Today I finished my 8th week of marathon training.  I’m now 1/3 of the way there!

This week wasn’t too bad.  I wouldn’t classify as a great week, but I think I got through it quite well.  Once again, I now have a new weekly mileage high of 45 miles.

This week was the first time I had to run 10 miles in the middle of the week.  As I mentioned recently, I noticed that on my Thursday runs, my legs just feel drained and it’s a struggle to get through it.  For this Thursday’s run, which was 10 miles, I decided to take a Gu with me.  Normally, I only take gels on my Sunday long run, but I remember it wasn’t that long ago that my Sunday long run was 10 miles and I used to take 2 gels on those runs.  I took one gel which I ate at mile-5.  It made a huge difference to me.  Right on schedule, about 1.5 miles later, I noticed I was actually running faster without even thinking about it or trying.  The gel helped me up until the last mile where I once again started to feel drained.  Next time I’ll take 2 gels.

The other change I made this week was on Sunday’s run which was a 16-mile run.  I remember from the previous week that on my 15-mile run, I actually ran out of water in the last 1/2 mile.  This time I took an extra 20 oz bottle of water which I left at a sign at a street corner that I would pass several times as I do a few loop before heading out for the bulk of the run.  Together with my water belt, I had a total of 60 oz of water.  I was much better hydrated. But probably not hydrated enough….

I decided to weigh myself before and after the run.  My net loss for the run was 7 lbs.  When you factor in the water I consumed, I sweated out about 11 lbs of water weight!!!