Frequently Asked Question #1

Between races, I thought I might answer some frequently asked questions. As I talk with people about running, non-runners or beginners have asked me several recurring questions. How do you keep your body going for so long? Do you lose a lot of weight while you’re training for a marathon? Why is it important to taper after your longest training run? What do you think about while on the trails for all those hours? How do you choose the races you’re going to run? And, of course, the ever-present confusion: Why do you run? I’d like to start with the “how” and work my way toward the “why.” So here goes.

Q: How do you keep your body going for a four or five hour run?

A: To me there are three keys to keeping up my 12-minute mile pace for the many hours I’m on the trail. Even a half-marathon takes me more than two hours, so I’ve had to figure out how to run through lunch while others are already in the recovery tent. Here are my essentials: peanut butter toast, water and energy gel.

Of course the food I eat all week before a long run is important, but I’ve never been very good at keeping to an overly nutritious diet for any length of time (that will be my new year’s resolution next year, I swear), so I depend on my breakfast before a race or a long training run more than dinner the night before. Here I’d like to offer a disclaimer and say that I am in NO WAY telling other runners what to eat. I have no training in nutrition and one could indisputably argue that I would be a much better runner if I got some advice on the topic. I’m merely speaking to what I actually do. And what I actually do is make myself a piece of peanut butter toast with half a banana on top about two hours before I start my run. I don’t like to feel hungry, and peanut butter seems to keep that feeling at bay for me in a way that oatmeal or even eggs don’t.

The second key to keeping me running is liquid. I prefer water to sports drinks, and I like to put a little sugar free lemonade flavored powder mix into my squeeze bottle just to entice my taste buds as I plug along. Usually twenty ounces will get me about ten miles if I’m well hydrated before I start. I’ve heard it recommendations about what a runner should drink for each mile she runs. I just drink when I’m thirsty and it usually works out.

Perhaps the most important element that keeps me moving is the energy gel I keep in the pocket of my running pouch that bounces against my behind. At about an hour into a race or a training run, those peanut butter toast carbs start to wear out. They leave me, like an unreliable boyfriend, alone and tired and spent, feeling older than my age. Fortunately, there is a quick fix in my back pocket, a fix that, once in my veins, brings me a renewed feeling of well-being, a blessed half hour, 45 minutes, perhaps, of energy. But you have to be serious about your running to be willing to suck the stuff down because it’s nasty shit.

Do you know the feeling of phlegm in your throat, say, when you have a nasty cold? When you’re hacking up the congestion from your lungs? This burst of energy in my back pocket comes in this form – of a snotty, slimy substance laced with the flavor of its foil packaging and the sweat on my hands. When it’s time, I dig one out of my pouch, hold the packet in my right hand and rip it open with my teeth.

I usually have “Orange Cream” and “Vanilla Bean” in my arsenal. Really, the flavoring serves only to distract from the consistency of the stuff long enough to get one swallow down a parched throat. I often gag as I squeeze it into my mouth, and a trace of it sometimes misses my lips and dribbles onto my chin. I wipe it with the back of my hand and then feel sticky as well as sweaty for the next hours of my run.

Like a tube of toothpaste, I roll the package from the bottom, wrap my mouth around the opening and squeeze the remains in. I always “eat” Vanilla Bean first, my “favorite,” if you will, because at least it reminds me of cake frosting at first squirt. Only upon swallowing am I reminded of the texture of raw oysters or lard.

But once I’ve got it down and washed my mouth with a swig of flavored water, I feel the caffeine and sugar trickle into my veins. Sweet, grateful relief! The exhausted tingling in my fingers disappears. My limbs come alive, the spring in my step bounces back. My mind grows alert, and I am once again able to lift my head and my thighs. I swing my arms through the air to give me momentum. My hope of finishing my run returns. I feel alive again for another three quarters of an hour. Then I pull out my Orange Cream and start over.

Each little packet of gel has 100 calories, which is about what I burn every mile while I’m running. During a marathon I might eat four or five packets just to keep me moving.

Hopefully this answers the question about the physical issue of how to keep going. Stay tuned for the “how to” of the mental challenge. And let me know if you have questions you want me to address.