My First Marathon

It is a little less than 1 month away from my first marathon in Mississauga (May 14th) and I've been training hard for the past few months. I consider myself a Trail Runner first and a road runner second. Most of the people that I run with seem obsessed with qualifying for the Boston Marathon. For those not familiar, the Boston Marathon is considered the "crème de la crème" of Marathon races. Unlike other marathons, in order to race in this one you need to qualify by running under a certain time based on your age.
Although I like road races I don't have the desire that some of my friends do for Boston. In fact, I'm using the Mississauga Marathon as a "hurdle" for my REAL goal and that is to complete a 50K trail race before September of this year.
I thought I would use my blog as a way to keep myself and others motivated by posting my training and nutrition program. I will try to update this daily but for now I'll give a brief synopsis of my week so far.
I've run 33K so far this week (Mon, Wed, Thur) all at roughly a 5:20 pace. This burns anywhere from 900 to 1000 calories.
I run at 5AM and prefer this time to train as it works with my schedule at work. Sometimes I'll run in the afternoon if I can't get out of bed.
My current weight is 163 pounds and I'd like to enter the Mississauga Marathon at 155 pounds. My body fat is anywhere from 11-13% which I'm happy with. My typical eating pattern is as follows:
Pre-Run @ 4:40 AM, 1/2 banana with 1 cup of green tea
Post-Run one banana approximately 30 minutes after my run. This is followed by a protein shake with some berries and my Multi Vitamins
Breakfast: 4 egg whites with 1-2 tbsp. of feta cheese, one cup of oatmeal with peanut butter, cinnamon and splenda (don't knock it until you try it)
Lunch: I've been at work so it's been tough to get a "meal in" so I've been using protein shakes or protein bars (Trioplex, Zone Bars or Meso Tech)
Mid-Afternoon: I make this my biggest meal of the day as I'm working until 8:30 most nights. I'll either have have another bowl of oatmeal with some protein (chicken, turkey) or I'll have some Turkey Chili with red potatoes. I like to throw in some fruit (oranges, apples)
Dinner: Usually another shake or bar
After dinner: This tends to be the hard part. I'll eat some carbs as I need it for my run the next morning and this could come in the form of a bar or two, sometimes rice cakes, sometimes a protein shake with some peanut butter.
My total calories hover between 3000 and 3500 with approximately 50% being made up of carbohydrates.
I'll begin carbo loading today in preparation for my long run on either Friday or Saturday (32 to 36K). What this means is that I'll take in a little more carbohydrates and not as much protein. I'll also eliminate fiber from my diet as much as possible. I find that this practice works well for my body.
I did the Seaton Trail race last Saturday and was happy with my time of 2:43 for 26K. You can check out my pictures at:
http://ouser.org/photos/06/st/?image=_mg_8725
My next race prior to Mississauga will be May 6th which is a 30K race called the Toronto Ultra Race.
Wish me luck!
Greg