So I've made a decision- from this point on, I'm done trying to shave a few dollars off the budget by buying expired running products. I'm sick of powders going stale and gel packs that have thickened to the point of needing to be chewed. The savings are not worth it when I'm 20 miles out and the sudden shock of bad supplements makes me feel like I want to puke. So, done with that.
I am also starting the favor the GU product line. I've been trying a variety pack of their gels, as well as their orange flavored water additive, and I'm quite pleased with what I've experienced so far. A nice mix of electrolytes, a light flavor, and little sugar. I'll have to try it out on a few more runs, but I think I might have found the product line for me.
Today's run was a bit of an experiment, in that I was trying out the 25/5 formula favored by many ultrarunners, which is basically 25 minutes of running, 5 minutes of (brisk) walking, and then rinse and repeat. The idea behind it is that the body tends to peak at about 20 minutes of cardio activity, and it takes the heart about 4 minutes to recover to normal rate levels. So with this in mind, I set off this morning with the plan being to run for about two hours, see where I ended up, turn around and head home.
I initially started out on the Scott Pierson trail, my mind being fuzzy about it's exact length but thinking it to be about 10 miles from end to end. I figured I'd be lucky to get to the other side of the Narrows Bridge before I turned around. Much to my chagrin, I was barely an hour into my run by the time I reached the bridge, so even with it taking about 10 minutes to get from one side to the other, I still had a fair bit of time to burn up. So I crossed over to the north side of the freeway, and with not really knowing where I was going, I set off to the west.
Following a windy country road eventually led to me a T-intersection. Because the turn looked more running friendly than continuing straight (there was a sidewalk), I started up a bit of a hill. At this point I had about 20 minutes left of running, and figured, really how far could I get? Quite far, apparently, since the road immediately sloped back downwards, and I ran along carelessly, until I found myself right in the downtown core of Gig Harbor. This was all well and good, but now I realized I had to turn around and trudge all the way back.
It took me almost an entire half hour to trek back to the top of the hill, and I was sweating pretty bad at that point, despite the fact that it was only about 34 degrees at that point (which was still warmer than the 28 that I had set out in). Howver, after dropping back down to the T I was running in heavy forests for the next several miles, and my sweat immediately began to freeze to my skin. My hands got so cold that I had to keep flexing them open and closed just to move the blood around. I was mere seconds from stopping to pull my gloves back out of my pack when I burst out of the woods and saw the bridge in front of me again.
By the time I had worked my way back down to the start of the Narrows, I was starting to suffer a constant ache in both of my legs, not enough to cause any real pain, but definately a warning sign that I was hitting my limit. Once I crossed the bridge I once again had a fairly steady uphill as I climbed back to 6th Avenue. By the time I got there I was starting to get little shocks of pain when my left foot slapped the ground, a sensation I remembered well from when I ran the Tacoma Marathon. Fortunately it died back down to an ache after a few minutes, but I was having a hell of a time moving forward the last leg of the trip. After I finished my final walking break at 3:30, I just covered up my watch and told myself to simply run slow until I got home, no more pacing myself. The last mile was about half run/half shuffle, but I managed to keep myself move forward at some semblence of a trot until the South M Street hill came into view. Then, with a final bit of energy that I didn't even know I still had in me, I powered up the hill at a fair pace, to basically collapse in my driveway at the top.
Gig Harbor Run Statistics
So, this run was both good and bad. Good in that I managed to push myself to my limits, but bad in that my limit is only about half of what it needs to be about 3 months from now. As I said in my last post, I'm right on track for being ready for Sun Mountain, but I'm acutely aware that even a small mishap could derail much of my careful planning. It's a fine line to walk between training enough and training too much.
That said, you'll probably find me at the gym tomorrow, bright and bushy-eyed!
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