I’m starting to increase the mileage and get the miles in the tank as part of my marathon training. Whilst I’m not up to my highest mileage ever in one go yet I’m only just over half a mile away.
This week was going to be my second time over 15.5miles. The first one went well during the run. The splits weren’t super consistent but I managed the run well all in all. I know that my refeed/refuel and recovery strategy was shit though because the run impacted me for the next 2 days so I needed to start to look at that in more detail and nail the supporting bits.
This week I did things a little differently.
(1) the night before the long run I had porridge for supper ~ making sure that my carb stores were good for the next morning.
(2) regular overnight oats for my breakfast
(3) 2 x caffeinated coffees the morning of the run. On a regular morning I could have one caffeinated and one decaf.
(4) added Awesome Supps electrolytes and carbohydrate (pineapple & passion fruit flavour) to my soft flask for during the run >>it’s here<< I have to say that this was totally yummy with a dry long run mouth and helped me maintain much more consistency in the second half of the run
(5) I did have some new pants in an attempt to stop chaffing. They did the job paired with my Skins leggings. The pants are super affordable and from Decathlon >>they are here<<
(6) post run I had a coconut protein flapjack ~ thinking about a lovely blend of macros
(7) within 40 minutes of exercise I had a Fish Pie (again thinking about a lovely blend of macros)
(8) I have a bottle of water to continue to rehydrate throughout the day.
(9) I’ve put more thought into continuing to refuel throughout the day too
So, this week ~ split were more consistent, time was reduced by almost 6 minutes over the 15.5miles, I felt stronger, I wasn’t desperate for the finish in the last 2 miles = happy with that.
I will continue to tweak and get my strategy perfect for me.
My advice? You gotta start testing and tweaking early on in training so that you can find out the perfect blend for you.
