I really enjoyed my long run this morning, I went out to a wooded trail and through my favorite park twice! Running into a family-friend whilst ordering coffee five miles into my excursion, I thought he was joking about me picking up sticks along my route after last night’s big storm, but I ended up actually moving a lot sticks and an entire tree! I always think about cyclists when I see sticks on the side of the road, or anyone really. You never regret preventing injuries moving things out of the way on trails or roads, plus no one wants to walk in the mud on the side of trails; slippery and dangerous. After 10 miles, and stick patrol, I treated myself to some Poland Springs water and a Red Bull to ‘give me wings’ for the last few miles in my stretch (thanks for the $10 dad😂). You can never run too many miles in Marathon training, it feels good to be back in shape and running & running all the miles. 😊

It is so important to eat and drink when you run a lot. During my 15 mile run today, I needed to stop and eat or have coffee or more water. If you are going to burn an extra thousand or more calories you need to eat bagels and have mineral water with electrolytes. Food and water is definitely standard for athletes! I hope no one on the blog ever runs for three hours, feels starving and like they cannot eat or drink anything, the idea of that is morbid as everyone should have plentiful nourishing provisions for running.😉 My well seasoned adult male cardiologist always tells me to eat carbs with gluten, and drink tons of electrolytes (fancy water), baisically my prescription to run every day. My cardiologist and I are huge on splurging for spring water with electrolytes, he also says coffee is vital for heart health as they prescribe me gourmet coffee or expresso as well. All competent male doctors in the most prestigious specialties of medicine like cardiology or neurology, will tell runners to eat and drink everything they want to in order to stay healthy. The coffee thing is real for me, there was a time my heart rate would never go over 40 and caffeine really helped get me going! My sister is the opposite, caffeine makes her heart race, but my heartrate is so low I need caffeine; Midodrine is the medication I used to take to raise my heartrate and blood pressure three times a day for years. Having air conditioning helped my blood vessels stay fit to keep my blood pressure up, as compression socks help with too. I used to have syncope because of blood pooling, low blood pressure and a low heart rate. Coffee, compression socks, AC, eating and drinking are big components for all us marathon runners. Plus, the smell of coffee opens your lungs up. Drink coffee and eat carbs. ☕