The Morning After, or Thank You, Lance Armstrong

As I finished my longest run ever and tapped on the "End workout" button on my iPhone, I heard Lance Armstrong's voice on my earphones saying "Congratulations, that was your longest distance run so far." Or something to that effect. Normally, I would have been thrilled to hear those words, but I was so tired, so worn out, and my cramps were soooo killing me, that I really didn't care much about the voice recording that Nike+ so thoughtfully provides for runners when they obtain a new PR (personal record). I wouldn't have minded if Lance, clad in his trademark yellow and black sports suit, suddenly materialized to pat me on the back, but nah, of course that wasn't happening.

I ran a full 25-kilometer stretch in 3 hours and 3 minutes. My longest run so far. Yoo-hoo!



That was two weeks ago. The week before that, I ran 21 km in 2h:30m. And just last week, I tapered down to 16 km. This Sunday, I'm supposed to do 29 km. Omigosh! The very thought makes my heart beat faster already, but a girl's gotta do what she gotta do.

So far, that's how my (very erratic) marathon training plan has been going. It's far from ideal, and there's barely two months of training left before the big day: December 5, the QC International Marathon, and my maiden full marathon.

I only do the long runs because I'm so busy with housework and stuff, but I hope to increase my number of runs per week, to include shorter distances and, who knows, maybe interval runs if I can squeeze them in.

What I've discovered as my biggest potential problem come marathon day is -- them darn cramps! I've noticed that after an hour of continuous running, I'd start to feel some cramping on my left shin. (My shins have always been my Achilles' heel.) Then by 2 hours, it'd be so painful that I'd have to walk a bit before running again.

But last week, the cramps didn't appear until after about two hours of running. That's progress I'm really happy about. It helped that I've been hydrating up to three days before a scheduled long run. I drink a few liters of water each day (and make frequent visits to the bathroom too). The next diet change I'll do is to drink milk regularly and maybe take calcium supplements. I hope these measures do work to eliminate the cramps altogether.

The morning after a long run, I notice that I don't feel as bad as I used to in the past. The typical morning-after limp is still there, but it's much reduced now. Going up and down the stairs is also more manageable; I remember having to really do it slow before and hold on to the sides of the stairs because my legs were really sore. Now things are so much better and I'm happy with the progress I'm making :-)

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can really make 29 km this weekend.