Shoppin’ and Advice Needed!

I had one of those twelve hours at work days today and decided to follow that up with a little bit of shopping at a mall on my route home.

Mostly because it boasts one of the two specialised running stores in the city and I found myself needing some stuff.

Confession time!

I hate carrying a water bottle and so I’ve never hydrated even on 90+ min runs.

I’m also really bad at carrying food. I’ve tried a few things – raisins, dates, jelly beans, gels even – and no good.

I also always hit a wall around 80 minutes in. The only time that didn’t happen was when I was doing a long run in a rainstorm last autumn and my mouth was open and I guess my hydration was better than usual.

With my first half marathon a mere five (!) weeks away, hydration and nutrition are very much in my thoughts.

So. As of today, I’m the proud owner of a four-mini-bottles Asics hydration belt. (While I was at it, I also finally got an armband for my mobile to free up my hands so that I could actually use the water bottles.)

I’m also trying out a new gel.

I got one in blackcurrant and one in apple. Let’s see how I like them. 🙂

Which brings me to advice needed!

I’m running 10k tomorrow. 5k on Sunday. Monday is usually off.

I have a seven kilometre race next Saturday, but my training plan calls for a 16km run.

I don’t want to skip yet another long run.

Here’s what’s in my training plan for next week:

Monday – off
Tuesday – 8 km
Wednesday – massage day
Thursday – 5 km
Friday – off
Saturday – 16 km
Sunday – 5 km

But. I have that short Saturday race.

I can see two options here.

A) Switch Tuesday and Saturday and do the long run already at the beginning of the week. Would keep the long run, but just generally mess with my regular schedule.

B) Do the runs as planned, but break Saturday’s run into two. Run the seven kilometres of the race in the morning and then do a 9 km run in the evening. Wouldn’t keep the long run, but would keep the weekly mileage.

Decisions…

What I know for sure is that with my HM so soon, I don’t want to mess with my mileage any more than I’ve been forced to so far.

Help?

***

Last but least, I had a lifestyle revelation today. I was on the bus home and this kid next to me was munching on chips, smelling up the whole bus. Now, while a year ago this would have created an insane junk food craving in me, today it just made me recoil from the synthetic smell.

And the mere idea of something so completely lacking in nutrition made my skin crawl.

Instead I came home and made myself a huge and tasty salad of tomato – tuna – avocado on raw shredded cabbage, seasoned with olive oil, lemon juice, a bit of salt and pepper and a spoonful of nutritional yeast.

It was delicious! And filling. And nutritious. And why has nobody forced me to try nutritional yeast before?! I discovered it for myself about a week ago and I’ve been pretty much eating it with everything since and I just can’t get enough! 😀

K.

Looking at the fog rolling in…tomorrow’s run will be more traditional for Estonian spring. Cold and wet. :p