Success!

As you can guess from the title, I had a great run this morning. I am not sure what helped in this department and would make an awful scientist because I changed too many variables to know what made this happen. Here are the possible reasons:


1.) I chose to buy school lunch yesterday because it was slim pickings with everyone being sick this week. This could have been disastrous, but to my surprise, I had a delicious spaghetti with meat sauce and phenomenal bread stick. To top it off, we get two drinks so I chose a juice and a chocolate milk. I was ecstatic about the chocolate milk because this meant one less trip to the grocery store for my run. I saved the chocolate milk for a post-run drink.


2.) Because of the aforementioned "slim pickings" at our house, dinner was going to be a crap shoot. Tony suggested picking up pizza. I was open to this idea since 2 of my friends, who are very successful runners, swear by Chicago-style deep dish pizza that is loaded with sodium and heaviness the night before their races. While Little Caesars is no Chicago style pizza, I did try it anyway.


3.) I drank two cups of decaf coffee around 8:30pm in hopes that I can kickstart the digestion even possibly before going to bed. Success.


4.) Check out the temperature this morning:

5.) I altered the pre-run meal slightly. I chose less bagel and added peanut butter to it, followed by 3/4 of a banana. Success.

6.) Extra foam rolling before leaving for the run.

7.) New day and location for the run. Every other week the runs are on Saturdays with the half marathon training group. This doubled the turnout today and for the first 6 miles of my run my 11:00 minute pace group was 10. We actually maintained about a 10:20 pace, but I felt great.

We met at Body n' Sole, one or our sponsors and "the" running store in Central Illinois. This offered a warm place to meet and stretch before taking off, as well as a restroom...success.

The run consisted of a 6 mile "loop" that we did twice. This meandered through neighborhoods in Savoy, but is not part of the race route. I enjoyed the company of the pace leaders, Donna and Mike, as well as the 2 other marathon runners at my pace, Matt and Del. There were 4 girls with us from the half group, but I didn't catch their names, maybe next time. I took a quick rest after the first loop and fueled up with some remarkable Gu that tasted nearly as delicious as chocolate frosting right out of the can. Periodically in the last 4 miles, I snacked on some of the jelly beans since I was feeling light-headed and fatigued throughout much of this. I finished up with my watch reading: 2:08.37 for the 12 miles today.


I am thrilled that I finally had a long run that I can really feel proud of. That is, afterall, why I'm
running, right?!?


So, here goes nothing people, I'll be sending my change of registration Monday morning before the prices go up.