6 Weeks to the NYC Marathon: You Are What You Eat – Don’t Bonk!
30/09/2010 § Leave a comment
Goal last week: 27 miles (5 miles, 19 miles, 3 miles)
Actual mileage: 20 miles (17 miles, 3 miles)
Goal this week: 28 miles (5 miles, 20 miles, 3 miles)
Dear readers, I must ask your forgiveness as I skipped a week in detailing my training and progress. I am faulting my mismanagement of my diet for this lapse in training and posting! As I noted in an earlier post, I did the BluePrintCleanse last week for 3 days. While I completely believe in the benefits of detoxing and will do it again in the near future, it was not the best idea for me to try to do this in the midst of training. In order to prepare for the detox, you have to make changes to your diet – remove dairy, meat, processed foods, and eventually cooked foods – and you have to slowly phase these foods back in when you come off the program. It is definitely an aggressive removal of carbohydrates and additional calories, which would be okay for someone just working out a few times a week, not someone trying to run close to 20 miles in one go. So this meant that I attempted one long run during the phase-in period, and another in the phase-out period (and in between runs, the only thing I “ate” were the juices). Both runs were bad, and it was rather discouraging.
I have belatedly realized I am much too close to race day to try to fiddle with my diet. Right now, I should be concentrating on maxing out my carbohydrates, fluids and salt – having only juice for three days is just foolish. This last weekend, I actually attempted to run 20 miles, but I estimate I only managed to run about 17 of those miles and walked the rest. My energy level was low to begin with, and when I attempted to remedy that by eating my energy gels, it immediately upset my stomach because I had not had any processed foods in my system for over a week. I then tried to drink some Gatorade (side note: always carry some money with you on your long runs in case you need something you didn’t think to bring with you!) and that didn’t help at all. The day was warm and I was out much later than I wanted to be because I wasn’t running… So I bonked, and bonked hard. I completely walked the last mile, I felt woozy and weak, I tried to sit down for a moment but that made me feel even worse, somehow. It was an awful run and I decided to never repeat it. The only bright spot was the fact that I did see Ethan Hawke running along the Hudson River complete with stoller, kid and dog.
This week, I have put new emphasis on eating enough food — and the right balance of foods — to keep my feeling strong for my long runs. Lots of whole grains, lean proteins and good fats. I went on a 5 mile run on Tuesday and I felt great! I am sure that my body is strong enough to run 20 miles, the question is if there is enough gas in the tank…
Stay tuned as I attempt 20 miles this weekend! Happy Running!
Quite Continental 
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