Nutrition & Week 12 Update

Hi there,

Why are holidays so short? And which silly HR consultant/manager/professional came up with 15 days of annual leave? Had a great break from work but now back to travelling, running and focusing on the task at hand...

This past week has been a great running week- 90km in 7 days, 122km in 10 days. Best block so far. Feet are slightly sore but that is to be expected. 2 day rest now and then back on the road to tackle another monster block. Looking good for another +90km week this week and an epic 10 day block of 138km. Lets hope the feet don't fall to pieces.

On another note: I've been thinking about my nutrition for the race and my mind starts wandering to "How the hell am I going to get tuna, trail mix, and canned chicken into Namibia?" After watching Border Patrol on TV, I'm a bit concerned that I may be running the race on Hammer Nutrition Perpetuem and Hammer Gels only... Hahaha. Actually, I suppose that's the normal concern on every travelling athlete's mind. Never been stopped at Customs before so, touch wood, I won't this time.

Taken a pic of the meals to be tested so here is the menu:

Nutritious... Ah, high kJ content rather... and easy to cart in my baggage. Luckily the Sossusvlei Lodge is catering for dinner. All I have to do is bring my own breakfast lunch and snacks.

All for now. Comrades runners- Tee and Horstman- take note for your Comrades meals :)

Later,

Me

Welcome 2012- Happy New Year

Happy New Year (and Merry Christmas for 2011- a wee bit late on that one) to everyone reading this!!!

It is going to be a fantastic year ahead- plenty to be grateful for (The Man upstairs has blessed me with capable legs and athletic ability to complete and pursue what I need to, as well as the gift of hope and faith to believe in my dreams)!

So its been a while since my last blog post- and as you may have guessed- the month of November and December were murder, work was a real terror. But such is life... I have focused somewhat on the really important things and my running has been coming on quite nicely. If my training records are compared year on year, I tend to do my most amount of training during the Nov/Dec period- may have something to do with the stress/unstress effect of work and running.

Looking back at my previous post- I mentioned a wee trot through Northern Jozi called the RAC Tough One. A 32km end of the year race. The foot held up, the legs were great, mind was strong and the effort was tempered. 3hr19 for a tempo training effort- good running. The next race is the Dischem 21km in the greater Bedfordview area. The schedule calls for a back to back 30km over this weekend so I'll run to and from the race on the 22nd with a LSD on Saturday the 21st.

After this is the Johnson Crane Marathon on the 29th of January. This is going to be another back to back epic weekend (40km on the 28th, 42km on the 29th) so looking forward to this weekend with great expectation. This will also be my qualifier race for Comrades 2012 ( I finished the Johnson Crane in 2010 in 3hr59, 2 weeks after IMBC 70.3). The Pick 'n Pay Marathon on the 12th of February is also on the cards as a qualifier race.

To date, I have completed 657km in 11 weeks (ave 59.73km/week) with a highest mileage of 110.32km in 8 days.

The legs are getting stronger every week and my 2011 injury looks to be well healed. I have been investigating the minimalist side of running and after my injury in January last year I purchased Nike Free +2's which I believed strengthened my feet and aided in the recovery of my injury. I recently purchased the Vibram Fivefingers KSO TrekSport to further the strengthening processes of my feet and lower leg muscles and ligaments. The transition has been a year in the making so I'm handling the process quite well- will update more as the year goes on.

I'm down on a weeks holiday at the KZN South Coast so I've been running on the beach and dirt roads to mimic race conditions with the added benefit of more oxygen to help with the distance. I always enjoy running down here- the summer rain always makes the going a lot harder though.

Next week I'll be back to work and back to routine runs with the club.

Chat to you soon.