Training for a marathon!

After years of being a potato couch, I've just decided to train for a half-marathon. For me, I need a big goal to make me work hard :P A marathon is 26.2 miles, so too big of a goal for me, but a half-marathon, at 13.1 miles, sounds much more manageable. Actually, I'll probably have to try a 5k first, but whew, wish me luck!

Fun fact: The origin of Marathon came from ancient Greece, during a war in which all the states on the Greek island lined up to stop the formidable Persian empire from taking over. After the Athenians (one of the states of Greece at the time) won a crucial and decisive battle, the Battle of Marathon, against the Persians, they sent a runner named Pheidippides to notify their city of the victory. He ran from Marathon to Athens without stopping, a route that was a total of 22-25 miles. Upon arrival, he exclaimed, "Νενικήκαμεν" (Nenikékamen, 'We have won.') before collapsing and dying of exhaustion. In his honor, they celebrate his run every year by holding marathons of approximately the same route, from Marathon to Athens. Interesting right? The author Haruki Murakami talks about his experience running this route in his autobiography, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (which is excellent).

Anyhow, to help my running, I stopped by Dick's Sporting Goods and picked up some goodies:

Camelbak Better Bottle 24 oz.

Detour Protein Bars

Muscle Milk in Vanilla Creme

Nike wristbands

Nike headband

Read more for reviews and my thoughts on them

Some of these items were more helpful than others. For one, I fell completely in love with the Camelbak Better Bottle. I drink so much more water with it, which I think is because the straw mechanism is super helpful for. Seriously, you NEED this bottle! I got the 24 oz one because I don't want to constantly refill my bottle (aka I'm super lazy).


Muscle Milk in Vanilla Creme. The vanilla creme part makes you think that it'd be delicious, but it's absolutely disgusting. I've tried muscle milk in chocolate before and it was bearable, but this is just extremely disgusting. Maybe if it's chilled and very cold, it will taste better? But gross! I took one sip and couldn't drink anymore. And I eat protein bars daily so I have a high tolerance for the mushy taste of whey protein!


Speaking of protein bars, I eat a Detour protein bar pretty much every day for breakfast. I got a huge pack at Costco with the flavors: Peanut Butter Cream, Caramel Peanut, and Chocolate Chip Caramel. I don't really like chocolate, so I didn't even try the Chocolate Chip Caramel yet. But Peanut Butter Cream is definitely the mushiest so far (it's just mush inside...mush imitating peanut butter). Caramel Peanut is decent because I love the tiny chunks of peanut inside! You gotta have some crunch along with your mush, am I right?


I haven't really used the wristbands so far, but it is very helpful when I'm running for a long time and (sorry, this is gross) I sweat a lot. I have not worn the headband yet because I feel ridiculous wearing it :) Maybe one day...when I'm at the gym at like 1 am.


P.S. I'll probably write some posts on the training food I eat sometime (egg whites, egg omelette, tofu, protein bars, veggie stir-fry, etc). I try to only eat super nutritious, fresh, and low calorie meals so I can keep up my energy but not eat so much trash.