Posts Tagged ‘gels’

Thanks to fellow blogger Joe who kindly alerted me to a thread on LetsRun, it appears that the finish for the Philadelphia marathon is going to be an honest to goodness clusterfuck.  Here’s the image the original poster supplied.
Green – half marathon,  Red – marathon at half way,  Blue – marathon finish

As you can see, it appears that the marathon finishers will be forced to actually cross through the slower marathoners reaching their halfway point!  I can’t. believe. this.  But then, it’s Philly, so yes I can.

I’m hanging in there, though not without a quadruple dose of taper angst.  My run today was 7 w/2x(10min@HP, 2min rec) and my HR was just too damned high at 90 and 92% max on the Half pace portions.  I’m hoping it’s just overall anxiety, which I truly have in excess now, but it’s really putting a fear into me that I wish I didn’t have.

The rest of the week is 6 tomorrow, rest day, 5 and 4, then race.  The weather looks good at this point, so that’s a wonderful bonus.

Beyond my worried mood, I am so excited for this weekend because I’m finally going to meet several of the ladies I’ve been “talking to” for over a year in the Women’s BQ thread.  A bunch of gals are coming in for the race, both the Full and Half, as well as cheering section, and to actually meet these gals in the flesh (we know so much about each other by now) is going to be incredible.

Plus, Audra and Kat (I ran Steamtown with Audra and the Lehigh Half with Kat) are going to be staying with me, not racing but will be cheer support so I’ll have my own personal pit crew the night before.  Pre-race pillow fights!! Woohoo!!  So there’s a lot to be excited about, if I can just take my mind off my stupid heart for a while.

Thanks everyone for such cool comments to my little mishap on Sunday.  You guys and gals are stupendously great.  One good thing I got out of that run was that it was my gel dress rehearsal because my most favorite shorts only have a key pocket (Race Ready shorts are dumpy on me, so no one even suggest that, please).

My original plan was to do the pinning thing (for the uninformed, you pin the gels to the outer waistband of your shorts then tuck them inside your shorts so they don’t bounce, then you rip them off when you need one)  but because I’ll have a bottle in one hand, that makes ripping the gels off too difficult.  Then I remembered I had that detachable pocket I bought for Steamtown and didn’t end up using.  It works a treat!! Weighs an ounce, you can put it where you want and it’s very easy to take a gel out while on the run.  I put 3 in there and 2 in my handheld and didn’t even notice it was there.  Though maybe that’s because I was in pain from my weeping open wound.

Anyway, that’s one less thing on my mind.  Now if I could only unload the other 2 tons of mental garbage…

My workout today was a beautiful thing, didn’t go the Pfitzinger med-long run route, because I was doing my mile long hill which makes the 20% – 10% not really a viable parameter. As for the hill itself, which I’ve been prefacing recently with “stupid” as in Stupid Mile Hill because things that make me suffer scare me and calling them names makes me feel better, today the hill and I came to an agreement; I wouldn’t bitch and moan and it would be nicer to me than it’s ever been.

Long story short, I did 2.5 trips with the uphills paced at 9:25, 9:29 and 9:47 and the downhills at 8:07, 8:17 and 8:17. How wonderful to be able to fully rehearse my Steamtown pacing (which I imagine will be 8:17-8:20 on the downs) and have it feel good. Of course, after a zillion of those strung together I know it’ll be less than happy-making, but I can start to imagine the real deal now.

After I was done with the hill, like magic (or as running god Arthur Lydiard might have predicted) the final miles home were strangely faster than they felt. I seriously felt I was going along at 9:15 or so but thanks to that fast downhill running, I was actually averaging 8:39. Final tally today: 14.5 miles, average pace: 8:59.

The other big news of the run was I have finally found a gel I LIKE! Not “can stand” “can stomach” or “is palatable” but one where I thought the taste was juuuust right: Gu Just Plain. Wow, not at all cloyingly sweet while at the same time without any of the tartness I find in Hammer or Carbboom. Simply a truly light taste that, mixed in a flask, will improve the Vanilla and Apple Carbbooms I just got, or taste great straight. Seriously, it was so strange to finish a gel off without a single grimace.

