It’s been a while… but before I get sucked up into other matters yet again, I need to get this down to help with future training.
16 miles is the longest run I’ve logged yet, ever, and it went surprisingly well. I attribute its success to a number of factors.
The Day Before
Though I woke up early (6:45am) to take the car in for service, I snuck in a nap around mid-day. I also bought a pastry and soymilk chai and had somewhat of a breakfast on the walk home from the dealership. For lunch I ate an ear of fresh corn and the leftover Santouka miso ramen which still had a goodly amount of noodles. Perhaps my body was trying to tell me something but I was constantly hungry and snacked a bit throughout the rest of the afternoon until dinnertime, when we had some Bun-Cha Rice Noodle Salad and Vietnamese meatballs for dinner. Bedtime at 10:30pm.
The Day Of
Got up around 7am and made myself my usual Vanilla Almond tea (3 teabags) with soymilk. Then I spread a slice of whole-wheat bread with 1/2 peanut butter and 1/2 sour cherry jelly and made myself take that breakfast. I also ate something like 6 Gu Chomps (w/ caffeine) out of a packet of 8.
I remembered to mix myself some carb drink, but somehow completely missed the instructions on the front that indicated I needed to add to only 12 oz. of water. I instead ended up mixing the entire packet with 20 oz. of water to fill my 2 10-oz. water bottles. We’ll try to get the ratios right next time.
On the Run
I started slow and let myself get faster if I was feeling good towards the latter parts of the run. If there was a bit of a hill I tried to maintain my effort if not pace. I let myself speed up a little on the downhill. The weather was sunny and clear – San Francisco Fall in full effect. It was just a tad warmer than I was used to for SF, and I was glad for the cooling breeze that swept in from the ocean. I hoped that running around Lake Merced on the exposed sections wouldn’t be too bad.
I took a GU on schedule btw mile 7-8. I was on the Great Hwy then, and was amazed at how well Roctane Pineapple went down – not as thick as other GUs – almost liquidy. It went down so easily, almost like a drink, and it tasted great. I think I’ve found my most favourite GU ever! Once I began running parallel to Sunset Blvd on the way to Lake Merced I felt great – happy and energized and the good feelings due to the refueling, and to the carb drink I’d been sipping on throughout the run (took my first sip around mile 4-5?).
I made it around Lake Merced, smiling at any runner who made eye contact as I passed. Some smiled back. It was nice. On the way back up Great Hwy, I tore into another GU (Espresso Love – somewhere around mile 13-14). I managed to get most? half? of it down before deciding to throw the rest away. Surprisingly, it didn’t clash too much with the taste of my carb drink. I was still feeling great and not at all tired. 16 came right at Judah and I had to head into Java Beach cafe to use the washroom. Not sure how I’d handle that in an actual race. I’m definitely not used to drinking so much on a run, but I do think the Fluid Performance did help with keeping my energy levels up.
All in all, a great run. My heartrate never got beyond the 140s, so perhaps in the future I’ll experiment with going a little faster in the latter half of the run.
One small owie – I definitely started to feel this on the last few miles, but didn’t know the extent of it until I got home.
16:06m | 9:03 mins/m | 2:25:18
Things I’ll do next time
- Try GU earlier in the run – perhaps around mile 4 or 5, and take Gu every 5 miles or so
- Definitely apply Glide to the feet
- Make sure to mix correct ratios of carb drink powder with water.
Here’s to hoping the rest of my long runs, and the marathon itself, are this good.