Wednesday, April 18, 2012

An Eureka Moment

As you all know, I've been experiencing a little lack of luster in my running. My legs have felt tired. I've felt tired. Long runs have become difficult.

Ca&Mg on my new Runner's World!
 went out yesterday to do an easy 7 miles. Um, NO. That did not happen. I did a very difficult 3 miles. My legs were heavy. They turned over slow. They felt delayed in response to me trying to get them to work. And, they were a little crampy.

At mile two, after walking TWICE, I had a eureka moment. This has happened before! I've had all these symptoms my first season when I was training for a half marathon. That season I tried eating more bananas. Nope, no help. Then I tried taking an OTC for leg cramps, quinine. It didn't help either. What did the trick was increasing my calcium and magnesium supplement. Instead of taking one tablet once a day, I started taking it one tablet twice a day. And I swear with in two days of adding it my leg turn over, cramps, and heaviness dissipated.

When I'm not actively training I cut it back to one. Last year, while training for the marathon I kicked it back up to two and while I may have had days I didn't want to run, my legs rarely had days they couldn't run.  But, I forgot this for this season. I realized my mistake at mile 2 yesterday. I am now back to two a day and am hopeful that my legs will get back to normal!
I am not the only one!

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