Week 8: Thirteen miles

30:30 sec run/walk ratio
3:32:32 hours
13.46 miles
15.8 minutes/mile

Okay, today's run was good and bad. Good in that my time was pretty good, especially considering that I had to stop for the bathroom three times during my run. Bad in that, well, I had to stop for the bathroom three times during my run: at 3, 9, and 12 miles. Digestion was wonky all day, and I kept having cramps and diarrhea, which made things difficult. Still managed to keep up a pretty good pace. I did get tired near the end, but I think that was mainly because I skipped my last GU because my stomach was feeling so wonky, and each time I ate GU (at 4 and 7.5 miles), it upset my stomach more. I was getting hungry by 11 miles, but I decided to just tough it out rather than make my stomach worse. So I think I was running low on blood sugar and food energy by the end, especially since I'd gotten a late start and didn't finish until around 2:30 PM, and hadn't eaten any solid food all day. I had a cup of hot chocolate and a protein drink this morning before I left, and that was all.

So I really must try to figure out what's upsetting my digestion these past few long runs. Am I eating the wrong things the day before? Usually I eat at Denny's on Friday, a veggie burger & seasoned fries. Possibly the fries are too greasy. Also maybe the cheese I've been eating is hard on my digestion. Next week I'll stick to vegan/no oil food the day before and see if it helps.

Still, I finished almost 13 and a half miles in 3:32, so I'm pretty pleased with my time. I let the app run through my bathroom breaks, which took 1.5 - 2 minutes each, so if you subtract about 5 minutes from my total, that gives me 13.1 miles in about 3:22. I will be very happy if I can do the actual half marathon in that time!

I took my sport watch along so I could time my miles and see if I was slowing down during my run. I kept forgetting to hit the split timer, though, plus the difference in slope and length of the different segments made it hard to compare. Overall, though, I think I slowed down some, especially on the last few miles, but not extensively. I meant to take my GPS watch, which I think does mile splits all on its own, but I forgot to plug in it so it would be charged up this morning. Oh well.

The weather was almost hot today! 70 F and sunny. I wore capri leggings and short-sleeved tee-shirt, and still got pretty warm. Glad I remembered to put sunscreen on — I forgot on my last long run, and ended up with a slight sunburn on my neck. Should have worn my visor instead of my cap, as well — my head got hot! But it was fairly breezy and not really a problem. Wouldn't have hurt to get an earlier start, though. I've decided to start getting up at 4 AM every morning starting the Monday before the race, so I'll be used to getting up at that time on race day. For Long Beach, I was getting up at 6 AM for a few days before the race, so I was sort of used to getting up early, but for Surf City, I didn't make any adjustments at all, and I went from getting up around 8 AM every day to 5 AM for the race, and it was kind of a shock to my system. OC starts at 6:15? 6:30? I can't remember exactly, but it's an early start, and the shuttle picks up at my hotel at 5:05 AM, so I'm going to have to get up around 4 AM. I don't want it to be too tired from lack of sleep on race day.