It's day 1 of week 41 of my USA 2011 training schedule. This week is going to be a little different to previous weeks. In the 14 weeks that I have managed to run 50 miles or more there has been one common theme; hunger!
More often than not, as soon as a long run is over I've eaten the wrong types of food. I've always looked for a quick fix to restore lost energy forgetting that I should be eating to aid my recovery. An example of this would be a 5 mile run in the morning, followed by porridge for breakfast (ok so far). Then, say, an 8 mile run at lunchtime followed by sandwiches, crisps and 2 or 3 bars of chocolate. The meal following the evening run would usually have no quality but plenty of quantity about it which leads to various cravings the following day. Those cravings being for salt and sugar. Now what are the two types of food I'd most likely go for in those categories? Bacon and chocolate!!! Consequently, the more I run the more I eat poorly and it ends up being a vicious circle.
So this must come to an end this week. Running 90 miles in training was quite a shock to my system and I've coped with it quite badly from a nutrition point of view. This week I will be focusing fully on nutrition. I don't expect to get it right this week or next and there will be times when I run out of energy. But, just as I have learned to run considerable distances over the years, I must now learn to back that up with the correct food. I'm very lucky to have David Fairlamb and Mark Fleming on board giving me the right advice. They've been giving me this advice from day 1 and I haven't always listened. I had a right ticking off last week from them and I haven't gone near a chocolate bar since!
Back to this week though and I'll be starting proceedings today with an 11 mile run. This particular route has over 1700 ft of climbs in it and I'll be looking to better my time from 2 weeks ago (01:47:11). The route can be viewed here.
