Archive for June, 2008

You know that old adage, “Never try anything new on race day”? I’ve reinterpreted it to mean, “Do lots of new stuff on all your training runs.”

Today I:

1. Brought 2 handhelds (40 oz. total)
2. Took S!Caps (electrolyte supplements)
3. Took 2 gels
4. Diluted said gels in one of the bottles
5. Peed standing up on a usually well-populated trail
6. Stopped at a gas station for more water (20 oz.)

To start with, even though I set my alarm for 5:30am (scorcher today), the stupid cat started talking loudly at about 4:30 (damn attention whore), so I got up at 5:00, giving me about 4 hours worth of snooze. This was the only thing lacking in today’s adventure.

Oh, that and the fact that in searching for a bathroom I’d seen on an online trail map, I stopped to ask a guy if he knew about this mystery bathroom but forgot to turn my Garmin back on for a chunk of time, so my planned 16 miler became 17.15 (I was being stubborn…did not want to go back home with less than 16 on the display of my Garmin). Turns out the maps that are actually on the trail show no sign of that bathroom, so the Wissahickon Running Club needs to update their website. Too bad, as it would have been a well-situated place for water bottle refilling.

Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about gels and how to deal with them, and spurred by my love for the clip-on pocket, I just ordered a clip-on gel flask. I think that’s the perfect answer because I could dilute them to milkshake thickness as opposed to the original snot consistency, avoid sticky fingers (which is an annoyance every time I open one of those suckers), not to mention I won’t have to open them on the run or look for a garbage can when I’m done and who likes sucking foil, anyway?

But a gel flask would have been overkill today because I was already having to deal with 2 handhelds (which worked just fine, btw!). I even avoided using my clip-on pocket by designating one of the handhelds as my gel bottle, dissolving two vanilla gels into it before I left the house. It was surprisingly palatable considering how warm it was by the time I drank it.

I took an S!Cap before I left and one each hour for the next couple hours, then one last one after I hit the gas station for more water, because I downed most of that sucker in just a few minutes. I could have taken more of the caps – it says every 1/2 hour when it’s hot and it was 80 degrees out when I started – but since I was doing all this new stuff at once, I didn’t want to chance anything weird happening, like bloating up.

As for peeing standing up, it’s something I tried while hiking on vacation and it’s a quick and easy way to relieve yourself, even if you’re a girl. I also realized today that from that back, you can’t even tell what I’m up to, so how handy is that? Anyway, it was early and there were few people on the trail, so I thought, “why not?” Plus, I was literally soaking in sweat, so I figured if I missed, no one could tell, anyway. Lol.

So I ended up drinking 60 oz liquids on the run, plus 16 more when I got home. I’m happy to have finally gone to that gas station, it’s good to know that stopping like that isn’t a big deal. I’d always avoided it because it’s another street crossing and then having to stop the clock for the purchase is an annoyance (oh god…there goes my training!). Even though a water fountain was only 2 miles away, I’d been so good today about giving my body what it needed that it was a no brainer. Plus I was dying.

I won’t lie, it wasn’t an easy run as hot as it was, and I started faster than Pfitz’s “MP + 20%”, but I still managed to make it a progression run and my pace was good despite carrying both water bottles. More importantly, I didn’t experience any pains, twinges or aches anywhere the entire run. Fabulous!

As far as gels, they definitely helped, though I didn’t feel it as a burst of energy, likely due to me drinking them in 20oz of water – a slow and steady intake. It was a little too easy to drink though, I finished the gel/water bottle around the time I was supposed to take the 2nd gel. Also, I didn’t eat anything before the run, so that would have probably helped, too. Live and learn.

Once I got home, a frigid bath sounded downright luxurious, so I soaked the ole bones in cold water and then afterwards, ate the best hot dog I’ve ever had. It might be time for a nap now, but first…must kill the cat.

As the runs get longer and the heat gets hotter and wetter earlier, I’m finally starting to pay attention to the nutritional side of running. For the most part, I’ve been pro “train your body to go farther with less” (touted by a couple important running gurus), so gels and supplements haven’t shown brightly on my radar.

