ROCK AND ROLL SATURDAY and SUMMER TRAINING

Hi,
Below is information on our summer training and some tips re. food, hydration, bathroom, warm up, mental state, etc:

I. SUMMER TRAINING SUPER SALE!!! Yay! Look at these exciting prices for the summer:

8 Tuesday Track Sessions from 7/5-8/23
-track workouts which will incorporate some core / strength training at the end of the workout. If you are more interested in running, you can shorten the strength portion of the workout. For beginners, this session will involve more strength and less running while you build up.

4 Thursday sessions (7/24, 7/21, 8/4, 8/11
-runs working on hills, tempo, stairs, pacing, etc at various locations)
Total=12 sessions

PRICES
8 punch card (use for any of the above runs): $90 (returning clients=$85-bring in a new client who purchases a card and get an additional $5 off).

12 punch card: $130 or $120 for returning clients

Drop ins: $15

II. GET READY TO RACE:

1. BATHROOM: You get there. You have to pee. The lines are 100s of people long. SUPER SECRET PEE SPOT:
go across the start line and jog for about 200-300 yds. To your left, you will see a honey bucket of love!!! Maybe 5 others seemed to know about this when I did the race leaving 29,995 to stand in line.

2. EAT and drink well the day before. You don't have to carbo load. How you eat the night before will have less impact than how you've been eating the weeks / months before. However, eat something you know will sit well the next day. As it turns out blackened salmon was a bad choice prior to the Mercer half.
During the race, half runners should have at least one food item (gel, etc) on them. Marathoners should have about 3. You should never count on the race to provide for you.
Post race: water, coconut water, chocolate milk, drinkydrinkdrink. Have a banana or something simple to hold you over until the food frenzy (brunch) at Rachel D's.

3. Warm Up: if you are not planning on going out at a difficult pace for yourself, you can think of the first 2-3 miles as your warm up. For you PR seekers, you should do a 10 minute warm up minimum. Jog a bit, run some fast striders for 5-10 seconds, jog some more, do dynamic stretching (high knee, butt kicks, etc).

4. Mental State: You are not truly a runner until you get a little insane. You are all physically ready for this race, and usually people have a good performance in a racing situation. This does not mean that every mile will be a party. Try to keep your focus positive when you hit the rough miles. Maybe you have a mile split you're not proud of. That's ok. Focus on the better miles you've had. Think about where you started with running and where you are now. If all else fails and you get really despondent, consider the people out there running on a prosthetic or in a wheelchair, and tell your inner voice to give it a rest.

If you are going for a specific time, have a general plan of where you want to be at each mile. Remember to factor in the hills. If you feel like you're getting stuck in a pace, do a strider for 50 yds or so to pick it up. When you slow back down, you'll usually slow to a faster pace than what you were holding.

Finally, be proud of ANY performance you do whether you hit a goal or not. If it's not a great day, celebrate the fact that you pushed through it. Either way, you have all trained well and hard. We hope you'll have an enjoyable race and look forward to hearing the race stories at the brunch!