Running Naturally

This weekend, I was down in Eugene, OR participating in the Eugene Half Marathon. Great town, great race, great time with a friend... pretty much my nirvana. The only bummer was not getting to hang out with my kiddo, but she was with Grandma and Grandpa and really couldn't have cared less where I was: they feed her Mickey Mouse-shaped pancakes and therefore win.

Going into this race was an interesting one for me because I've been performing really, really well in my races lately and I was hoping to do the same here. My previous personal best in a half marathon was 2:14:something, and I'd had to walk a bit. My goal during this race was just to run the whole time and finish somewhere under 2:10:something. Well, the race gods were with me, and I ended up doing 2:01. And :17, to be precise. Wowza!

I'm going to go ahead and attribute most of this to my eating as of late and my eating right before and during the race. To be fair, I've been turning in better times since the beginning of the year and this little race series I did, but the times just in the last few weeks have really been above and beyond. I'm really starting to think that eating these whole foods and striving for the right balances of protein and carbs makes a great deal of difference.

I also was really careful about my eating leading up to the race, trying to make sure I had good complex carbs for energy and some protein to help my muscles recover. The day before the race, I ate my yummy oatmeal concoction and then had fish at both lunch and dinner with veggies and rice and bread. Oh, and a beer with dinner. :) (I'd really like to think that helped.) In the morning before I ran, I had bread (would have liked it toasted. Thanks, Best Western!) and peanut butter, along with most of a banana. I also was sure to hydrate really well. Feeling good, I went off for the race.

It's what I did during the race that was a bit different and seemed to work well. In the past I've used the various sports goo things and had Gatorade or whatever electrolyte beverage. In doing some reading on Runner's World, I saw a suggestion of trying honey instead of the goo. I did that on a few long runs, and I'm hooked. It tastes way, way better, is all natural, cheaper, and really does seem to work. It's lower in carbs than the goo, but you can just have 2 or 3 at a time. They go down really easily on their own, or some water is fine too. The only bummer is that the packets can be a little hard to open: I had to ask a spectator to open one for me in Eugene.

I also drank only water along the way and after the race, having read that the different electrolyte beverages aren't really needed unless you're a super elite athlete. Given that "super elite" is not a title I can put before "runner" in my context, I have been drinking only water and liking it. No artificial colors or flavors either, and certainly no extra calories.

All in all, this mixure of things I tried really worked, so I will definitely be doing it all again in two weeks for the half marathon in Spokane that I'm doing. Well, that and wearing my timing tag on my right shoe. I'm totally sure that helped as well.