Training For A Race? Follow These Five Easy Steps

160 days. That’s all I have left to train for Disney’s Tower of Terror 10 Miler. Eeeesh, when I put it that way panic starts to set in. I mean 10 miles is 16 kilometres, and 16 kilometres is almost half a marathon! I’m not even running a full five kilometres yet! Holy cow! What was I thinking?!

*hyperventilates into paper bag*

Okay, I’m going to talk myself off a ledge here. I have a plan. In order to keep my plan effective I’ve kept it simple for myself, with only five main components.

1. Motivate Myself

I am notorious for falling off the running bandwagon, which is really kind of sad because it’s so much harder to get back on once you’ve fallen off. This time though I have three driving motivators:

  There’s no better place to run a race than at the happiest place on earth.

  I’m running with friends and frankly they’ll tease me relentlessly if I give up.

  I’ve just announced my goals very publicly. Feel free to check in on me and tell me to get my butt moving from now until October 4th.

2. Set Goals For Myself

A girl has to have goals. I’m a big fan of the Couch-to-5K app and its sister 5K-to-10K app. It sets goals for my running in manageable increments, allows me to track my progress and I can even connect with friends on it. It also includes tempo runs and interval training which is key to running the distance.

3. Rest When I Need To Rest

Perhaps the easiest step of all and yet the most dangerous. Rest likes to whisper in your ear “C’mon, yesterday was so much fun chillin’ let’s do it again.” So I will respect the rest, but I’ll go right back to step 1 the next day because it’s only 160 days until that race creeps up on me!

4. Focus On Building Muscle

I’m going to be a lean mean fighting machine. Okay, fine, just lean. Whenever I trained before I never spent any time building muscle. Apparently this was a big mistake because lean muscle mass is exactly what my body needs to run the distance. There is no better muscle builder than lean protein and since I’m already mixing in the right ratio of proteins to carbs, I should be floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee any day now.

5. Ensure That I Incorporate Protein In My Diet

In times past, I’ve never paid much attention to diet and running. This time I’m becoming way more savvy about it, mostly because even before I started training, I noticed that every day after lunch I would crash and burn. A relative pointed out that I was likely not getting enough protein to get me through the day. Looking at my diet, she was right. I was loading carbs all day and then getting my protein in the evening.

Now that I’ve started running, I’ve been getting protein at every meal and my energy is consistent throughout the day. Meat is the best source of a complete protein you can find because it contains all 9 of the essential amino acids necessary for the dietary need of humans.

Now that I've added training into an already busy schedule, the biggest hurdle for me has been finding a way to mix in complete proteins without having to cook up roasts and chickens constantly. I definitely don't have time for that. Thankfully, Maple Leaf offers a whole array of complete proteins that are conveniently ready for me pre- or post-work out.

My three favourites are:

  Country Naturals — I was a fan of Country Naturals before Country Naturals was the cool kids lunch meat. I've recently discovered that Country Naturals also offers frozen turkey burgers. I’m all for firing up the barby now that spring is finally here.

  Prime Frozen Chicken Strips — I love sending these chicken strips with my kids for lunch. I cook them up the night before and then send them in their lunch with an ice pack. Recently though, I found that if I cook up some for myself too, then I’ve taken care of my protein needs as well.

  PROTINIS — PROTINIS are a new, perfect, and portable snack, made with chicken and fruit and they’re exactly what I need to help keep me fueled for the entire day.

So, that's the plan. Seems simple enough.

Although, the real challenge will be following through and not falling off that bandwagon again, but you're not going to let that happen, right?