Celeste did give me a call Saturday afternoon, so we planned a run on Sunday morning over on the Bradbury Horse Trails. The dirt path would be gentler on her ankle. It is still stiff and sometimes hurts the way the stress fracture hurt last fall. She has a bone scan scheduled for Tuesday.
I woke up to wet ground Sunday morning. It had "rained" overnight. Rain in SoCal on July 30 is not expected. Our average rainfall in July is 0.0 inches. We should have known it was going to rain, my wife got her car washed yesterday. Oh wait, that only happens in all those other states, not in California!
I met Celeste and found out she had driven down from Ventura, just for our run. She had been staying at friend's in Pasadena only about 15 minutes away. After having lived alone for three years she is finding it difficult to live at home again and the hour drive each way was a good excuse to get some time away.
The weather was perfect: cloudy, cooler, a little misty, albeit humid. We got the 5 miles done in a comfortable 9:15 pace and then stood around and caught up on things for the next hour or so. She was telling me tales of running through the fields of Ventura. I may just have to make the hour drive up there. She and Janice were also talking about a run next weekend, so I may get to run together again then.
Miles for the week: 38
Miles for July: 136.9
My lowest monthly mileage for the year. Not bad considering the first week and a half were marathon taper followed by a week of recovery. If all goes well I expect to hit 200 miles in August.
On my run yesterday I used a couple of new products I forgot to mention. At SEAFAIR, the electrolyte replacement drink offered was Gluekos. I didn't want to try it that day, I carried by own Gatorade Endurance Formula. Today I mixed up the punch flavor. The punch flavor was colorless and tasted pretty good. I had no stomach issues with this product, but I generally have an iron gut. Nothing really special about this would make me recommend it, but I wouldn't rate it unfavorably either.
I've always depended upon PowerGels as my gel of choice. Mostly because it was easily available at my local sporting goods store. When I went to get my supply for SEAFAIR, they only had this new stuff with 4x the sodium. Chocolate was my favorite in the old formula. It was like eating chocolate frosting. (I love frosting - throw out the cake, save the frosting). Thankfully I had enough of that left, along with the gummy bears someone was handing out that I was able to get through the marathon. This morning I tried the Tangerine flavor Powerbar Gel. All I can say is YUK! The 4x Sodium results in a salty orange flavor. It was gross. I gagged about half of it down and threw the rest out. I guess I'll be looking for a new source of PowerGel or switching to ClifShots maybe.
8 comments:
I found this weekend's rain, though completely unexpected, to be quite refreshing. Here it was a light rain off and on. Totally ruined my plans for the backyard, but how often can a Southern Californian say that in July?!
wow, we didn't get any of the rain, just heavy, heavy humidity. saturday was just plain nasty. i have NEVER perspired that much during a run before. and you know me. that's saying a lot.
i'm with you on the product testing. i got some samples of some new gels to test and blog about and tried the citrus orange flavor they sent me and was nearly sick from the consistancy and flavor. blech. now, how do i blog about that politely? haha
You and I should eat cake together someday - I always scrape the frosting off mine.
Our running club got some gleukos samples last year, and they came in these strange baggies instead of bottles. Not many of us liked them.
Donald: The Gleukos was powder form that had to be mixed with water.
Jeff: I figured since I paid good money for the PowerGel, I didn't have to be all that polite in my review. ;-)
Darrell,
Strange weather lately eh?! We went from triple digits two weekends ago to low 70's / rain last weekend...I'll vote for the cool stuff anyday though!
I tried those gels with 4X's the sodium and they nearly made me gag after choking down three or four of them throughout a 50K.
I'll avoid those 4 X sodium loser gels. I'll soon need to add big miles like the rest of you so I can eat frosting and cake...and funky gels.
Thanks for stopping by, Darrell!
Which marathon are you going to do in Oregon?
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