Minneapolis Taste Buds

After a little over a month off (sort of) since Grandma's Marathon, we've reserved our flights, hotel, and registered online for the December 7 Las Vegas Marathon! I'm actually looking forward to getting back into a regular training program. I've been running sporadically a few times per week since Grandma's and Mark's been running about once per week. We did the Boston Scientific 10K on Saturday. It was a great race and we both set PR's for the distance (my time even included a sprint to the porta pottie at mile 4 - mental note: arrive earlier to next race to avoid bladder emergencies). We're hoping to recruit some of our friends to come run with us or to cheer us on and celebrate afterwards. Hopefully they can make it! 20,000 runners - 250,000+ spectators - There couldn't possibly be anything this exciting happening in Minneapolis in early December.

We had a great, relaxing trip up to Two Harbors on Friday. We checked in at the Americinn and made our way back down to Duluth to the DECC to get our race info. We got rock star parking, got our packets, had our spaghetti dinner, and were back at the hotel by 8 ish . We watched Karate Kid and Caddy Shack (what better motivators??) and were sleeping soundly by 11. We got up (who knew it was light out at 4:30 am?) and had our bagels and went out to catch the bus to the starting line. One very long porta pottie line and an orange Gu later and we found ourselves in our starting line spots - Mark in the 3:20 zone (cripes, he's fast), and I, realist that I am, parked myself in the 5:00 region. I'd been estimating a 4:30 - 5:00 finish time based on my long training runs and the RunnersWorld .com pace calculator. Starting line The weather at start time was fantastic - in the low 50's. I started out well and flew through the first 10K. Then all the advice from every marathon-fi...

Just 2 more weeks of tapering to go. I had a really good 10-mile long-run along the river and the creek. A friend joined me for part of it and that made the run fly by. I felt great despite the humidity. My 20-miler last week, however, was not so pleasant. The first humid run of the season did not treat me well. The water belt was bugging me from the start as was an odd case of nausea . It took an embarrassing number of hours to finish, but I'm glad I didn't skip the last lap around Nokomis as I so desperately wanted to. It was a very off day, but I am still feeling confident about the marathon. It's amazing how many little details we're thinking about like where do you put all of your Gus and shot blocks? Which water stops do we stop at? Do we carry our own water so we can keep running if we don't feel like stopping at the water stops? Where the heck will our family find us? How long after Mark finishes will I finally make my way to the finish? How can I possibly...

We did our 16-mile training run on Saturday. Holy wind. I was cursing mother nature, especially around 14.5 miles when the backs of my legs started screaming at me. I drank a lot of water & Ultima Replenisher , but it wasn't nearly enough. I checked the label when I got home, "Cripes! There are only 3 g carbs per serving!" So, I'm looking for some advice on what to eat during the rest of my very long, long runs and during Grandma's Marathon . I'd like something, preferably not in GU form (it's a texture thing), that won't upset the stomach. Someone at Yoga suggested Clif Shot Blocks , which I'm open to. Gummy, fruity - what could be better? But I'm confused on which one to try - caffeinated or decaf. Who knew there were so many options? GUs, performance drinks, chewy things, jelly beans - I'm officially overwhelmed.

Recently my dad told me about a documentary he saw on PBS about non-runners training for a marathon. It's called the NOVA Marathon Challenge & you can watch it online here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/marathon/program.html

I'm certainly slacking with this blog lately and it seems to have turned into a running blog rather than a food blog over the past several posts. I'm hoping to get back into writing more about each as they've both become so important to me. We did eventually make it to Las Vegas for the half-marathon and it was a blast! We were delayed (very delayed) and I had a cold by the time we arrived, but somehow I managed to run a great race. I shaved 12 minutes off my October half-marathon time. My voice was 7 octaves higher than the day before due to my cold, but I was so excited when I finished the race. I've never had that same feeling before. Now Mark and I are heading to Duluth in June to run Grandma's! I had no intention of ever running a full marathan, that is, until my great race in Vegas. That's the thing about running. You start out, never really knowing where it may lead. Then all of a sudden you're into it. You buy the right shoes for your curiously flat ...