Dietary adaptations

My paleo eating plan has been changed slightly for the past week, and I think it will remain so till the marathon is run. On Friday night, before my long run, I ate brown rice with my dinner, in an effort to start eating a bit more carbohydrate, then I used gels and sports drink on my run (pure sugar!) Last night, I also tried gluten free pasta with a paleo meatball and tomato sauce. It was okay, though if I'm going to use pasta, I might just go the whole hog and use whole wheat.

I must admit, I am feeling hungrier than normal this morning, and I wonder if it's the carbohydrate effect. It's such a long while since I had pasta of any sort, I'm not used to the feeling of massive fullness, then the emptiness afterwards anymore. Another thing is that I've become very spotty in the last few days, around my cheeks and neck, including a particularly attractive one on my upper lip. That could even be a cold sore, which thus far I haven't been prone to. I wonder if I'm run down, or not eating well enough. Or could it be down to the reintroduction of carby things? Interesting. I'll give it a week to see how it developes. It will be fun though, to tryto carb-load in the three days before the marathon :-) Then ice cream after. Oh yes! I shall enjoy that!

A new bum bag arrived today, one that should be big enough to hold my phone (which is masseeeve. A phablet in fact.) I think I will try listening to the radio on my long run this week, to see if that diverts me from the three and a half hours of being inside my own head (never a good place to be for such an extensive time :-D ) I'm also trying to find a nice route to distract me. It's a lot lighter earlier these mornings (thankfully I'm not as self conscious about running in the daylight anymore) so I might use the coastal path from Holywood. It's hilly in parts, but lovely. Maybe that'll take me out of myself a bit.

My latest marathon tome is Angry Jogger, by Angry Jogger. It's funny and full of foul language, right up my street. The writer is from Norn Irn too, a bonus which makes up for the fact that he's not a woman, which goes against my current marathon book policy. (Yeah, yeah, a very sexist policy. Get over it!) It's also about his first marathon attempt (in Belfast just a couple of years ago) and his gradual change from fat bastard to uber fit, ultra distance runner. By way of a bonus, his marathon training program is the very same book that I'm using, so I'm really looking forward to seeing how it pans out.