I practiced using gels a few times on long runs last Fall and learned that you need adequate water with them or you can get the stomach cramp of death. I also learned they can be sickly sweet and that chewy alternatives (beans and bloks) can be more annoying by glomming onto teeth with glue-like tenacity, not to mention the high choke factor. I did eventually find Hammer Gels were palatable without being too sweet and didn’t cause cramping, but since I wasn’t using them on anything less than 16 miles, water and maybe some Gatorade were my mainstays.

For the last few days, I’ve been voraciously reading everything on energy/fuel and now question the “train your body to go without” theory. I mean, why? If I can have a better run with some fuel, why not take advantage of it? The hard part is determining what really works and what works due to the placebo effect.

And then there is the whole electrolyte question, which I’d conveniently ignored until now, because the subject always made my eyes glaze over like a Dunkin’ Donut. No more! I thought lack of electrolytes was just responsible for making you cramp, but before that happens, it will start to zap your energy – especially if you’re a salty sweater, as I am.

Gatorade has electrolytes, but about 1/4 of what you’d need in an hour, plus it’s all acid and sweet and I know one day it will make me want to puke, and besides, who wants to train with whatever drink the race provides when water and a salt pill will do ya? So, after reading shitloads of posts in trail and ultra running forums, I ordered some S! Caps from Succeed. It was between them and Endurolytes from Hammer, but the S! Caps have more sodium per capsule so you don’t have to take as many. Hopefully I’ll get them before my long run this weekend. Experiment #1.

Experiment #2 was today on a sweaty 10 miler, when I finally put to use this handy removable pocket I got last year (super light, didn’t even know I had it on!). I knew I’d be out for an hour and a half which is an appropriate fuel-worthy amount of time. The problem is, I don’t get hungry on runs, sometimes it’s hard to want to eat, so I accounted for both sweet and savory by filling it with pretzels and a gel. I figured between the two, I might find one appealing.

Here I am today, in all my accessorized, sopping glory. This clip-on pocket worked perfectly and unless I find a particularly fetching pair of pocketed shorts, I’ll use it in the marathon.

I ended up chomping a few pretzels, and again, more cheers for the pocket…I didn’t even have to open the flap, just stuck my finger in and pulled out one at a time. Pretzels also happen to be a good high sodium alternative until my S! Caps arrive.

Looking ahead, Saturday is a recovery run, then Sunday I’m doing 16. The challenge there is that I’m opposed to wearing a hydration belt ever again, so it’ll be my first time running with two handhelds! Mark that down as Experiment #3. Watch out people, Mad Doctor in the house!

Glad that’s over. :-)

I was doing my best not to fear today’s run (8 w/4 tempo) but was admittedly kinda nervous because, aside from strides, it’s the fastest I’ve run since my 10-mile race on May 4th, not to mention my mileage has been whacked drastically since then.

Additionally, looking at Pfitzinger’s schedule the other day, I realized that while some things seem easier to me (one hard run a week instead of the two I’d been doing), he adds a level of difficulty by padding those quality runs with some extra miles, so today’s run had 3 warmup miles instead of my usual 1 or 2. Pooh. I like to get rid of hard workouts as quickly as possible, but Pfitz would prefer us to suffer more. Oh well.

I aimed for the conservative side of the range, figuring 8:00 would be doable. Ended up with an 8:01 average, so I’m feeling good about it. This is my first hard workout in ages, so I’ll get back to my April tempo speed before too long, I’m sure.

Aside from the tempo run, I forgot to mention that on vacation, while running on a Holiday Inn Express treadmill and simultaneously admiring myself in the mirror, I realized that those comfortable sports bras I’ve got a zillion of are comfortable because they suck. My boobs were losing more calories than my body was, they were flapping around so much. So last night I finally weeded all offending undergarments from my drawer. It was an uplifting experience. Yuck yuck. Now on to Target to replenish my supply…

I switched my long run this week from tomorrow to today because there’s rain in the forecast tomorrow but not enough of an accompanying temperature cut to make me want to be in it for over a couple hours.

