About 10 days ago, my kids started coming down with colds. They had slight fevers followed by lots of congestion and coughing. We spent several days wiping noses, pushing fluids, and occassionally disregarding alarmist warnings by providing medicine. Having two sick kids meant a lot of nights sleeping on one floor or another trying to comfort them, or at least keeping them company when they couldn't sleep.
Even so, I managed to fight off what was making them sick. Well, for a while, at least. I consider it good timing, as I'm in the first week of my taper heading into the Fall 50 race on October 25th. It's good that it's taper so taking some time off is a minor deal. It's good that it's the first week of taper as that gives me a couple weeks to fully recover before running 50 miles.
I did manage to get my final long run of 30 miles done on Sunday. And there are a couple of "lessons learned" from that run.
The run went fairly well, though it started a bit late in the day for my liking. When I headed out just after two in the afternoon, it was about 60F. I spent some time debating what to wear, since it was currently warm but likely to get cooler before I finished. In the end, I went with my wool tights, a tri-top for carrying nutrition, and a long sleeve technical shirt over that.
After about 60 minutes, I was regretting that decision. I was getting hot, and I forgot to add Endurolytes to my Gatorade, and figured dehydration might become an issue. That all changed about two hours into the run.
That's when the temperature dropped to between 50F and 55F. And the rain started. And that's how it stayed for the remaining three hours of the run. In the end, I lucked out with my choices, and stayed comfortable despite the deteriorating conditions.
For this run, I tried two "new" products. And I must say, I have a new BFF. By "BFF," I mean Best Flavor Forever. Remember last week's post talking about the sickly sweet taste CarBoom's Kiwi Strawberry gel? After consulting a few people at my local running store, I tested the Apple Cinnamon flavor. In a word, YUM! It's nowhere near as sweet (though still sweeter than Gu), and actually tastes like apple-cinnamon. I'd almost put this stuff on pancakes. While I won't switch from Gu to CarBoom, I will certainly use the two for variety.
I also picked up another pack of Clif Shot Bloks. Last week, I used a sample pack of the cola flavor. I liked the concept, but the flavor was sort of "blah." This week, I tested their black cherry Bloks. They were awesome.
So, after years of testing different products, I'm narrowing down to a "menu" that will work for extreme distance races. Mixing TriBerry Gu, Apple Cinnamon CarBoom, and Black Cherry Shot Bloks I will have a good variety of flavors with a combination of textures. Add to that any flavor Gatorade with Endurolytes powder, and I have a plan that has been quite successful over the past several months.
And now, I'm going to wait and see what happens first. Will I run out of tissue, or will my head explode from sinus pressure? The suspense is killing me.
RSS Feed