what??? We SPRINTED the last 1/4 mile. How did we do? We ran without stopping, 10 miles from 1:40pm to 3:10pm -- 90 minutes! That's a 9 minute mile, and our route is nothing but steep hills!
I cannot tell you how important the accelerade was! We would start to struggle and would pull out a bottle and drink it, and within 2 minutes we were filled with energy again. We would go from feeling like we were suffering to feeling like children racing each other and laughing out loud. It was amazing. At the end when we should have been falling down, we ran as hard as we could, which was pretty darned fast, and all I can say is I've never felt anything like that -- my legs felt "liquid." I can't describe it any other way. Liquid legs. It was quite enjoyable, freeing, and down right amazing. At 39 my body is amazing!
So, we figured if we can run 10 miles so easily, we are ready for a 1/2 Marathon. We found a GREAT one, too, January 9th in Phoenix AZ!!! It is the P.F. Chang's Rock 'N' Roll Marathon. It is so cool that there is a live band at each mile of the run, PLUS high school cheering squads to cheer us along. The route goes through the beautiful dessert (i.e. no humidity) of Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tempe which is beautiful (I'm coming, Janet!)! And there is a concert afterward -- the Goo Goo Dolls played last year. PLUS the temperature will be in the 60's and the course is FLAT! Here is more information: http://www.rnraz.com/
So, would you like to join us? If so, you have 8 weeks to train. And here is how to train for a 1/2 marathon in 8 weeks:
- Run each: 1 7-mile run, 2 2-mile runs, 1 4-mile run
- 1 8-mile run, 2 3-mile runs, 1 5-mile run
- 1 9-mile run, 2 3-mile runs, 1 5-mile run
- 1 10-mile run, 2 4-mile runs, 1 6-mile run
- 1 11-mile run, 2 4-mile runs, 1 6-mile run
- 1 12-mile run, 2 5-mile runs, 1 7-mile run
- 1 13-mile run, 2 5-mile runs, 1 7-mile run
- Only 3 light workouts. You are ready and don't want to exhaust yourself or strain something.
You'll need good shoes and a great sports drink to fuel while you are running. I think accelerade is amazing.
For more information, you can visit www.ehow.com and search for "marathon."
Be good this week! Eat well (our meals program changes meals weekly now!) and get your exercise in. Remember, you don't stop exercising because you get older, you get older because you stop exercising!!
