Archive for July, 2008

Today was a 17-miler. I took it easier than last week’s trail run, keeping it closer to home by doing the 8.5 mile loop around the Art Museum twice. It wasn’t bad temp-wise, around 73, but the humidity was 87-80% for the duration, so extremely…moist.

Keeping it close to home meant that I only needed to take one handheld since there are fountains at 1, 2.5 and 6.5 miles. The big quandary today again concerned my favorite subject these days: gel consumption. I was going to need two, which presented a hitch concerning the gel flask.

Because I’d ordered a variety pack from two different manufacturers, I had 15 flavors with varying degrees of caffeine to choose from. I’d have to mix two together if I used the flask, which would cloud the fun of taste testing and potential caffeine boosts. So I set aside the flask and went old school – taking two gels in my clip-on pocket. I figured it would be as good a time as any to attack my fear of gel packets and full-strength gooey stuff.

The plan was to take a banana Hammer gel first, one without caffeine and then take the espresso Carbboom second, loaded with 100mg of caffeine, the better to make a difference in my final few miles.

Before I left the house, I actually washed the silly packets so for once I wouldn’t have that icky “how many people have touched this packet?” feeling while sucking down the final remains. I was happy about my clean packets.

I left my music at home, the better to let the sounds of the park be my soundtrack. But as usual, when leaving my music, I ended up singing a song in my head the whole way anyway. Go figure. Also, like last weekend, I didn’t eat beforehand, so it was last night’s meal/snacks and the gels for fuel, the handheld just had water.

So the banana gel was ok – not my favorite taste, but I knew it wouldn’t be since I never pick banana flavored anything, but it was fun to try it. It wasn’t too sweet, almost a little tangy. About 45 minutes later, I took an S-cap since the Hammer gel lacks electrolytes. I actually took it because I was feeling a small diaphragm cramp that I’m sure had more to do with speeding up to pass a guy and his jog stroller than with gels or electrolytes, but it seemed like a sound thing to do anyway since I was soaking wet with sweat.

About 20 minutes later, the cramp had abated and I took the espresso Carbboom, which also was not very sweet. It kind of reminded me of chocolate-covered espresso beans. Funny, because both these brands are known for not being cloyingly sweet which is a major reason I’m trying them, but I wished both flavors today to be a little sweeter. No biggie though, there are still many flavors yet to try.

As far as effects from the gels, I had a steady output through the first one, no noticeable anything, but no lagging. I did, however, like the effect from the caffeinated Carbboom gel. I didn’t feel a “burst” of energy, but I did end the run feeling stronger than I can remember for a long one. Plus, I slept about 4.5 hours again last night so I can definitively say that after ingesting 100mg of caffeine I felt more awake and alert.

The only potential downside to that last gel is I’m blaming it for the nastiest, toxic fart I ever emitted. I just wish I’d have done it while still outside instead of right before stepping into my ice bath. Such are the sacrifices of a runner’s life, I guess.

It was a banner week for online supplies.

Tuesday I received my Hammer Gel variety pack and how cool to find all this free stuff included with my order – it sure took the sting out of the shipping costs (basically nullified it). They sent me samples of all their flagship products; Perpetuem, Heed, Endurolytes, Recoverite and a Hammer Bar, plus a book on nutrition and some other paper stuff. Very generous!

Yesterday I got my order from Zombie Runner; a clip-on gel flask, 6-pack variety of Carbboom gels plus a Strawberry-Banana Powergel.

From reviews and user accounts all over the web, Carbboom is very popular for not being too sweet and pretty thin, as well as not needing water (people say the same about Hammer as well). Powergel, on the other hand, has a lot of haters so I wouldn’t have ordered any but the flavor I got seems to be very popular and supposedly “tastes like yogurt”, so what the hell? Plus, powergels have more electrolytes than other gels, so that would save me taking an electrolyte supplement.

Given all these goodies, I decided to take my flask out for a spin today with a new taste sensation, Orange/Vanilla Carbboom. It has some caffeine but not a whole lot, which is good because I didn’t know how I’d react. I’ve avoided using the port-o-pottys on my route all this time and I’d like to keep that record alive.

