I'm also on Team Every Other Day. I bring the two active pairs of Brooks Ghost I have in service at the time and use one pair for the 5K and half and the other pair for the 10k and marathon.
Bolding from me for emphasis, because I don’t think this can be emphasized enough! 4 Dopeys under my belt, plus more other multi-day challenges than I can count, and I swear every training cycle, I tried something in a b2b2b (or b2b2b2b) simulation that would have been miserable during the actual races: poor shoe choice for that day, a pair of tights that were fine for 3 miles but I hated after 18, learning that yes I really did want to start with gloves on with the temp under 60º, even if it meant discarding them 2 miles in (which sometimes meant needing multiple pairs of cheap gloves for a multi-day challenge), discovering that I craved a Pepsi/Coke/Sprite around mile 20ish, finding that I needed a plan for dumping Tailwind out of a tiny baggie into my bottle with a strong wind blowing, etc. Not once have I not learned something new that would help on race day by testing things in training!I'm going to echo the "try it out on your simulation weekend" comment. Those weekends aren't there just to train your body for multiple days. It is your best test what your equipment (clothes, shoes) should look like, what you fueling (days leading up to, pre-run, during, and post-run) should be, and what works best to recover properly by the next day. My goal for the final simulation is for it to a complete simulation and where I put everything together and do a final check. If I've tested everything on previous runs, I should be able to walk away with a complete plan.
Then the hard part is the self-control to stop overthinking and resist the urge to tinker with the plan.
Totally agree with testing everything out... but I never would have thought of the impact of wind on reloading an electrolyte drink!
Oh yes! I started doing what I’d always done before: open the tiny ziploc bag, pinch it a bit, and pour into my bottle from maybe an inch above the bottle… and a wind gust blew it all over the front of me. I subsequently trained myself to put the top of the little bag into the mouth of my bottle to pour!
This worked! Thank you!!
