Blog Blitz - 4 runs

16 in Sac

Sacramento needs to make a lot of noise about their beautiful bike trails. They are perfect for running...oh, and biking too. Actually, the bikers and the runners seemed to coexist nicely in Sac, which is not a common occurrence. Kudos to Sacramento!

I did 16 on the bike trail and did most of the run at 10:15 pace, but then I kicked things down a notch during the last 6 miles and got my average pace down to 9:33 at the end of the run. I'll let you do the math on that one. It was a better than average run and part of what made the run so great was all the people running on the trails. Most were doing their last long run before the CIM. Seeing all those people on the trails got me pumped and I think that that was what made the run move so well at the end.

6 on the trails

It was very foggy for this run and dark too. When I first hit the trails it felt like someone had put a mover's box over my head and asked me to run, which is not the most comforting feeling.

Turkey day 6

We avoided the 28,000 people who showed up for the "run to feed the hungry" and did 6 with a small group of friends and family on the bike trail. Eric was not feeling 100 percent, which gave me the ability to keep up with him for 1 mile before he kicked the s**t out of me. He's going to make his time for Boston (3:20) with ease. Anyway, after the run, with an air of superiority, I proceeded to tell everyone about how I despise the nationwide "turkey trots". The gist of my argument was that millions of people burn 300 calories on a 3.1 mile run and then they use this one time event as a green light to indulge on an extra 3000 calories, which leaves them in a worse place than if they had not run at all. I was feeling pretty full of myself and then I proceeded to eat WAYYYYYYY too much at Abby's house that evening. I'm such a fraud.

16,17, 18??? back on the AZ Canal

You'd think that two runners with GPS devices would be able to run together and provide to you precise input on every mile, calories burned, altitude, outside temperature, heart rate, etc, but that would be predicated on those two runners being able to use said GPS devises. Brice's Garmin watch was being pissy about which satellites to use and wouldn't start working until about 1.2 miles into the run. My Timex watch was doing great until the receiver ran out of battery power about 10 miles. So we pieced together that we did about 16.5 miles.

As for this run. It sucked. It sucked so hard that it needed vast improvement for it to just suck mightily. I ran out of gas at about 10 miles and was doing the dead man shuffle for the remaining 6.5 miles. I guess that that should be good training for the final 6 of the marathon, but the fact that we would have needed to tack on almost 10 more miles for a marathon to happen didn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling. I think that I'll play with the pace for the next run.

Product review:

I used Hammer Gel, their workout drink and post workout recovery drink last week and I have to give them supremely high marks. The gel was super mild and gave me everything I needed to do the run. The drinks helped me do well during the run and to recover after the run. Hammer Nutrition ROCKS! Use it if you get a chance.

This week I wasn't so lucky. I couldn't find anyplace with Hammer stuff, so I went to the local Sports Authority and got PowerGel from Gatorade (Vanilla) and then some drink stuff for my run and the post run recovery. PowerGel is vile. Why do the people at Gatorade insist on giving us nasty drinks and even worse running gels? Their drinks are like maple syrup and their gels are like cake frosting. When you are running, choking down that stuff doesn't do the tummy a whole lot of good. In fact, I really wanted to to hurl when I took that stuff today. As for the drink and the post-run-recovery stuff. I can't remember what I purchased, but Michael Phelps was prominently featured on the sales display. It was ok, but I think that the Hammer Nutrition stuff spoiled me for other drinks.

Now get back to work...