Currently relaxing and enjoying a couple of fresh from the oven health(ier) chocolate chip cookies.
Later this month I will be participating in this race. I am only doing the 10k! No half marathon for me yet, thanks! I've never even done a 10k before, they have all been 5k's! Thus, I am making saturdays my "long" run days. "Long" as in, today was a little over 4.5 miles. It's not a long run by any means, but at this point it is for me. I need to work my way up to 6 miles slowly. Next week will be 5 miles, then 5.5, et cetera.
........ohmygodthesecookiesaresogood...!!!
Ahem, anyways! Yes. 10k. My main goal for the 10k is simply to finish the race. I have no doubt that I'll be able to finish it, but I won't be very concerned with time. 5k's for me are about speed. Since this is my first 10k I will need to shift gears and focus on getting the distance done. At this point I don't have to be fast, I just have to build mileage. Same strategy goes for these saturday runs. I didn't even wear my watch today, I just had a rough idea of what time it was when I started and that was good enough for me. I figure it took me about 45 minutes to run 4.70 miles. I'm perfectly ok with that! This was a great run. A little achy towards the end, but I still felt like I could keep going - thus I ended up taking the long way back and it ended up being a little more than 4.5 miles. Weather was good, felt good, good good good!
Last night I went to Sports Authority and bought a small buffet of energy chews and whatnot. I bought a pack of each of the major brands I've heard about so I can test them and start figuring out which one works best for me. Behold!!!!
Most people only need them for really long distances, but I'm special! Since I'm hypoglycemic I have to be extremely careful to make sure my blood sugar doesn't drop too low when I expend alot of energy. I'm technically supposed to have sugar after 30 minutes of intense exercise (I'd say running is pretty intense, yes?) but I can go longer than that. Heck, I could have gone the 4.5 miles without anything and just had my homemade sports drink when I got back to my car. But I think around 5+ miles is when I might start to crash. I am pretty sure I will need to eat during my 10k (and I will definitely bring something with me), so I need to start testing out different foods now in order to find the one I like best. Never try anything new on a race day!!! I know that as I start undertaking crazier adventures - longer races, more intense activity, obstacle races, I will need to at least bring snacks as an emergency. Last week was a reminder of how bad things can get when my sugar drops.
Today I tried out the Honey Stinger (Fruit smoothie). I got 2 packs of these because it's the one I am most interested in. Organic energy chews? Hell yes! They are super tasty too! I ate 4 of them and they did the trick for me. No blood sugar drops and they didn't upset my stomach. I hear alot of people get tummy upsets with the gels, but I did buy one just to try it out for myself. Whenever I run I always get a little burpy/nauseous for a few minutes (especially if it's an intense run) but I can run through it and it'll go away. As long as I'm not doubled over or puking my guts out I'm good. Haven't been there yet thankfully.
So Honey Stingers - good in my book! I'll be trying out the rest over the next couple weeks
I am now tired and full - dinner was crock pot chicken/veggie tacos, then those cookies I made were so filling! They are whole wheat/oats/dark chocolate, I could only eat one before feeling completely stuffed. Time to call it a day here in the next hour or so and get some awesome sleep
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