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Today's LSD, Nutrition & an Intro to Advanced Run Form

This morning's LSD was a 16K. Here are my stats at RunKeeper- not bad.

I am trying really hard to follow the formula to race day. I was in bed early and although it was really hard to drag myself out of bed at 7AM on a Sunday, I was really looking forward to this training run. It rained lightly the entire time and we were drenched at the end. I had one running buddy from clinic who kept pace with me and we clipped along pretty well. On our gentle decline stretches we picked up pace to 4:00 + change. We finished strong and of course had the usual traffic interruptions to factor into our average times. We ran 15:1 intervals, skipping the first walk break (we were barely warmed up and just getting our groove) and using stop light delays in lieu of walks instead of taking both. We were disciplined enough to choke back a Gu gel- plain w/caffeine. It was a great run and I am feeling race ready.

Once home I hit a very hot shower to warm up and went straight to my replenishment meal. Ben makes a mean homemade pasta- for real. He also made a delicious Carbonara sauce, tabouli, spicy pimento cabbage chutney and homemade mayo for our veggie sticks. This is sensible and delicious fuel for training. I also had a slice of homemade toast with butter and a glass of water; and coffee of course. I estimate this to amount to about 550 calories- that seems like a lot for me to eat in a single sitting, but after an LSD I am replenishing the 900+ calories I just spent.

Yesterday I blogged about an interesting conversation/assessment I had with Julia Di Paolo of Physio Excellence regarding core function and run form. I have spent years of conditioning and training to improve my run form for 2 reasons:
  1. Less risk of injury- I want to be running when I am 60. Every injury is a set back and these chronic obstacles will impact the longevity of our sport on many levels.
  2. More effortless running- it is hard enough. Anything that will help my run to be more enjoyable is golden!
This year training for the Chilly Half and the Mississauga Half I have logged many km's over 8 months of solid training. I have spent my attention on form, refining it as much as I can. Julia left me with some insight into core function that I believe will help me further refine my core set both during exercise and also daily activities- active posture. I will be blogging about my training as I tackle these adaptations- it's a lot to cover so I'm going to break it down into the following:
  • Engaging the core while maintaining alignment
  • Controlling the breath while maximizing VO2
  • Optimizing core set with the lean form
  • Effective Thorax rotation
Working with these visualizations I adjusted my form today and had a remarkable run. I look forward to training over the coming weeks approaching race day and I will let you know how my refined form approach is working! Stay tuned.
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