My Perfect Pre-Long Run Dinner and Breakfast.

I think I finally found my pre-race meal. If you're a runner, you know how serious this is to us! I had energy during my run, but I didn't feel too full. No GI issues. No cramping. Nothing. Just one smooth long run.

I'm getting ahead of myself though, let's start with my runs for the week:

Monday: Weights for 40 minutes

Tuesday: 5 miles @ 8:30 pace (+ 20 minutes weight training)

Wednesday: 5.3 miles @ 8;29 (Tempo run. Start at 6.5, going to 8.0, and coming back down gradually)

Thursday: 3 miles @ 8:30 pace + 30 minutes weight training

Friday: REST

Saturday: 5 miles at 8:34 + 20 minutes weight training

Sunday: 13.2 miles at 8:38. 

As I've been saying, I was really trying to up my carbohydrate intake recently and see how it effected my running. 

Greek Yogurt, sliced banana and homemade granola.

Implusive buy at Trader Joes. 

Two Whole Wheat Muffins, 2 scrambled egg and a sliced apple (with a shit ton of cinnamon)

Quaker oatmeal squares, raisans, peanut butter, shredded coconut, and tons of cinnamon.

Those are just a few of my favorite things.

Seriously, going heavy on carbs is a hard job, but somebody has got to do it:-) 

Back to the running....

Saturday night, I decided to top of my glycogen levels with a bowl of whole wheat spaghetti and homemade meatballs. 

Sunday morning I tried my honey whole wheat pancakes again. 

This time, I added a sprinkle of pecans into them while they were cooking. Healthy fats for the win! I ate them 2 hours before my run (instead of 3 like last week) and felt fully energized. 

I started off more conservatively than the week before too. 

Not exactly negative splits, but at least I kept it easy. 

Then I started to pick it up a bit. 

Nasty hill during mile 6, what are you going to do.......except maybe hill work. which will be something I do after this race.....

At miles 4.5 and 8.25 I took my Roctane GU. I don't want to commit to them after only one use but I definitely felt better this week using the Roctane than last week using the regular GUs. 

I was surprised but I liked the Blueberry Pomegrante much more than the Orange Vanilla.

I'm going to contribute those GUs to my last three miles.

All in all, this training run helped me feel much more confident for my race (in 12 days!). I wasn't exhausted when I finished, which is a great sign. 

I'm not going to commit to a pace, but my goal is to run a STRONG race and PR. (This shouldn't be hard since my last half marathon I PRed running on a broken foot for most of the race).

Just to end this post with a chuckle.