Karinsmiles

A gel too far

I’ve been using Torq gels for long runs. They’re the best tasting gels I’ve tried, and they have no nasty ingredients that upset my stomach, which is pretty easily upset during longs runs, particularly if it’s a race. However, even the yummiest of gels are really cloying after a while and I always stop taking them just about the point where I need them most because I can’t bear to squirt another tube of sickly, sweet goo into my mouth.

For my longest run ever so far, I decided I had to take some solid food as well so I made up little bags of liquorice, jelly babies, rice crackers, dried fruit and cheesy oatcakes to pick from on the run. After a while I just mixed them all together and ate a handful of snacktastic pick’n’mix every time I wanted food.

I had a bad moment requiring a urgent stop just outside Broxburn but I suspect that was more to do with Friday night’s curry than my running fuel. The mixture of tastes was a little odd initially and I may try and cut down the salt content a bit, but it was a decent selection of simple and complex carbs and on the whole I think it worked.

The disadvantages are that I did have to stop and walk to eat it whereas gels can be taken on the run and it needed a decent drink of water to wash it down, but I did carry on eating throughout the run and I was even able to turbo power the last two miles by taking a guarana-enhanced gel when it would normally turn my stomach even to think about it.

Longest Run Ever!

It’s been a busy couple of weeks – it was Edinburgh Marathon on 31st May. It was definitely too hot for me (and about 9000 other runners). I ran with Pauline from the club up to about 17 miles and then we lost each other (she was power walking up a hill at an incredible rate, I couldn’t keep up and then I noticed there was no queue at the portaloos – I should have shouted to her, but rational thought doesn’t really happen at that point in a marathon) and it was just a struggle after that. 4h49, so barely faster than Lochaber but it didn’t feel anywhere near as desperate.

On Saturday I ran through to Falkirk Wheel along the Union Canal which is about 30 miles. I was planning on taking walking breaks every couple of miles after Ratho so that I could eat something more solid than gels so I wasn’t sure how long it would take, but I was anticipating something over 6 hours given that I had taken 5 hours to do 26.2 miles the week before.

The weather was mixed – hot, sunny spells mixed with quite sharp showers – but pretty reasonable running weather. There were about 40 people walking the same route for Teenage Cancer Trust so the path was quite busy as far as Ratho. There are some very pretty stretches of canal west of Broxburn and that diverted from the monotony of the absolutely flat path for the next 10 miles to Linlithgow.

I had promised I would phone my sister when I got to Linlithgow so that she would have an idea when to expect me at the wheel and I also phoned Bill to let him know I hadn’t been mugged or fallen in the canal. I sheltered under a tree for a few minutes to let the next heavy shower pass, but it didn’t, and I set off again, anticipating that the hardest part of the run was just starting.

In fact, the last 10 miles were hard work, but in some ways it felt better than the first 20. I was still planning on running about two miles between food breaks but I found that I aways managed to keep going beyond that to the next obvious checkpoint (there was no way I was going to run either over the Avon Aqueduct or through the Falkirk tunnel).

My water ran out just about the same time I reached 26.2 miles but I knew at this point that I would make the distance. My Garmin ticked over to 31 miles at 5h59 just before the little pedesrian swing bridge over the Forth and Clyde canal. My sister and her dog Elli were walking out to meet me from Bonnybridge and I had decided I would keep going until I saw them and I’m glad I did, because when I stopped at 31.46 miles I had done over 50Km – and that is my longest ever run.

Brenda had made me a medal which I’m delighted to say now has pride of place beside my marathon medals. I know that this run doesn’t even come close to what I have to do in August for the Devil o’ the Highlands (12 more miles, the small matter of the odd hill) but I feel I’ve passed some sort of watershed and, providing my training continues to plan over the next 6 weeks, I have a realistic chance of completing it.