On to real running news, I cried last night when 38 year-old Constantina Tomescu won the marathon. What an edge of the seat race that was! Of course, so heartbreaking for Deena and Paula but so thrilling to see a 38 year-old conquer that race! And with such a daring break, just shocking. So here’s to Constantina Tomescu and Dara Torres, another amazing athlete at 41 years old. Cheers to these mature athletic powerhouses, you make the world a more hopeful place.

Moving sideways away from running, I had quite a laugh yesterday while grocery shopping with Nick. We were standing in the produce section of ShopRite, a huge grocery store chain, when I realize the Muzak coming over the loudspeakers was “Love To Love You, Baby”, complete with lyrics. I turned to Nick and said, “check out the music”, we had a chuckle and squeezed some peaches. Then a few minutes later, I recognize the next song is “Voulez Vous Coucher Avec Moi”. Granted, both were fab disco hits in their day, but I find it hilarous that the background music for grocery shopping is now Fuck Me songs. How lovely for the little children, lol.

But enough gabbing from me today, go find some fruit to play with and hum a nasty tune to yourself. It’ll either have you wanting to go grocery shopping or make wild crazy love next to some Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

21 for me today, woohoo, yay and all that jazz.

My original plan was to do exactly what I did last week, an easy 20 around my usual loop, but yesterday I realized that there was a huge Tri called SheRox happening on that route and would have meant I’d be circumventing huge clusters of people, so I went to Plan B, the trail.

The trail is 5.5 miles from my house, so half my trip was on road, half on the trail, the trail being a lot more challenging due to the gravel/rocky floor and constant ups and downs. Also, I realized on my 19 there a couple weeks ago that even though there’s a fountain at around my 9.5 mile mark, I’d still need to take two handhelds because while I can get there on one bottle, I end up drinking twice as much on the way back, and the next fountain is 7 miles away. It worked out fine though, I was grumbling a bit at the beginning for having to cart both, but stopped noticing them early on.

I was still planning on making it a 20 and in mile 9, I actually said to myself, “Flo…keep it at 20, you have nothing to prove, the fact that you’re doing this on the trail and keeping pace is enough”. But then I was on this new part of trail that I’d never been and there were all these other runners, so it was fun to explore and besides, then I could come home and type that I’d just run 21. You can’t see, but my head’s all puffed up now and it isn’t from salt supplements, just ego.

My avg for the run was 9:28, but once I was out of the trail and back on the sidewalk, my final splits were 8:50, 8:41, 8:47, 8:36 and 9:00 for my uphill mile home. I drank about 110 oz. total, stopping the clock for refills because I figure I deserved to since I was carrying that extra weight. Btw, today’s temps were pretty nice: 77-79, but less humid than usual.

Had 3 gels, tried Clif Shots for the first time, Apple flavor. Um, they’re kind of gross, much thicker than any other, but on the other hand, that lets it go down in two gulps, so that’s a positive. I also tried a Fruit Punch Hammer Gel which was downright disgusting, no positives about that. Ended with Carboom double espresso which I don’t care for too much either, but the big hit of caffeine was useful.

Carried music but left it off again as I have for my last few long runs. I’m coming to realize that in the quiet of the morning, I prefer silence and then as the run progresses, the idea of anything extra attached to my sweaty skin, like earbuds, becomes completely unappealing, so I think it’s time to start leaving it at home for the long ones.

Once I got home, I was going to take an ice bath, but at the last minute favored “active recovery” because Nick’s coming home from his week-long bike adventure today, so I just vacuumed the apartment.

I’ve gotta go out now and do an emergency shopping to right the wrong I did to my hair yesterday. I got a box of dye because it’s getting a little too red and light with the sun, so I thought I’d put a little brown back in. But I didn’t really look too carefully at the boxes when I was at the drugstore, just thought, hmmm…Clairol Natural Instincts, I’ve never tried that one before and Hazelnut looks like a pretty shade.

