T-7 Days until Napa Valley Marathon– Carb Loading, Tapering, and Mental Preparedness – and YOU have the opportunity to help impact our success! Get involved and provide Motivational Mantra’s that Two-Gether Runners can use during the Napa Valley Marathon!

Well we are now seven days away from the Napa Valley Marathon.   After last week’s long run we are feeling good about completing the marathon on time.   For the next week we will be focusing on final preparations which consist of tapering our runs, fueling our bodies for marathon day (proper carb loading), reviewing race instructions and guidelines and most importantly mental preparedness.

Mental Preparedness and Motivational Mantras– WE COULD USE YOUR SUPPORT! – I would have to say this is one of the most important focus areas this week.   I cannot tell you how words of encouragement and support from our family and friends can impact overall results! Many times during the marathon we draw on the comments, phrases and motivational words that our friends and family have provided us the week prior to the marathon. Sometimes these become our mantras during the race, especially during the last 7 miles when our bodies hit the wall. Here is a great article on The Magic of Mantra’s: http://www.runnersworld.com/race-training/magic-mantras?page=single   No kidding- you can have impact on our success! Please post words of encouragement and motivation on our Fan Page- Two-Gether Runners or on our blog Post and we will keep you posted on how and when we used these during our race!

You can be 100% prepared but if not mentally prepared everything could fall apart! For instance, yesterday I went to do a short training run on my treadmill. When I went to get the treadmill set up I discovered that our basement where my treadmill is located was flooded. Therefore, I could not run on my favorite treadmill that I have done my training runs (when I could not run outside due to cold).   It is still way too cold to run outside so I decided to run on an old treadmill that we have that we could move to another location in the house (This is the treadmill David has been running on when we run at the same time). This treadmill is a very old treadmill and does not have the cushioning that I am familiar with on my treadmill. It also has a lot of slippage in the belt which made it difficult to balance and there was no assurance that I was not going to fall off of it or get injured. As you can imagine, this run did not go well. A run not going well at this time messed up my mental state as I head into next week’s marathon.  I ended up having some pretty serious pain in my Achilles’ heel last night and some of it is still there this morning.   Not good. I need to keep training (just small runs) this week in order to stay limber and I am not sure how this injury may impact those runs.

As I have written in my earlier posts, one of the challenges running as a couple is insuring that you are supporting each other and are “in tuned” to any issues or concerns that come about and could affect your running together in the marathon. David was very “in tuned” to what happened with me yesterday both mentally and physically. He immediately got the wet-vac out and spent the majority of the day removing the water out of the room that holds my treadmill so that today I could have the opportunity to run on it and readjust my mindset.   I will still have to take it slow due to the pain in my Achilles heel but just getting on and running or fast walking is very important to me to be prepared mentally!  In addition to fixing our water problem, he volunteered to massage my foot last night. I had to decline because it hurt so bad- but will probably take him up on it tonight!  I am so thankful for David and all of his support- I am so lucky!

Nutrition and Carb Loading-As far as fueling our bodies we will start carb loading around Thursday of this week and will insure that we are drinking plenty of water all week long. Starting on Thursday about 95% of the calories we consume will be from carbohydrates. Here is a great article from Runners World about how to properly carb load and what can happen if you don’t carb load- http://www.runnersworld.com/nutrition-runners/fill-er?page=single We will also be continuing to take double dosage of Juice Plus during this week to help with battling any inflammation in our bodies caused by oxidative stress from our previous training as well as the stress that will be imposed on our bodies on marathon day. There are many studies that are available as to the benefits of Juice Plus on Muscle Function and Oxidative Stress- http://cynthiahanna.juiceplus.com/content/JuicePlus/en/clinical-research/published-medical-and-scientific-journals.html#.VOomFWo5Dic

Race Guidelines and Preparation-The Challenge of the “no headphone restriction”. The Napa Valley marathon has a no headphone restriction in place. In fact, if you have headphones on you will immediately be disqualified from the race. This will be a challenge for us as we have ran all of our races with headphones (less usage in those races where they had bands along the way such as the Rock N Roll Series Marathons).  I am also not a talker during my marathons because I have a tough time of keeping my heart rate stable (I have been diagnosed with mitral valve Prolapse and typically have spikes in my heartrate up to 200+ beats sometimes).     Once I get past about mile five it is easier for me to have a conversation so the first five will probably be tough as I won’t be able to talk much to David but again he knows this is an issue with me and understands when I just nod when he is talking to me during this time period. David, on the other hand, is a talker during the race and is “in tune” with what is important to me. He talks with others around us and tries to encourage others and keep me entertained while keeping my mind off of any negative things that could be occurring. While I may not reply to him, he knows what works for both of us.

We know that with your support in providing us words of encouragement or MANTRA’s that we can use during the marathon we will be successful and once again complete another marathon Two-Gether!

It’s all about that Mantra, bout that Mantra, bout that Mantra!!!