Ten Mile Saturday

I think that I will bring a camera with me next Saturday on my (hopefully) 12 mile run.  As I cleared mile 1 and started into the farmland that is part of my regular route, I thought that this would make a great photo, and there are some other spots that would make for some interesting pictures of my morning runs.  The rolling hills that make up a little over 1 mile of my runs.  Saturday was a beautiful, but slightly humid day for a run.  I got out the door a little after 8 and it was just about 50 degrees and about 80% humidity, with an overcast sky that was mostly just "high fog" more than real clouds.  This was going to be my longest run since my ankle started acting up, and I was going to try for the first time the PowerBar brand energy gels.  I have four of the same flavor, so I was hoping for the best with that part of the day's experiments. 

The run was started off pretty good, I always start off slow and let things warm up a bit, and Saturday was no different.  I feel kinda funny letting people pass me, but I know what my plan is and I just stick to it and let people do what they are without it effecting me.  So I get to the one mile mark and my left calf starts to complain a bit.  Being the big bad runner I am, I inform said calf that there will be none of this nonsense and it will just have to deal, we have 9 more miles to go, so it might as well relax and enjoy the run.  I rounded the corner to the first of the rolling hills on my favorite part of my Saturday runs, and that was when I thought that having a camera would be a great idea next week.  You can see about three of the hills from there and the trees on one side.  It would just be a cool picture.  The calf began to co-operate about mile two, so we chugged along.

I was contemplating all the different loops that I have to get to 10 miles, and what I decided on was my 8+ loop, and then add in a 2.5 that I know is exactly that as I had just mapped it for my Mrs. to run the other night.  With my 8 mile loop, I knew I could pull up at the Y and walk home from there for my cool down, so that was what I planned to do as I was getting to mile 7.  I had also planned that it would be between miles 7 and 8 that I would try the gel.

Now, I have read many reviews of these things, and they all say you want to have some water with them.  With two full bottles still in my Nathan Speed 4, I cracked the package open and gave a big squeeze.  The stuff tasted pretty good, but when I swallowed, WOW!!! Not what I was expecting.  A hasty pull off the water bottle, then another to swish around my mouth, and I could breath again.  That stuff is sticky sweet.  And it isn't even one of the "thick" gels, like GU.  For my next shot, I squeezed some into my mouth, followed by some water, then swished the two together, then swallowed.  Hmm, that worked.  I killed the package and almost an entire bottle of water.  This is good to know now, as I plan on taking two of them during my race, so that means I will need to manage my water closely and take advantage of the aide stations as well as the 40ozs that I will be wearing.  The good news was, I didn't get any GI trouble with the PowerBar gel, and the flavor wasn't bad.  It did give some gnarly burps as I finished my run, but I can live with the odd belch.

As I cleared mile 9 my right foot, the one with the complaining ankle, started to hurt a bit.  Not at the ankle, but just behind my little toe.  I slugged it out and kept pushing, wanting to finish the 10 miler.  As I approached what I *knew* should be 10 miles, Nike+ informed me that I had a little under 1 mile left in my planned run.  I love how inaccurate that system really is, but it also was telling me that my pace was 10:11 for my current position.  That meant I was running sub-10 minute miles, how much sub, I wouldn't know until I finished and mapped out exactly how long the run really was.  So instead of stopping where I knew 10 should be, I turned the corner and headed the 1/2 mile to my street and I would do my cool-down there.  I finished my run in 1:45:26, the final distance was 10.63 miles.  Final pace for the whole run as I still don't really care about splits: 9:55 per mile.

I rolled my foot a few times on Sunday, and by the end of the day, my foot was feeling just fine.  My ankle, that beast that had kept me from doing any speed drills or other "fun" workouts, felt great after the run, and is fine this morning.  I am looking forward to tomorrow's 5 miler.