Sunday

Today is Sunday.  Or for most runners, long run day.  My guess is that Sunday evolved as long run day because most races are on Sundays and training plans usually work backwards from race day.  On my training plan it’s called “LSD” day, or long slow distance.  The goal is to build endurance and get your body used to running for one, two, or three hours.  Long runs for me are never easy and I suppose if they were, I’d be doing something wrong.  But I’ve been doing them long enough now that I’ve developed a pretty good system of what works for me.  I’m pretty routine oriented so knowing what’s going to happen on Sunday morning takes away some of the anxiety when I look at my training plan and realize, oh crap, I have to do 16 miles today.  Each Sunday I’ll focus on part of my long run routine.

This Sunday’s theme is fuel.  If I am going to run beyond an hour I take a sports drink with me.  If I’m going over 90 minutes, I also take some sort of quick calorie source.  If you are planning on doing a long race (1/2 marathon or marathon), your long run fuel choices should also be an opportunity for you to figure out what works for you.  You should never do something on race day that you haven’t done in training.  So if you are doing a race, find out what they will be offering at aid stations and make sure you’ve used that in training.

For drinks, I’m pretty loyal to Gatorade, I just like the taste better than the other drinks, especially the mango flavor.  Why not water?  Well for me, I only take hydration if I’m going to be running an hour or longer.  If I’m running that long, I need to replace my electrolytes, especially in the summer.  Water doesn’t do that.  Also, it is possible to drink too much water.  Hyponatremia or water intoxication is essentially when the sodium balance in your blood is lower than normal and happens when someone drinks too much water without any electrolytes to allow your body to absorb the water.  People have died in the Boston, London, and Chicago marathons from hyponatremia and people who run marathons over about 3.5 to 4 hours are more susceptible because of the long period of time that they are potentially consuming water.  So I think it’s better to go with a sports drink.

For gels, etc. I’m still experimenting.  Honestly, I really hate the consistency of gels, they make me gag so I usually try to get them in my mouth and chase it with a drink immediately.  In the past I’ve really liked Hammer gel. Hammer gel doesn’t have added artificial junk and it comes in bigger bottles so you can fill it in a flask and take as much as you want/need.  Hammer gel isn’t easy to find though so today I was stuck with a Power Bar gel which is ok but I don’t love it.  I tried something new’ish today too.  In April I ran the Zooma 1/2 marathon in Austin.  During the race they gave out Luna Moons so I tried some.  Yes I broke my own rule about trying something new.  Because I had also broken my own rule about being prepared.  I was out of my race game, it had been a few years since I’d done any distance races and I just totally screwed up when it came to pre-race planning so I didn’t have any gel with me and really needed a boost.  I picked up a few packets the other day and took one on my run this morning.  They taste pretty good, seem easily digestible, and did give me a little boost.  They don’t have any high fructose corn syrup and as far as I can tell by the ingredients are vegetarian friendly.

And that brings us to the question, how in the heck am I going to schlep all that liquid and those gels and whatever the heck else I have?  In the past I had a camelback waist belt that I used for long runs.  It worked ok but it was kind of heavy with all the weight concentrated in the one spot where the water bladder was.  I did like the bite valve so it was pretty easy to get a drink while I ran.  It got lost in a move so I had to find a new solution so I decided to try a fuel belt. My brother uses one with pretty good success.  I got one that holds four 8 oz bottles and also has a pocket.  For my needs it’s perfect, I can carry 32 oz of Gatorade and a gel packet, Luna moons package, and my ipod nano fit in the pocket.

Here I am a few hours after finishing my 16 miler this morning and I’m feeling pretty good.  So glad it’s over and I have a 7 day reprieve before I have to do it all over again next Sunday.  I just wish I could get that disturbing image of the dead armadillo on the trail out of my head!