The flask is pretty cool, quite light, though the plastic clips on the back are straight up hard plastic, unlike my clip-on pocket, which has these rubber grips attached. Jogging in place with the flask, I could tell there would be slight bouncing, so I wrapped the clips in padded medical tape which worked perfectly, keeping it more snug to my shorts and more comfy on my skin.

I added a touch of water to the gel for easy swigging, took a handheld, my music and I was out the door for a 10 miler. I didn’t bother with the S-caps because it’s possible that they increase my water needs and I didn’t have a lot with me today so didn’t want to get stuck. But back to the gel adventure…

I’m such a dork when I have new anything, I can hardly wait to try it, so it took all my inner strength not to sample the gel at mile 4. Around mile 6, I took a swig. Not bad, a little tart almost, not exactly yummy, but not gross either. Cool.

Then I waited for that energy boost I knew was due to me. And waited. And waited. Hmmm… they say these things give a noticeable surge, but that didn’t happen. Shit. I wanted to get high on my run!

Of note: I didn’t eat anything before the run, as usual – 1/2 a cup of coffee is all I can get down at that time of day. I do, however, snack almost till bedtime and high carb crap at that, pretzels and jelly beans usually, so maybe that covers my bases better than I think. Or maybe I would have been more uncomfortable without it, I’m just going to have to keep testing to figure out what my physiological response really is, if any.

Either way, it’s inevitable I deal with this before the marathon and even though that’s not till October, my best case scenario is to have a few gels I can choose from, not just have one or two I can stomach. To that end, the flask is a great little gem, improving the consistency and concentration of any gel I’ll stick in there, so a major thumbs up to the flask. And no sticky fingers!

On non-running news, got a great new voiceover client yesterday, educational stuff for PBS and the like, which is what I enjoy doing the most, so it was a fun session. They liked me a lot, so here’s crossing fingers for more work with them. Also, last week one of my commercials played during Jeopardy! I was in the other room and Nick yells, “come here, come here.” We have DVR so we can rewind the TV, the better to hear myself ad naseum. Actually, I wasn’t too bad, only rewound it 3 times…you would too.

Today’s run was 8 G.A. (that’s General Aerobic in Pfitzinger-speak) w/10 x 100m strides. I was happy to be back up to speed today, those recovery and long runs kind of scare me with how slow they’re supposed to be. I have to remind myself that it’s all for the greater good, but it can still make a gal paranoid that she’s losing it.

Plus, I made a stupid error for my last 3 Thursday runs…I realized the other day that they were supposed to be G.A. pace, but because I’d been bopping back and forth between the 55/18 and the 70/18 plan, I got confused and did those runs as “mid-longs” (meaning: treating them the same as long runs, first portion 20% slower then MP pace, then up to 10% slower), but that’s just for the 70 plan, the 55 Thursday runs are a bit shorter, thus G.A pace. So I was running them too slow, like 20 seconds/mile too slow.

It’s not life or death, progression runs are great lessons in their own right, but it did make me a little paranoid that now, I must kick all GA runs in the pants! So I did today. Started at 8:50/mile, then went steadily downwards to 8:31, then did the strides and a cooldown. I didn’t intentionally do it progression-wise, in fact I told myself to shoot for 9:00/miles but after the Thursdays gaffe, my body & brain decided otherwise.

Other than that, I wore a new pair of shorts today, Nike Pacers. They are supposedly the Tempo Short’s “sister”, at least that’s how the marketing blurb describes them. I thought they’d be good because the piping is smaller, so maybe there’d be less chance of chafing, plus they’re a little more fitted, so the butt looks less diaperish.

Hrumph! Tempo short’s retarded sister, maybe. The stupid legs kept folding up creating a cuff! Talk about the chafe of hell waiting to happen – thank god I used body glide before I left. Anyway, now I have a new pair of knock-around shorts because those aren’t ever going on a run again. Bad, bad shorts.

And now let us contemplate the many intricacies of running fashion and overrated companies like Nike. Or not. (note to self: must get new smilies, these are extremely lame). Chow, dahlings…