The blame for the lack of recent updates rests completely with law school, I swear. I haven’t missed any training days, but I had a major analysis due yesterday so I had to devote all my time to completing that.
Trust me, 24 pages critiquing my own negotiating preparation & performance is not my idea of a enjoyable weekend. But I want to graduate, so I need to…
So while I have stressing over contractual clauses for insurance and negotiating a landlord/tenant agreement, I still managed to get my training sessions in. The key has been to do my runs first thing in the morning. When I get out the door for a run at 6:30am, that cements it as a priority and ensures that I don’t just skip it. That is simply too easy to do when I train later in the day.
It is a coincidence that Glass City is the weekend that law school ends, but I want to have a good race to cap off the three years I’ve spent at UT. There is a lot of pent-up anxiety with law school and a 13.1 mile race should take care of a good bit of that.
I’ve still been using my pre-workout GUs. Having something to kickstart my system when I train first thing in the morning continues to make an enormous difference in my performance. Bonking is both less frequent and less severe.
Recently, I have been trying out the fruity flavors in the GU line. Sunday was Mandarin Orange. I had this flavor first at last year’s Cap City 1/2 Marathon, but I really don’t remember much specifically about the nutrition. It has a strong flavor, but that flavor is definitely of the artificial orange variety. I don’t mind it, but if you don’t like orange flavored candies this probably isn’t for you.
This morning I grabbed a Jet Blackberry GU. Oddly for a GU, there isn’t much to say about this flavor. It has a not unpleasant berry flavor that’s not too strong. All in all, very unremarkable. There is something to be said for subtle flavor in race nutrition, though.
Sunday was another decent day in Toledo, and I needed to keep moving after the previous day’s long run. So Stacy and I took Leo out for a 2 mile walk to the neighborhood park. With most of my time being monopolized by law school, I treasure these stolen moments with my wife. There just aren’t enough of them, and there won’t be for at least another month.
Yesterday was not so nice outside, plus I knew that my negotiation analysis deadline was looming. So I hit up the Rec Center to do my run on the track without waiting for the sun to rise. The analysis had me feeling anxious, so I needed to burn off some emotion. I ended up doing a HMP run that wound up at roughly a quarter marathon distance. Exhausting, but just what I needed. Plus, I look to be still on pace for a PR at Glass City.
The HMP run combined with the LSD run on Saturday left my legs feeling a bit sore. Since I know I have little ability to throttle my pace once I start out, this seemed a good day to run on the treadmill. This would keep me at a reasonable pace and also let me watch ESPN while I get an easy run in! Score!
