February 22, 2009

Back to Long Runs

Today it was time to resume the weekly long runs after a two-week break with a 2-hour easy and a half marathon race respectively.

By now the roads are clear, and I only had to contend with some rain today. I did my usual out-and-back course and even got a few hundred meters further today. I'd brought three caffeine gels and 600ml of water.

My breakfast was two slices of bread with honey, two bananas and a Powerbar. I didn't leave for my run until 11:15am and I could have brought another Powerbar in hindsight.

My legs felt reasonably OK after last week's race. But I had skipped two runs this week, the first one because I was still too exhausted from the race, and the second one for another reason. I rarely miss runs, but this week I was OK with doing so as part of my recovery.

As of next week, my long runs increase by 20 minutes so I will be running about 35km in the morning before doing another easy 30-minute run in the afternoon as well.

The final 8km today were tiring. And I had to give myself a few reasons to keep running. I have a lot of reasons to run. Some are big lofty goals that keep me going day in day out, others are little ones along the way that keep me going for another meter of 10.

It's always good to have a few solid reasons ready for those moments when your mind starts wandering and wondering why you're out there - particularly on those long runs.

I had enough reasons to keep me going today, and some of them included simply getting home so I could put on dry clothes and put up my feet. Another was some good food, and I made a big omelet of three eggs and three big slices of ham with cottage cheese on three slices of bread. Yum.

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