Week 21: Six miles

20:40 second run/walk ratio
1:42 hours
6.40 miles
16.0 minutes/mile

Pretty good run today! Actually kept up a good pace the whole way and felt pretty good.

I've been thinking about running out of steam on my last two mileage-increasing runs, and decided that I'm just not eating enough. I used to always take GU with me on any run longer than an hour—at least 1 GU per hour I expected to be running. I didn't always use all of them, but I'd eat all but one or two as I was running. This time, for some reason, I've been assuming I didn't need much food and only taking one or two gels or gummy packs along. So I ordered a 24-pak box of assorted GU and now have plenty to take along on each of my remaining runs and the marathon. Some of them have caffeine and some don't—I figure I'll use the non-caffeine ones early and the caffeine ones later when I need an energy boost. I usually avoid caffeine, but the GUs don't have a lot of it—20 mg in some, 40 mg in others—and I expect I'll burn it up while running so it won't bother me too much afterwards. I remember I used to save one caffeinated GU for around mile 18 of really long runs and really liked the boost.

I also ordered another pouch for my belt to carry all the GU and stuff I'll need for long runs. One of the reasons I haven't been taking a lot of food with me is that I just don't have room for it in my belt pack. It has one big pocket for my phone, and then one smaller pocket for everything else—once I stuff it with handkerchief, chapstick, battery stick & cord, keys, etc., there's no room for 6 - 7 GUs and gummies. For shorter runs, especially if I don't need the battery stick, I can manage, but for anything over 12 - 15 miles, I need more room. So another pouch will hold all the extra stuff I need.

For today, since it was just 6 miles, the regular pack was fine. I put coconut water in my water bottle and took one GU with 20 mg caffeine. Didn't think I would really need it for six miles, but wanted to experiment with foods and waters since there is not that much time left before the marathon. I also skipped breakfast—I meant to have a protein drink, but my stomach wasn't really ready, and I figured it would be a good test of whether GUs and coconut water alone could keep me going in later parts of longer runs. I drank most of the coconut water and ate the GU about halfway through the run. Had plenty of energy the whole way.

I got up at 5 AM and was at the park by 6:20 AM to start my run. Supposed to reach 90 F today, but with an early start for a short run, I was finished a little after 8 AM and before the morning started to get too hot. The only problem I had was some pain in my right groin area. I'd strained it during my 23-mile run last week, although I had no pain while I was running, after I stopped and my muscles cooled down, I had a lot of pain and soreness on both sides, but especially on the right. It got better after a few days, and I did both of my midweek runs without any trouble (on Tuesday and Thursday this week, because I was still pretty wiped out on Monday). But when I started out today, I had a very sharp pain as soon as I started running. I kept going, hoping it would work itself out, massaging the area while I walked and trying to run gently. It did ease up after a bit, and was mostly just a dull heaviness by the end of the first mile. It didn't seem to slow me down any.

I'm encouraged by the way things went today, and I have a plan to keep up my energy throughout the marathon. Of course, the 26-mile run will be the real test, but so far, so good!