Hi Tim, Sorry you got sick rest up and you will be fine. Coaching my speedgroup tonight. Will probably be doing that in the rain. My workout today is 3X5k at 4 minutes per K with a 1k jog in between. Last longer tempo before next weekend's marathon. Best Tall

Sorry to hear you missed your speed workout Tim. There will be another soon enough. 6 miles this morning with 3 miles at tempo pace. I averaged right about 8:00 minute miles for the tempos. Quite a bit slower than last weeks 5 miles at tempo, but no matter. It's a sweat-a-thon out there. So what do y'all think? Should I run my race totally by feel - never looking at the Garmin - and just let whatever's going to happen happen? Or should I check my Garmin every once in a while (like every 100 meters or so!) and make sure I'm spot-on MP? The 1st approach risks either running too easy and never getting down to MP, or running too fast early on because it always feels easy early on. The 2nd approach risks a late bonk if the MP is not sustainable. Opinions? Bill

I vote go for it Bill, Don't let the nerves overtalk all your training. You are going to do great. I unfortuantly have put my self on the DL for the last week. As you may recall I have been bothered by a bad calf muscle and took 4 days off 2 weeks ago but as soon as I returned to running it flaired back up. I then wanted to run the 25k Race with Mary but secretly told my wife it was probably a bad idea because the only reason I wanted to run it was to race at my MP and see how it felt. With the leg still bothering me I was unsure if it would do more damage than good. Well as things turned out my Granddaughtetr was born at 9am last Saturday so I could not race anyway. I took that as an omen and put myself on the DL for at least a week and vowed not to come back until I felt 100%. My leg feels much better with just a hint of pain so I am hoping Saturday will be my restart date. I am scheduled for my 3rd 20 miler on Sunday but I think I better put it of until next week. I am going to re _evaluate after a ful lweek of running on what to do about my marathon in June. If I am still having some issues I will most likly just run it for fun and not worry about BQ until fall. If the issue comes back full force I may back it down to a 1/2 marathon instead or even not go at all. I am sure I have the training in me to get me close if I can just get consistant with my training from here to the end but it is getting a little late in the cycle to have any more set backs. Anyway I just needed to say this out loud so that I won't do anything stupid. I know all of you will talk me back down to earth if I get to crazy. Larry

Bill, leave the Garmin at home. Go out today and with all that money you make, buy yourself a simple Timex Ironman watch with lap feature and use that. The Garmin is useless on a certified course and runs the risk of simply confusing you. Check your mile splits and be very gentle in that first mile. You are in perfect shape for staying on your targeted pace. Tim, if you come home today feeling like a new man, DO NOT RUN. Use the day to recover. And don't do a hard workout the next day either. Just run 3 slow-easy miles. Prime Rib comes home from NY for the summer and we're pretty excited to see him. As I know I posted here, he did an internship with National Geographic Adventure magazine this semester and had a wonderful experience. Off to run some. Spareribs

Bill, Run with a simple watch. My body knows 4 minute per K pace and I only need to check every 5k although in the later stages I tend to check a bit more often. The key review points for me are 1k, 10k, 21.1K, 30k and during the Ottawa marathon the most important point for me is 33k which is where the real race begins on the Ottawa course (there is probably a point on your marathon course too). Mine is at the crest of a big hill with mostly a slight downhill to flats to go along the Ottawa canal. Leave the garmin at home, it's a distraction and can play mind games with you if it loses it's signal or works improperly...I know it's happened to me. Cheers

First glad to see somebody at least thinks those super long journal article reviews of reviews are worth something! I hope they help evanflein, WillRunForBeer, dg.,Tramps, and always Spareribs who like me is over the top when it comes to information gathering . eliz4015 a busted Garmin?! My life would be over I tell you over! My only advice is order one now! Well, actually that is my only advice. breger1 I would run it at MP pace and then if you felt like you could not make it the whole way that fast just back off. But Spareribs is right the Garmin's pace tracking feature is worthless. An alternative to the Ironman option is to just use the time and lap feature on the Garmin. Rearrange the watch windows to display each in some fashion that you like. But just forget about what it thinks your current pace is or pace is so far. Every posted mile hit the lap button and you will see your split pace which is what you are looking for. halllar I hope you are back on the road soon. But you are right to hold off until you heal up. stumpy77 glad my DW is not here to post about the what it is really like to live with me day to day! Yesterday's discussion reminded me of many threads I have read about whether or not you should take in fuel during a race and how long the race should be before you do so. Since I now had the position statement in hand I figured what the heck do they say? Bottom line: If the race is under an hour, in the morning, and no matter how short at least have a sports drink or something pre-race. For anything that will take you an hour or more start taking small amounts early on during the race in about 15 to 20 minute intervals. (That is way more often than I have been doing!) Do not eat something that is just fructose. It can have fructose in it with glucose but not just fructose. On the other hand glucose alone seems to be fine. The results on whether a mix works better is itself mixed, but it looks like it cannot hurt so go for it! Mix your fructose with glucose before ingesting! Translation: look for both on the ingredient label. Here is the actual passage from the report where I have edited some symbols to make sense given what the forum can display. Current research supports the benefit of carbohydrate consumption in amounts typically provided in sport drinks (6%-8%) to endurance performance in events lasting 1 h or less (103-105), especially in athletes who exercise in the morning after an overnight fast when liver glycogen levels are decreased. Providing exogenous carbohydrate during exercise helps maintain blood glucose levels and improve performance (106).] For longer events, consuming 0.7 g carbohydrates*k/g body weight/h (approximately 30-60 g/h) has been shown unequivocally to extend endurance performance (107,108). Consuming carbohydrates during exercise is even more important in situations when athletes have not carbohydrate-loaded, not consumed pre-exercise meals, or restricted energy intake for weight loss. Carbohydrate intake should begin shortly after the onset of activity; consuming a given amount of carbohydrate as a bolus after 2 h of exercise is not as effective as consuming the same amount at 15- to 20-min intervals throughout the 2 h of activity (109). The carbohydrate consumed should yield primarily glucose; fructose alone is not as effective and may cause diarrhea, although mixtures of glucose and fructose, other simple sugars and maltodextrins, seem effective (107). If the same total amount of carbohydrate and fluid is ingested, the form of carbohydrate does not seem to matter. Some athletes may prefer to use a sport drink, whereas others may prefer to consume a carbohydrate snack or sports gel and consume water. As described elsewhere in this document, adequate fluid intake is also essential for maintaining endurance performance.

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