So imagine my surprise when, after I’ve got it on my head, I scan the directions for the first time to find that, instead of keeping it in your hair for 30-35 minutes, it’s very adamant about not doing it longer than 20. Weird, I think.

So while I’m waiting for the time to be up, I log onto my favorite beauty product review site, MakeupAlley.com to read what other women have to say about it and I notice people referring to having put it on damp hair. Huh? Not having read the directions, I didn’t do that. And in all those reviews, the women are saying to count time from the moment you start applying it because it comes out much darker than the box. So I run to the bathroom and rinse it out…too late, my hair looks like an 80 year-old man with his first box of Just For Men. Shoe black.

It turns out this dye is actually semi-permanent, not my usual permanent, thus all the different application directions. OK, semi is good, it means it’ll fade eventually, but I was freaking out yesterday thinking that if it’s semi-permanent, does that mean I’ll have black sweat streaks of dye pouring from my head on today’s run?

So I washed it like a madwoman a few times yesterday and today wore a black visor on the run, to hopefully catch any dark trickles, and luckily everything stayed on the hair. But now I have to go buy some Prell because it’s supposedly like detergent, the better to wash out some of this old-man goth hair I now have. What a dodo I am.

But before I go, I want to give a shout out to one of my resident readers/commenters, Jim E., who is at this very moment, running the San Francisco Marathon and as of the Half, is producing negative splits!! Yay, Jim, I’m so proud of you with such a hilly course, I’m rooting for you. Go, Jim, go. Woohoo, cowbells clang clang clang…

Yesterday was my first 20 and a very nice run at that, though completely uneventful. The route is so familiar (my usual museum loop with a little tacked on and then going back the opposite way), that it was very low stress.

I ended up trying 3 different gels from 3 companies in my quest to find a favorite taste, so didn’t take the flask, though I did finally take some smart advice to snip into the tabs of the gels before I left so they’d tear off easier – much easier!

I think I’ve finally settled on Carboom Apple and GU Vanilla, though I had some wicked farting when I got home and since this happened on one other gel-eating occasion, I’d like to whittle the offending one down to Carboom, Hammer or Gu before I order a whole box of anything.

Btw, remember I thought I was going to be all about the Hammer gels? Couple things happened to change my mind:

1. The fact that without electrolytes, I’ll be tied to taking some kind of supplement or drink, which I don’t want to do, preferring to have it in the gel and 2. Their customer service did something really annoying which I didn’t report at the time but since I report the good, I should also report the bad. Here’s what happened:

If you recall, I ordered a variety pack of Hammer gels a few weeks ago and it was a nice package, they were very generous about sending samples of all their other products, so I was in Hammer love. It wasn’t till a day later when I sorted out the gels that I realized there was no Plain flavor, one I was particularly wanting to try since I’d heard it was supposedly a more subtle flavor. I thought I made a mistake about it because it was written on the invoice and packing slip that it had been included, but it simply wasn’t there, so I wasn’t going crazy, it really was missing.

So I email Hammer saying I was missing a gel. Several days go by and no reply, so I call. I talk to a guy who admits the Plains were out of stock when they sent the package. He said he’d send me one. Great (though I was left wondering why they didn’t make mention of it or send me two of another flavor).

A day later, I finally get a reply to my email from a woman there who apparently never talked to the guy I spoke to, because she said, “We’re sorry, and don’t worry, we’ll make a note that we owe you a gel and we’ll include it with your next order.” Huh? I immediately wrote back that “Why in the world should I have to re-order to receive it? I already paid for it!” Then I mentioned my previous conversation with the guy. She sends back a very apologetic email and a few days later, I receive my Plain gel.

Now, at the same time I made the Hammer order, I’d also ordered some different gels from Zombie Runner. Oddly enough, one of the gels in that order got messed up in shipping, but unlike Hammer, Zombie Runner gave absolutely exquisite customer service, instead of giving me the runaround, the day after I contacted them, I get an email saying they’ve sent the whole variety pack again, when all I requested was the one replacement gel. Talk about over and above!

