Thoughts on Fueling and Pacing

It has occurred to me that the reason my long runs have sucked lately is because I haven't be fueling properly.

You'd think I would know this. But somehow the distance snuck up on me. I was still imagining that my long run was just an hour, when in reality it has grown to nearly two.

I sucked down a Gu Roctane prior to last Sunday's run and had a much better workout than I'd had in weeks. True I was inspired by my sister's childbirth ordeal, but the carb/caffeine bomb couldn't have hurt.

So now it's also occurring to me that long runs require planning. And equipment. One of the things I like about running is that it's blissfully simple. No tires to pump. No cap and goggles to don. Just lace up the running shoes and head out the door. Looks like I need to start toting a bottle with me, or plan a run that loops by the house or my car. It feels like a bit of a drag.

But I will somehow figure it out because it's becoming abundantly clear that building my running fitness makes a huge difference in the pool and on the bike. I'm no speed demon, but my swim fitness is far better than it was last year. I can plow through a practice without huffing between sets at the wall. I haven't gained speed, but I haven't lost any either. And that's on just one or two swims a week. Time to start working harder, methinks!

On the bike it's the same. I've not been able to get more than one ride in a week lately, but I still feel strong. That's relatively speaking, of course, but I don't feel completely out of shape. In fact, I feel pretty good.

One thing I need to work on is pacing. Craig gives me instructions like, "Run 45 minutes at a steady-state effort, which should be 15 on an RPE scale of 6-20." So, that's kind of like 10 on a scale of 1-15? Or 75% of an all-out effort? Hm. I don't exactly know what that feels like and I think I do it too fast.

Same thing happens on the bike. Today I rode with a strong friend. World champion level strong. But during our warmup she said, "Um, do you always warm up this fast?"

I had to laugh. I just go. I don't really think about my warmup pace! But I should probably start. And while we're on it, when Craig says to ride 45 minutes at that steady-state effort, it probably shouldn't feel like I'm racing, huh? Ugh. This is hard to wrap my head around.

But I think I know why I do this. When I started riding a bike, I rode with a crazy fast group. I was always struggling to keep them in my sights, which meant I would redline straight out of the gate. I got dropped a lot, but when I didn't, it was an all-out effort from beginning to end. That's how I learned to ride. It doesn't mean I'm fast, but it does mean I don't calibrate my workouts the right way. And if I did, maybe I'd get faster.

So now I'll be keeping a food diary, stocking up on gels, hitting up the local running stores for the perfect bottle carrying solution, and thinking hard about pacing.

Not sure it makes training more fun. But it will probably make it more effective.