#RunTheDate May 20th – 20km. Another Hungry Day Perfectly Timed for First Split Runs

There are two reasons why this is different today. Firstly, the 20km is made up of two runs of 10km; first time I’ve split a run day. Secondly, I’m writing this part of the post before I’ve been out for the second run. ‘So what?’ I hear you cry.

I’ll tell you what. Today is another hungry day. It’s a bit of a surprise since I ate my body weight in pizza last night and then some more. I didn’t expect to wake up hungry. Even so, a bowl of porridge for breakfast and I was on my way for run 1. I’d planned to do today in two lots of 10km so as not to take up a huge chunk of the day at once and to see the effect it had on my legs before things got too full-on towards the end of the month. Only having 10km to do also made it much easier to accept the hunger, I’d have struggled with the full 20km in one go morning.

It was a beautiful morning and, knowing I was only doing 10km to start, meant I totally ignored the fact that I had another 10km to run later and went off too quickly. I also soon realised that, in spite of my porridge, I was still hungry. This didn’t stop me enjoying the run, as sunny as the morning was:

Often when I’m hungry on a run, it’s all-consuming and I can only think about eating. This wasn’t quite the case today since I also had my legs to think about. The reason I realised that I was going too quickly was that my legs were obviously tired. Not really achy but it’s getting clear that there is some fatigue in there somewhere. They definitely begin to complain when they’re made to go up hills, especially at sub 5:00/km pace.

A good lesson for me to slow it down anyway but if it means I’m less aware of how tired my legs are getting then all the more reason to do that. I’m much more inclined to go down the route of sticking my head in the sand about my tired legs than try and address it.

Just kidding, I am foam rolling and stretching them when I can in the day but there’ll be no getting away from the fact that they’re going to start getting tired. With scenes like this at the moment though, it makes it so much easier to deal with:

So, here’s the experiment I’ve been carrying out today. I’ve been eating a lot. Not just crisps and biscuits either, well some crisps and biscuits but a lot of fruit and veg too. I’ve done some stretching and rolling so it’ll be interesting to see whether this helps my legs and general hunger level for run 2 later on.

I intend to run slower later too so all of these things together should hopefully help. Time will tell. Well, for you guys, you can just read below. I’ll be back later with the Run 2 results…

(6 hours later…)

Well that was a mixed bag! Ultimately, having piled in the fruit and veg as well as good, filling foods like eggs during the day, I was in better shape than I would have been this morning had I needed to do the full 20km. The problem is, by the evening, my legs are tired in general after a full day.

So, yes, my hunger was better although even then, by the end, I was still dying to have dinner. However, my legs were more achy. To be fair, they probably thought they’d done for the day and got away with an easier day. They were bound to argue when forced out for the evening to pop out another 10km.

Luckily, it was still brilliant weather so a pleasure to be out for Run 2:

All in all, today worked well with two runs, mainly because I woke up hungry and would have struggled with the full distance early on. However, the two runs aren’t necessarily best for my legs. Recently they’ve taken nearly 10km to loosen up so in reality they’d be happier getting the distance done in one, if that fits in best at home.

This will only work if I manage to keep the calories piling in. I had a good day of healthy, recovery eating. That certainly did the job but I still began to feel hungry yet again by the end of Run 2.

Therefore, I’m about to put stage 2 of the calorie input strategy into place. Takeaway curry anyone?

Half marathon early on tomorrow. At least a half marathon every day from then on. Things are hotting up now.

Usual reminder of why I’m doing this:

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/tomfanthorpe2