10/15/2022 - 12 Miler
With 85 days until the Walt Disney World Marathon, today's prescribed training distance was 12 miles - my longest run so far.
Today’s training plan called 12-mile long run, the furthest I’ve gone in a long time. I’ll admit, after seeing a 12 miler on the calendar, I was a bit nervous - however, I’m determined to do my best for my next race so I was also excited to see how I would do on this session.
As a start, I worked with my coach to figure out a good way to break down this kind of distance. We ended up breaking it down into three 4-mile segments, with the first segment at easy, then a moderate pace, then back to easy. To help me track this on my watch, I set up a custom workout to break this down even further with the following:
1 mile at warm-up (super easy pace)
3 miles at an easy pace
4 miles at a moderate pace
3 miles easy
1-mile recovery
Pre-Run Nutrition
I started preparing for this distance the day before by staying well hydrated throughout the day and finishing off with a nice serving of lasagna (carb load!) for dinner. When I know I’ll be doing a long run the next morning, I like to top off my hydration at night with a Nuun Rest tablet.
In the morning, I started the day with a light serving of oatmeal and water. For added hydration and nutrition, I also drank a can of Zoa Pre-Workout Energy. It contains some vitamins, caffeine, and nitric oxide which I find to be helpful on my long runs.
In-Run Nutrition
During this workout, I carried two 11oz bottles of water, with one of those bottles containing Liquid IV for electrolytes (and flavor) and the other bottle just being regular water. I also packed with me 4 packets of Gu Rocktane Energy Gels. Since I had a small breakfast in the morning, I ended up consuming my first gel about 20 minutes into my workout, followed by another gel about every 30 minutes during my workout. By the end of the run, I only consumed 3 gels but emptied both bottles of water.
Cooldown & Recovery
This was a very exhausting run for me. As I entered the last mile, I was out of water so when I got back to my car, I immediately started to hydrate. I had water mixed with Protein2o Whey Protein waiting for me. In addition, I consumed a Maurten Solid bar to help with the refueling. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack a banana but consumed one as soon as I got home. As I lay in bed writing this up, I’m contemplating what to have for lunch, but after burning about 1,300 calories from this workout, I think I’ll treat myself to something tasty.
As part of my recovery plan, I’ll be doing a stretch routine with Pliability a little later today along with a nice rest day tomorrow to help prepare for next week’s training.
Training Thoughts
On Thursday’s 5-mile run, I tried to play with pacing, but that left my legs feeling a bit heavy yesterday, and woke up with them still feeling a little tired this morning. This had me feeling even more nervous about today’s distance and questioning if the 12 miles were something I’d be able to hold at a steady pace.
With the first mile, things felt very good as I kept things at a slow, warm-up pace. Since I was already exhausted from the past few days, I decided to keep my second block of this session at the same effort level, especially since I knew I wanted to push a little bit in the next block. This was a bit easier than I had originally planned, but I knew I needed that with the many more miles ahead of me.
Things were starting to feel good when I entered the 4th mile or the start of my moderate effort block. I slowly upped my pace at this point but paid attention to my breathing and heart rate. While I was excited to go faster, I knew I wasn’t even halfway through the goal distance, and pushing too hard, too soon would make the rest of the run difficult. I focused on keeping my heart rate at the 150-155bpm effort level during this block. Unknowingly, I did a progression during this part of my workout which was nice to see in my Strava.
At the end of mile 8, I was back into my easy block where I intentionally slowed down and tried to bring my heart rate back down. While I did slow down the pace, it was difficult in keeping my heart rate at or under 150bpm. The last 2 miles had a slight elevation gain, which resulted in me working a bit harder than I had originally planned.
By mile 12, I was exhausted but surprised I was able to do all of this with no stopping or walking in between. My average pace of 9:34/mile was also surprising to me! This has me confident I’ll be able to hit my race goals in January, but there’s still a lot more work ahead of me to be ready for that including a 14-mile even longer run for next week!
While I am tired from this run, all in all, I felt good finishing it. For as much as we can be nervous, many times, we’re capable of doing more than we think we can. Today’s run is a testament to that. Next week’s 14 miler is again a bit intimidating to me, but seeing how well I did in today’s workout is a sign that my body’s adapting and getting ready to take on longer distances.