Next time you hear from me, I'll be a MARATHONER!
October 24, 2010PHEW what a busy day! In this order:
Eat, run, eat, pack, ride, burn, eat, iron, muck out, wash hair, pack, eat, blog. I haven’t stopped!! Starting from the top:
1) Pre-run fuel:
2) Run! 8miles, my third from last run before the marathon….crazy! Despite being blustery and proper cold, the sun was shining and I had one of my best ever runs 
An even 9.26 min/mile pace, done in 1hr15 (and not a single step of walk :p). Enjoyable
(Dirty hair, no make-up, freezing cold, just ran 8miles. That picture took some bravery to put up!! :p)
3) Breakfast! An EGM:
- kale
- melon
- banana
- cereal
- soya milk
- xanthan gum
- Vega chocolate smoothie mix
- maca powder
- almonds and dates
Oh, I have missed them so! It’s been probably well over a week since my last one…it went down a treat
4) I packed, no pictures :p
5) Ride – my mum gave me a lovely lunge lesson on Chika, who – of course – was an angel. I’m going to miss her 
6) BURN! I was baking some munchkins in the oven, took them out with the oven glove on one hand, then thought ‘ah I’ll put them in the other hand….’. OUCH. I squeaked! The pain was intense!! After a thorough run under the cold tap, my mum bandaged a leaf of aloe vera plant onto it:
The goo in the leaves of aloe vera plants is the BEST stuff ever – totally natural, but amazing healing properties. The relief of it touching my burn was instant
7) Lunch – Operation Clean the Fridge Out of Veg Before We Leave! In honour of the operation, I had a small bowl of ketchup/bbq roasted veggies:
Aubergine, parsnip, acorn squash (hate it), brussels sprouts
As well as a baked munchkin for oats:
I scraped out the insides of the smaller one, and added it to a 1/3 cup oats, along with nutmeg, cinnamon and maple syrup:
It then got all cooked up, and put in a JAR!
I’ve been saving that jar for AGES, and today was the perfect day for it….
Before the unveiling….
Ta da!
My mum loves the crunchy peanut butter in sandwiches
….bliss. I also had an unpicturerd carby energy bar thing, that was foul
No pictures of me washing my hair, shockingly.
9) Nor of me mucking out. No-one wants to see horse poop.
10) Nor of my packing…
11)…and nor of my eats (my camera is charging 
) – but they consisted of an apple, cereal and yogurt. No surprises there! To make up for it, here’s a pretty picture of a pumpkin yogurt cereal swirl mess from yesterday
LOVE. PUMPKIN.
And now for the second part of my post, which I wrote yesterday
—————–
Here’s something crazy – I fly to Washington DC to run to my first ever marathon on TUESDAY! I don’t have time to blog on Monday (though whilst I’m gone, I may well be tweeting from the iPod Touch – BritChickRuns is my name ) , so I thought I’d do a kinda recap post today.
I did my final long-ish run today – 8miles. Just a 4miles and a 2miles left to go, 3 days off, then MARATHON! Training has been tough, and there’s been a lot of runs:
Early 8milers back in June here
13 milers...that went really, really well!
And 13milers that didn’t go quite to plan….
I tried new methods of running here
And ran 15milers here! (ps – the stripy-ish crazy squash in that pic? Still haven’t eaten it :p it’s getting riper by the day!)
There has been really tough 16 mile runs…
That have skewed my view of what a ‘long’ run is!
I’ve also run 18miles in training, which were brilliant!!
And 14milers which were awful.
But, my final LONG training run – 20miles – was one of the best runs ever. It’s good to finish on a positive note!
Training was nothing like I thought it’d be – I thought it would take up much more time mid-week than it did, but I also thought I’d find those long runs easier than I did. Yep, some of them were fab, but some were crap too. I didn’t anticipate my reaction to the heat (praise be for my CamelBak, or I may not even be writing this post :p), or the effect loooong runs would have on my speed! In fact, when I started my training, I wanted to do the marathon in about 4hrs. That soon changed to 4hr15 as training progressed, then to 4hrs30. My current goal? 1) Finish! 2) Finish in sub 5hrs 3) Finish in 4hrs30. Goal 1 first, then we see how it goes
Also – I don’t know if – at this moment in time – I’d ever want to do another marathon. If Marine Corps goes well, and I do finish, I doubt I’ll do another one, at least not for a few years! Though knowing me, if I’m not happy with my time, or I can’t finish it, you can be sure I’ll be signing up for another one!! Post-marathon though, my plan is to just stick to 3 and 4mile distances for a while. I want 6miles to be a LONG run, not a short training one!! I want 3miles to be a good workout, instead of finishing it and thinking ‘where’s the next 4miles?’. I also want to do a bunch more half marathons. Going by my training runs, I think that 13mile distance is my favourite. Of course, nothing compares to the AMAZING feeling of completing a 20miles..but a half marathon is pretty cool too :p
But anyway – I’ll stop looking back, and look FORWARD! For the next week, my life is about 2 things, and 2 things only:
- thinking positively (I WILL kick ass in this Mary!)
- eating carbs! This week is going to be carb loading week. Lots of oats Oh, what an effort :p
It’s also about rest…and packing…and working…so with that in mind, I need to get on with it all!!
WISH ME LUCK!!!!
(PS – I doubt I’ll be blogging in DC – bar Twitter – but I’ll take lots of photos, and hopefully do a fab post – or 10 – when I get back, on November 3rd.)
(PPS – I have to say, thank you all SO much for your support. I’ve had some tough runs, but you guys have always had the best and most encouraging things to say. I appreciate it!! xo)
