Today I finished the intense training period with 10 km (or more) every second day. I did the 10 today on 49.30 but that was quite tough. I won´t try to keep that speed on the half marathon... but I will try to aim for 5 min per km since that is easy to follow during the race. I also forgot to wear my knee support today and I didn´t notice until I was finished! I think that means that my strategy for the intense training worked. I assumed that if I forced my knee to withstand the 10 km like any other training round that would both physically and mentally give some result. In fact, the 10 km now feels like any other training round and I feel ready for another 10 km!
Training is one thing but your diet is also very important. I continue my normal diet but stay easy on the alcohol intake. I do feel some urge for carbohydrates but until next week I have stayed low on these as well. There are two reasons for this, I´d like to lose a few kilograms before the race and I want to get the body used to running on other fuels. I think I´ve read that the glycogen depots will not stand for 21 km so you better get used to this change in metabolism. I also use some supplements to my diet, being a blood donor I need extra iron fx. I donated ½ liter about three weeks ago so I hope that I have regained most of these erythrocytes. I prefer 100 mg capsules with ferroglycine sulphate since that won´t make your stomach bad (like cheaper iron supplements). I also take saw palmetto, but that´s another story. In my profession I made a visit about a year ago at the plant where they make Astaxin®. It is a strong antioxidant (astaxanthine) made out of red algae and I´ve used it since then. When I start using these supplements I always make it in "quasi-scientific" way, i.e. I eat the drug for a couple of weeks, stay off for a couple of weeks and then back again trying to evaluate what effect it has on my body. Today I purchased a vitamin+mineral supplement (Mitt Val "My Choice" Sport) with an extra high content of vitamin C and E and the minerals selen and magnesium.
