Emergency Gel... Check!

The week of training went well and I am happy with the progress thus far. The fartlek and track workout went well and this mornings long run was decent. During this build up I have been using very little fluids or gels on my easy long runs. My body has made good adjustments and now I don't require as much nutrition on the run. I will be using plenty of gels and fluids on my marathon pace efforts in the upcoming weeks but those are workouts where I am pushing the pace quite a bit and it will also allow me to experiment with proper timing and placement of fluid intake. I will not have elite bottles at Cal so I am thinking of using S caps and the water from the tables, along with gels and the occasional glass of Ultima IF it goes well in my longer pace runs.

Since I wasn't sure of my long-run fitness I have been taking an "emergency" gel along just incase I start to bonk and need to make it home. That was the case this morning. I used the trails for the first 9+ miles and after that I was on the roads until the finish tape. At ninety minutes I was starting to feel really bad in the quads. The kind of bad where you think, "I better get some help soon or stop". That's when I reached in my pocket and opened the gel. It took some ten minutes to work but like magic once working my pace improved and I was able to finish the run in good fashion. It's really amazing sometimes how those things work. For those that don't believe in them, too bad for you, because they sure made the difference today.

Here is a wrap of the last two days and weeks totals.

Saturday: 1:12:30 ~9 miles (snowy trails with Erik)

felt really good, pizza at Thirsty Pagan later

Sunday: 2:17:31 19.3 miles

first 9.2 miles, trails 7:37 pace

last 10.2 miles, roads 6:40 pace

Weeks Totals: 75 miles

Years Totals: 2157.2