Adventures in Ageing and Marathon Training

I've never really been someone who fears growing older. Truthfully, I've enjoyed ageing - becoming more secure in many facets of my life, drinking wine that cost more than $5 a bottle, embracing my love of hanging out at home some weekends, and now, I'm excited to move into the next phase of my life - marriage and starting a family.

But when it come to marathon training, ageing, for lack of a better word, sucks.

I've read about how after a certain age, your metabolism slows down, and that is definitely happening to me. In my early 20's, I would eat tons of junk and drink like a fish, and I was fairly thin. Now, I don't have that same leeway - even though I love candy and chips, and I will have a piece of chocolate or two often :) But now I am learning the importance of fueling my body properly during the week, not only to deal with my slowing metabolism, but so that I don't feel disgusting during my mid-week and long weekend runs.

My training pace group leader has been talking about the importance of eating and drinking properly during the week, and I am believing in this much more than last year. I don't know if I was just lucky last year, but I felt pretty good throughout the majority of my runs. This year, I am feeling fine - but I want to feel great.

For the rest of my training, I am aiming to do the following to improve my marathon experience:

- Be in bed by 10:00 each night. I can stay up and read (not on my phone), but I think I would feel a little more rested if I actually started lying in bed early. I would love to do my mid-week runs in the morning, and I'm just not there yet.

- No alcohol Sunday evening-Thursday night. I don't drink much during the week, but I do go to the occasional happy hour, and I use that as an excuse to skip mid-week runs sometimes. This will keep me on track with my mid-week runs, and it'll probably make me feel better anyway.

- More veggies in my diet. I have improved my eating habits slightly, but I really don't eat enough veggies (I do eat plenty of fruit).

- More yoga and pilates. I have a couple of pilates and yoga DVDs that I can do quickly in the mornings, so that my body can bounce back quickly from my longer training runs. Plus, I keep hearing about how a strong core can help your body run more efficiently, and I haven't seen my abs since 2000.

We'll see how this all works out...wish me luck!