My marathon training tools
AHHHH!!!
That’s how we feel right. about. now. T-minus 3 days until we are standing at the starting line in Dallas waiting for the gun to go off to run our first marathon. We seriously must be crazy!
But before we head to Dallas, we thought we would share with you the top ten tools that have helped us through our marathon training. All these products can be applied to any sporting activity, not just running.
Okay, here we go:
1. Cliff shots. When we trained for our first half-marathon back in 2008 we didn’t fuel at all during our training. Stupid. We know. All they had three years ago were Gu Shots that tasted like Big Foot’s unmentionable and they made us sick. So we decided to skip the whole thing altogether and balls it out. Well, we knew we couldn’t finish a marathon without re-fueling so we were SUPER pumped when we found these guys. They digest simple and taste delish. Our favorite is lemon-lime.
2. Body Glide. We were skeptical about this product because it sounds sexual, but it works. We put it under our boobs and in between our butt crack, yep the butt crack. Those are the only two places that we chafe. Weird.
3. Dog Leash. Don’t look at us like that? . Mr. B got us hooked on this little fellow. We use it to stretch our IT band. It hurts good.
4. Chi Running. Okay, we will give you the truth on this book. 1. 60% of it is BS. 2. 40% is actually useful. Danny Dreyer, who is a famous ultra-marathoner teaches you how run correctly. It took us about 3 months to finally get our form right and now our hip doesn’t hurt anymore!
5. Foam Roller. We use the foam roller to stretch out all the lactic acid that builds up in our muscles. It hurts like crazy but feels good at the same time. We promise it will be your new BFF.
6. Ice pack. Icing is a great preventative, it helps keep inflammation down. We'd ice after every run just to make sure that we wouldn’t cause any further damage to our knees.
7. Mediation book. We are big believer that running is more mental than physical. In any case, we think people over look the ability to prepare your mind for a strenuous event. This book was completely helpful in teaching us how to quite our mind and to become aware of our body, senses and heart. Mediation teaches you to see things as they are. It’s quite powerful.
8. Vitamin D supplements. We noticed during our training that our immune system became weak. We felt like we were more susceptible to colds because our body was trying to heal our muscles constantly. Our mom recommended Vitamin D supplements. After we started taking these bad boys we felt world’s better!
9. CamelBak. We tried do the whole fuel belt and run with water bottles in your hand, and we just couldn’t make it work. We love our CamelBak. It’s light and we can put all of our crap in the bag, plus our water is so handy. Just pull out the hose and viola, H2O!
10. Gum. Best idea, EVER. Mr. B also got us hooked on chewing gum while running. Say goodbye to cotton mouth!! At first we were skeptical because we didn’t want to choke while we ran. But we finally popped a piece in our mouth for our twenty-miler and was in heaven the entire time. Now we are obsessed!
Well, there you have it! Let us know if you have any training tips or products because we are always looking for new ideas!
Bonus:
Spibelt. This thing is awesome! We have been using this bad boy on our shorter runs because we wanted to get used to not having our CamelBak since we won’t be running with it during the race on Sunday. It can hold up to 5 clif shot blocks!!! A favorite part, it’s light weight and doesn’t bounce around. Yee-haw!!
