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GARVOC runner VIRGINIA MOLONEY is preparing for her first Commonwealth Games. She is sharing her journey with The Standard readers.
I am someone who prefers Winter to Summer. Maybe it’s from years of growing up in the south-west that I feel most comfortable training in cooler weather and even the rain. So in order to best prepare for the marathon in six-weeks time, I am determined to make the heat and humidity my friend.
Acclimatisation to conditions is a major factor that needs to be taken into consideration and respected when racing a marathon. We like to allow plenty of time for acclimatisation and luckily for the Australian team, we are coming off the back of a warm summer.
When I was preparing for the Gold Coast Marathon last July, we went up to Noosa 10 days prior to the race, to get used to training in the heat and it certainly paid off for us. Unfortunately, we can’t just pack up and move there for 6 weeks, as nice as that sounds.
This week, we moved all training sessions to the late afternoon, when the heat was at its peak. Longer runs, closer to race pace, can be the most difficult yet most beneficial sessions for acclimatisation.
On Friday I gave myself a rude shock. What was meant to be an enjoyable, 60 minute run after a big school week, ended up being a really tough and mentally draining slog. I had under-prepared from a nutritional aspect and had not checked the weather, so I was not ready for 60 minutes of a hot head wind and 32 degree heat with no water. We learn from these experiences and it’s better it happened on a Friday afternoon in Melbourne than on April 15th in Surfers Paradise.
In the weeks leading up to a race, we start to structure our training so that they are more race specific. This means practicing taking gels, pre-race meals and devising hydration plans, because, in the heat we lose sodium and electrolytes.
We will trial different meals pre-long runs and I’ve found in the past that for me, a few pieces of toast with a banana and peanut butter with a cup of tea, is a good pre-race meal as it’s easily digestible, light and has a good amount of carbohydrates.
We plan our meals so that they have plenty of protein for recovery and carbohydrates for fuelling. Flavoured milk is one of the best recovery meals due the amounts of sugars and proteins it has.
Pre-run, we tend to try and limit the amount of protein we eat as it’s not as easily digested and can often sit in the stomach. This is an important part of the carbohydrate loading process that we will plan for closer to the marathon.
So it looks like another hot week of training ahead, which means the perfect week to start trialling some new nutritional techniques in the heat.
