Yesterday was my long run day, another 10 miler.
The last 10 miler I ran, I felt pretty good, but was completely drained at the end. I had run for 2 hours and all I brought with me was 8 ounces of G2. This time, I was much better prepared. I bought a hydration belt, which holds three 8 ounce bottles, from the Nike Outlet. Armed with one 8 ounce bottle of regular Gatorade, two 8 ounce bottles of water, and a half of a Power Bar, I thought I would be able to get through the run without any problems. The hydration part worked out very well for me, but the Power Bar part didn't.
I always seem to have problems when it comes to eating and running. If I'm going for a hard run, I can't eat any kind of meal within 5 hours of running, or I end up with side stitches. Generally, on slow long runs, I can eat a small breakfast and head out with no problems. Before the run, I had half of a 100% whole wheat bagel with 1 tablespoon of PB. I decided that I would eat the Power Bar at mile 6. This Power Bar was real chewy, which made it kind of hard to chew, so I ended up stopping for a couple minutes to chew up this snack and take a few sips of water. I started running again and felt pretty good till around mile 8, when I started to get horrible horrible side stitches. And these weren't normal side stitches, they were more like all-over stitches. I stopped to walk a little again to calm my stomach down, then started running again. Usually this fixes my side stitches, but not this time, and I ended up running the last 2 miles with an aching tummy, which made it difficult to breathe.
Next time, I am going to try half of a Cliff Bar instead. I think that it wasn't completely the energy bar's fault. At about mile 5, I noticed that my heart rate was slowly creeping up, and I was having to run at a slower pace to keep a lower heart rate. I was fighting this the whole rest of the run, and felt like I had to slow down quite a bit to keep my heart rate under 155. As you can see below, by mile 6 I had to slow down to slower than a 12 min/mile pace. I couldn't quite figure this out because physically I felt great. I was having a nice run, wasn't losing my breath at all, and here my heart rate is creeping up for no apparent reason. Maybe I wasn't hydrated enough. I must admit, I had slacked on my water intake the past week, but felt I drank enough the day before. Oh well, it's hard to really tell what made my body act up. I'm not discouraged at all, though. I will get back out there for my long run next Sunday and give it another try.
Distance: 10 miles
Time: 1:59
Ave pace: 11:59
Ave HR: 153
Calories burned: 1133
Mile 1: 11:26 min/mile; 148 bpm
Mile 2: 11:49 min/mile; 151 bpm
Mile 3: 11:41 min/mile; 152 bpm
Mile 4: 11:57 min/mile; 155 bpm
Mile 5: 11:51 min/mile; 153 bpm
Mile 6: 12:01 min/mile; 154 bpm
Mile 7: 12:11 min/mile; 154 bpm
Mile 8: 12:13 min/mile; 153 bpm
Mile 9: 12:41 min/mile; 154 bpm
Mile 10: 11:56 min/mile; 159 bpm
Next run: Tuesday hill run with Andrew
Total miles this week: 10
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Excellent way to hang in there and keep fighting back! Great run. I hope to do 10 miles some day!
ReplyDeleteyou should try gels. i prefer the Gu brand. they will give you the same carbs as the bar and may not upset your stomach as much. you need to take one every hour of running. also make sure you eat at least an hour and a half ahead of time. the best part about training is that you can try all of this out before the race. great job on the 10!
ReplyDeleteGood work. It really is just trying to find a balence. For me its about not only what I eat during the day but what I eat after. I forgot to mention in my blog that I carb loaded but not white-pasta stuff. But a wheat pasta salad and turkey on wheat bread--it seemed to help with my 12 miler.
ReplyDeleteKeep it up, your doing great! :)