I just finished a nice large helping of fried rice after a 2hr cruise on the bike, with a stiff headwind out and a nice tail wind back. I'm feeling a little tired after a pretty tough week and I am planning to laze around all day and prepare for tomorrow mornings half-marathon race. My coach has told me to run the first 10kms at a firm pace, then if I'm feeling alright, smack it. A couple of guys I train with have similar instructions and they I think may have more staying power than I do. I know I have more pace than either of them, but I think their larger training base and smaller frames (both weigh in high 60kg to low 70kg) may mean they drop me later in the race. I normally have this drop in self-confidence before a race, hopefully I will prove myself wrong...*visualizing myself smashing it* I have been putting a significantly high training volume than the last half-marathon I did, in that one I ran a 1:32:23, so I'm expecting to do better than that, how much better, I don't know, as I have had no taper for this race.
On the subject of weight and running, I have started to work towards dropping weight in an effort to get down to a better race weight by the end of winter, before going into the larger volume training that will be required for Ironman. Losing weight will benefit me both in increased speed and in injury prevention. Carrying extra weight when swimming and cycling is not too much of a problem as they are not weight bearing activities, however running requires that you lug your entire body weight around and every extra gram counts. Right now I am the lightest I have been in probably 7-8 years but I still have a layer of fat that is not required and will start to tell later in my training season. I am aware that I won't get back to my race weight from when I was a teenager because I have grown too much muscle bulk to do that, but I think if I can get into the high 70kgs I will be lighter and faster on my feet. This means that the big carb-loaded dinners followed by ice cream are out the window, and its salads and controlled eating, specific to training loads. I feel my daily eating routine is fine its the the large dinners that have hindered my weight loss despite high training volume. From now on my energy intake each evening will be lower and dependent on my next mornings training plan. I find I get a little depressed if I cant have a nice big carb-filled dinner, so I will need to find a light and healthy treat to cheer me up in the evenings.
Oh, by the way, I picked up some Ultra Muscleze a few days ago and have taken it for three nights in a row, at the moment I have no miraculous results to report, but it doses require a loading phase apparently and tomorrows run may be a good tester for cramping. I will keep you updated.
Thats me for today, I'm going to go put my feet up, I will post a race report tomorrow night.
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