Now that the birthday has come and gone, a new countdown is on the brain: 17 days until Marathon Training! Eek!
To start off the countdown, I went for a run tonight with my New Zealand girlfriend Hilary (love her accent!) who just happens to be a crazy (yes, I said crazy) Ironman chickie. But not just any Ironman, oh no, she’s like an Ironstar! In her last race, the New Zealand Ironman in March, she placed first in her age category (25-29) and finished the race in 10 hours and 41 minutes, and had shaved off an hour from the first Ironman she did in 2008. And get this, she only just learned how to swim at 21! You’d think that after a race like that, she’d take a bit of a breather. But no, she qualified for the Kona Ironman in Hawaii, and was headhunted by Team New Zealand to compete in Ironman Germany – both of which are this year!
For those of you who don’t know, an Ironman consists of a 3.8 km swim, a 180 km bike ride and a 42.2 km run … and here I am worrying about a measly 42.2 km marathon!!!
She is seriously my inspiration! She goes out twice a day on runs or rides or to the gym (yes, she actually goes to the gym, unlike some of us … ok, maybe just me) and this weekend she was up in Penticton and for the heck of it, she ran a half marathon, followed by a 180 km bike ride – for the heck of it. That’s dedication!
Tonight’s run was a pretty hilly route, and I don’t know the exact details as my Garmin crapped out right at the start … note to self, charge the Garmin next time. But we kept a pretty easy pace so that we could talk and catch up; we had a lot of catching up to do! I got engaged and married since we last saw each other, and she’s also recently gotten engaged and is now in the process of planning her wedding – so much fun!
And I loved being able to glean information off her about marathon training. She said the biggest thing is to just follow the training plan and don’t overdo it (least that’s what I heard through the traffic and my huffing and puffing :)) And she said that I’ve got oodles of time to become Marathon Ready for the Portland Marathon in October – yay!!!
It was probably the warmest run I’ve done of the year – it’s about time! – and it would have been fine had my stomach not decided to revolt halfway through. It was burbling and tossing and turning and begging me to please, please, please stopping bouncing it around – I blame the Luna Bar. I’ve been trying out different energy bars before my runs to figure out which ones will shoot my blood sugars up and which ones won’t. The Luna Bar (Smores flavour) was actually great for the blood sugars, but NOT great for the belly 🙁 And as a result, I ended up wimping out on two of the hills, and had to walk up them, which irritated the heck out of me! I love hills, what the heck am I doing having to walk up them? And why the heck is this happening when I’m running alongside an Ironstar? Seriously? Bad belly!
What are your go-to energy bars for a run?
TONIGHT’S RUN:
- • 5:20 p.m. BG before: 7.4 (Luna Bar 1/2 bolus)
- • Distance: approximately 8 km (it was supposed to be an out and back, but we found a set of stairs (Hilary likes the stairs :)) and we made a loop of it)
- • Average pace: Not a clue
- • 6:20 p.m. BG after: 5.7
After we finished, I went to stretch in the parking lot next to my car, while Hilary went to do speed drills at the track. Did I mention she was crazy – but in the best way possible 🙂
It was a great run! I enjoyed the sun! Thanks xx
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