So all this boils down to me being a bit pissed at Hammer and from here on in, my gel ordering will be from Zombie Runner. Great company, great customer service.

Back to running. Another nice thing about yesterday’s run was, even though I’d downloaded a bunch of new songs, I started the run with my headphones tucked away and never pulled them out. A few months ago I wondered how I was going to run a marathon without music, but that worry is totally out the window now.

After the run, I did something new and different, I used a recovery drink – the sample of Hammer’s Recoverite. I’ve never taken anything specifically for recovery, usually just stuff some protein thing in my mouth, but the drink wasn’t bad, like a light creamsicle flavor. And I felt fine and dandy afterwards, legwise, so I might just get a tub of it, customer service be damned. On the other hand, Slimfast or chocolate milk sound even better, so maybe I’ll do that. Or maybe I’ll do what I’ve been doing, stuffing some protein thing in my mouth. All this food technology can really cloud a person’s perception of what is truly necessary.

Nutritional meanderings aside, let’s get to today’s run. First I went with Nick to the Museum steps to see him off on a big 6-day bike trip, 300 miles into the mountains ending in a beer festival in Cooperstown, NY. The ride is being led by our friends Jeff and Lara, the same Lara you’ve read about as my sometimes racing pal.

After some picture taking, good-luck hugs, and a “Go Team Yeast!” as the group rode off on their beer-guzzling adventure, I did my 7 recovery with 8x100m strides. I wasn’t sure how my legs would feel about the strides, having done the 20 the day before, but it went just fine.

It’s interesting to note that with all the heavy, yet pace-controlled runs in Pfitzinger’s plan coupled with the fact that it’s summer training (so a supposed pace deficit due to heat), I’m unable to really gauge how my speed is improving, though I assume it is. I haven’t been adjusting my paces for the heat, which doesn’t mean I’m faster on the whole, just that I’m pig-headed. What I am able to tell is that I’ve gained strength, I simply feel stronger and ready for the miles. I don’t fret about “oooh, I’m doing a 20″, it’s just a logical progression in the scheme of things. Now if only I could be so cavalier about the speed question…

What a dumb morning! I messed up my clock when I was setting it, so it went off at 6 (or so it showed), but it was really only 5am. I got up anyway; another night with 4 hours and change. I have a voiceover job at 10am so I had to fit in a 10 miler, a shower and some time to veg before leaving the house.

Because of the lack of sleep, I expected today’s run to be bordering on miserable…it was anything but! It was just 73 degrees when I left the house, so that was a help.

I averaged 8:57 miles (my normal pace when it’s 60 degrees) so this is a happy thing. It was also, unintentionally, a progression run. I might have to owe it to my latest taste-testing treat, Powergel Strawberry/Banana (very sweet, but ok…I could do that one again), which I took 54 minutes in. I swear it made a difference and I’m not talking mental!

I was starting to lag before the half-way point, took the gel and voila…last few miles are 8:40s. Powergels have electrolytes so I wouldn’t have to deal with S-caps, which is cool. I’m happy to find my stomach is not as sensitive as I thought from my gel-cramping experience last year. As long as I drink enough water with it, I’m thinking I can probably deal with any of them.

As an addition to a comment from dear Pokey in the last post, I was thinking about the “need” to do at least one 22 mile run before the big day. It’s not a need, per se, but would be great for confidence, and besides, it’s only 2 more miles than a 20, so I’ve got one planned.

What cracks me up though, is that in Europe where they use Kilometers, most plans have the long run peak at 30K, which is only 18.5 miles! I always thought peaking anywhere less than 20 would be like rolling the dice, but them crazy foreigners do it all the time. Which tells you how much of this stuff is in our heads.

OK, gotta go and make some moolah. It’s a Comcast radio spot, I do those somewhat regularly lately. Have a fab day, folks and some great runs!!

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.