And Here We Go!

     In the words of the Joker played by the late Heath Ledger "And here we go!"  Marathon training has begun.  I can't say how excited I am to start this journey, but I think its a little fitting that I use a quote from the Joker because you have to be a little crazy to pay a fee to run twenty six miles three hundred eighty five yards just for the fun of it.

  

     I am feeling pretty darn good with where I am at right now.  I have had three solid weeks of running with little to no knee pain, I feel like my form is good and I was able to build back a nice base to build off of.  This past week, even though I wasn't running any super long distances, I was able to follow my training plan exactly.  It feels like I have the combination correct, but I won't know for sure until I really start piling on the miles.  I still have to work on keeping my pace as even as possible, I seem to have trouble keeping a steady pace through out each mile.  I always seem to have to make adjustments to keep my pace in check. I also have to remember not to run a faster pace just because I feel good and can.  I have set those paces for a reason and the last thing I want to do is sabotage myself or injure myself because I was greedy and thought its no big deal to run faster on an easy pace day.

     I did pick up a couple of things from runners warehouse this week that should help out.  Where I live, I am surrounded by a lot of farm land so when I am out on my long runs there won't be a lot of places to stop and rehydrate.  I love my  Amphipod Runlite 3 hydration belt, but in the dog days of summer it just doesn't carry enough fluid without me having to refill it.  I don't really want to swing back by the house, because then I will feel like just calling it a day.  I want to be able to just head out and when I arrive back at the house I am done!  So I picked up the Camelbak  Marathoner hydration pak.  I haven't given it a try yet so I don't have a "review" for it, but it holds a whopping 70 oz of fluid and has plenty of pockets for my nutrition and iphone.  It fits pretty darn well on me, but we will see how it all plays out this week on my 10 mile run on Wednesday.

     The other item I picked up was a case of orange flavored Clif Shot Bloks for my during race nutrition.  I am not a big fan of Gu and other gels and when I was at Ragnar we received a few of the shot bloks in various flavors to try.  I ended up really like the orange flavored ones vs. any of the others so that has been my go to item for my fuel.  I first used them in my last half marathon and I seemed to be able to consume them easily on the run with no GI issues.

     That's all for now, I will check back in a couple of days for Wednesday Weigh In.  Bye for now!