Took some Luna Moons, which is unusual for me, I don’t usually eat anything for a med-long run, but I didn’t eat any breakfast, so thought I’d test them out.  Very tasty, but as usual with chewy things and me on the run, I had one near-choking experience.  I actually felt pretty energized a while after taking them, but I’m so cynical about such things, never knowing if it was the Moons or some good songs on the mp3 player, or seeing cute guys running the other way.

Other than that, I just happened to be in the park at the exact moment the swimmer’s horn went off for the Philadelphia Triathlon, so that was fun to see a sea of bobbing heads take off.  Was worrisome though when, on the way back, an hour and a half later, there were still about 4 people finishing up the swim.  My heart was with them in battle.

The first part of today’s post is for Garmin users. I’ve colored it blue so you non-Garminites can skip ahead.

I use SportTracks with my Garmin. It’s a fantastic free program that does an incredible job of dissecting your runs every which way. The one thing that constantly bugged me on it, however, was elevation data. It was always really weird for me, so much so that I couldn’t use it. The ups and downs never correlated to my route, even the ever-present last hill before I get to my house always showed as going downhill, of all things, so I’d end up going to Mapmyrun.com to check elevation profiles.

Now there is an elevation plug-in that is supposed to correct all that, but I’ve continued to have these wacky elevation anomalies anyway. So, last night, in a fit of aggravation, I started reading more about the plug-in, which mentions for “custom elevation data” (whatever that meant), you need to also install the GDal plug-in and then get some other data from some huge-ass elevation databank.

I really wasn’t able to understand what I was supposed to do, but as usual, that didn’t stop me. Following their instructions, I go here and swipe Philly and some surrounding cities, saved the data and hoped that would automatically fix it. No change. Next, I changed the order of the elevation models in SportTracks under Settings. Again, no change.

Today, I finally got it in my thick head to un-apply Elevation Correction in SportTracks, then re-apply. VOILA! The elevation data is finally correct and usable! So for all my Garmin friends who have given up on having elev. data they can use, there is an answer and it works perfectly! Just download the plug-ins along with the correct elevation model for your area, change the order of the models in Settings so the downloaded ones are first, un-apply to all the runs (Ctl-A in My Activity Report, edit activity, undo elevation correction) and then re-apply to all. Beautiful!

Now, on a much more scary, sour note, Nick went out for a bike ride before dinner last night and got hit by a car. Some asshole tried to beat him at a light and succeeded, but the car behind him didn’t see him, so Nick went over the hood and landed in the street. Thankfully he is fine, save for some assorted protrusions and cuts.

Apparently, a crowd witnessed the whole incident and the woman who hit him was a runner of all things, going for her evening run. She was mortified. Nick got up though the crowd was yelling at him to stay down, the ambulance came but Nick refused the hospital, instead walking home with his broken bike. He’s more worried about possibly missing a 100-mile ride this weekend than the state of his health, crazy man.

This is why, as much as he and my friends try to get me on a bike, I prefer to run. He’s the third casualty in my circle of bike-riding friends to get hit by a car in less than year. Ugh. Be careful out there, people.

All this talk about that mile-long hill and new running routes got me inspired to try something new on my 10-miler today.

I’m not yet ready to submit to the mile-long hill (I’ll start tackling that about 10 weeks before the race when my legs are tougher) but what I did do is revisit the scene of much discomfort during the Philly Half Marathon, the evil hill at Lansdowne Ave.

I remember dying during that hill and surprise! it was as annoying as I remembered it to be. It’s .3 of a mile with a 5% grade – not killer but long enough to be a useful addition to my running arsenal. So a new route with a good hill…I’m a happy camper.

Other than that, I did another Pilates DVD yesterday, got a posture book from the library and am becoming obsessive about improving upon it. Lara turned me on to a couple posture tools that I ordered immediately; one is an IMAK backrest and the other is the Disc O’Sit, (a.k.a. a wobble cushion). The wobble cushion is cool because the only way to sit on it is with proper posture, it uses your core muscles just to stay on it, so I’ve a feeling it’s going to be my favorite item. Meanwhile, that ShouldersBack thing should arrive today so it remains to be seen how much torture it’ll inflict.