Saturday was the end of a landmark 50mi week for me which ended successfully, but today’s long run was definitely a challenge and quite a learning experience.
In an attempt to introduce more elevation and get on some trails I decided to run the lower portion of the Equinox Marathon Trail – joining up with it at Ballaine Lake and turning back toward town at Sheep Creek Rd. That section of the trail is extremely well groomed and very enjoyable, but it was the most challenging part of the run today …it was certainly not lost on me that it is the easiest portion of the actual race. *Sigh.
Lessons from this run:
- When introducing trails and elevation pack more calories. By mile 20 I was out of energy and by mile 23 the run had become an amazing mental battle with myself. Miles 23 to 26 felt like they were longer than all of the miles leading up to them and it seemed that no amount of music or attempts to psych myself out proved effective. It was all I could do to keep from curling up in a fetal position on the ground.
- Clif Shot Orange Cream Gel tastes like salty vomit. I’m glad to see that it is a discontinued flavor (according to the Clif web site). I’ve resolved to begin investigating recipes to make my own fuel.
- Don’t start out too fast no matter how good you feel. This is probably what did me in toward the end of the run.
There really wasn’t much of an increase in elevation on this run compared to last week’s, but it was definitely noticeable.
I’ve found it really difficult to find trail information in the form of XML or KML formats to view in Google Earth, so I’m posting the tracks from my little Garmin as a KML file if anyone is interested in flying through parts of the Equinox Marathon course. I didn’t mark any waypoints on this one, but I’ll be sure to mark visual landmarks in future runs. To create the KML files I’m exporting data from my Garmin Forerunner to XML and using the GPS Visualizer web site to convert the XML track to KML format.
If you have GoogleEarth installed, clicking on the image below will launch GE and automatically fly you to the track. Today’s track is marked in orange.
Today’s statistics:
