I'm halfway through tapering now. In about 10 days, I'll be lining up at the start line.
Its time to really get race ready. Training-wise, I've done all that I can, its now time to wind-down and recover enough so that physically I'm rested enough to take on the race on "fresh legs". So when I say really race-ready, I'm speaking mentally, nutritionally as well as gear-wise race-ready.
Mentally, I'm in a really good space right now. After my 19K run in Trivandrum, I feel confident I can run the full 21.1K, strong and at a reasonably brisk pace. I just need to keep other stress factors at bay from now till the 20th and continue to feel good about running the distance. "I got this"!!!
Nutritionally, I've always been weak on the hydration front. Getting my requisite water intake during regular weeks itself is a challenge since my thirst drive isn't very strong and setting reminders on my phone to drink up hasn't proven effective enough. Hydration during race week is that much more pertinent which means I somehow, simply, MUST drink more water. How though?. On the other hand, carb loading has never been an issue since our regular meals are generally high enough in carbs. Need to get in more protein than usual though, for the strength.
Planning my race-day outfit is one of the most enjoyable aspects of my race-readiness process. While I haven't yet settled on what I'm going to be wearing, I do know which shoes I'm going to put on. :)
During the course of my training I had to unexpectedly retire two pairs of running shoes. The outsole on the dark grey ones ("Smoky") had become worn out and had no traction left. I would find myself skidding in it on my runs. The outsole on the red & white ones ("Capsicum"), while otherwise good & dandy, just came apart one fine day. I did try sticking it back on, but that (as expected) didn't last. Smoky only had a mileage of 348 km on them and Capsicum was fairly new with just 266 km on them and both their uppers were still in great condition so it was quite disappointing to have to give them away. With two pairs out of commission, I was left with just one pair ("Guava") to train in and with more than half the training left to go.
I never really need much of an excuse to go shoe shopping and here was a perfectly legit excuse! Introducing Salt & Pepper! :) Salt is an ON model I hadn't tried before (Cloud X). It has more cushioning than the Cloud Flow model that I'm used to, but looks way more cooler if you ask me. To be perfectly honest, I bought it solely for its looks but after going on a couple of short runs in it, it feels like a winner all around. Pepper is the current edition of the Cloud Flow. The mesh on the upper is more close knit than the previous version but that doesn't seem to affect anything other than the look of it. It also seems to have a higher "roll" on the outsole from mid foot to fore foot which I think helps but it may be too soon to tell. The last long run I did was in Pepper and that went well, so I'm thinking it will work just as fine on race day. Now I just need to plan the rest of the fit around it.
Ooh! Excited! Before I know it, race day will be upon me!
No comments:
Post a Comment