Down and Out and Fuel Belts

Well, out anyway. And not that kind of out, I mean out of blogland.

I haven't been keeping up with this lately, and I even had a really good post in my head about my run on Friday. A PSA, if you will, and I'll get to that in a bit.

Much has been going in lately, training and otherwise.

Thursday I found out that it wasn't just the bike, I'm actually getting stronger on it. Yay me. The Cannondale does make things a bit easier, though.

Friday see below. I did get rained on a bit, but only for 10-15 minutes. It was a nice overcast run.

Saturday swam. Didn't get as good of times as I think I should have and my left shoulder is starting to hurt. I'm not sure if that's the same shoulder that hurt last year or not, I'll have to post chase myself to find out.

Sunday I went on a hike/walk at Crystal Cove. I didn't realize I had basically done the whole thing before during the Pac Coast Tri, but I didn't have time to enjoy it like I did on Sunday. It was a beautiful day. I went with my friend Anissa and we saw tons of birds and a bunny!

PSA:

If the longest run you did the week before was 5 miles, and it was your only run that week, don't try to pull out a 10 mile (or really a 9.5 mile) hilly run as your first (and only) run of this week.

It isn't pretty and your thighs (both hamstrings and quads) will scream at you later.

Also, I'm looking for suggestions on fuel belts. I have an Amphipod runlite 4 (meaning it comes with 4 bottles) but one of my holders, maybe more, doesn't keep the bottles well. They pop/slip out.

I finally broke one of the bottles when it fell out 4 weeks ago and on Friday's run I lost a bottle that didn't snap in completely. I can pay 10 bucks for 2 new bottles or buy a new belt. I've looked at more of Amphipod's belts and found a full tilt that carries 40 oz in 2 bottles plus more storage than my current belt has.

The other one I found was their profile lite 32. Carries 32 oz water, storage much like what I already have.

These pictures were taken from Amphipod's website, in case anyone wants to know.

Suggestions? Keep in mind that I push all of the bottles on my current belt to the back. I hate hitting them with my arms when I run. Anybody?

If I decide to get a new belt, I'll have an old one for sale/trade/free...

Crap!

Today I came home to a mysterious package on my porch. The only package I was planning on getting was from Barnes and Noble and that's not supposed to come until Friday.

I ripped it open and it was my shoes! My new Hurricanes that I found on the net! (how did we find the cheapest prices or retired shoes before the internet?) I opened the box and compared them to my older "new" shoes, to make sure I got the same model and guess what I saw?

Seriously, people, I just bought these shoe. In January. Not even a month ago (it was the 10th or something). I have an appointment with my chiropractor tomorrow and I'll ask him about it. I'm going to ask my orthotics maker, too. These shoe might have 100 miles on them, might. I'm guessing it's closer to 50.

At this rate, I'll be buying shoes every 250-300 miles. I thought I should be able to get about 500 out of them...

Any suggestions or comments? Is this normal? Do I need to investigate different shoes or just lose 30 lbs?

4 Miles and a Gel Taste Testing

I ran 4 miles today. That's the longest I've run to date. It felt really great to complete it, but it felt even better to be running at 5:30pm with a temp closer to 79 degrees than one that was 95.

I plan to keep running these 4 milers for about 2 weeks or so, then increase my mileage to 5, and repeat the process until I can run the 10K. If everything goes well, I'll be running the 10K Run for Hunger on Thanksgiving day, instead of the 5K. But if the body says no, I'll listen. I don't want injuries, especially with my injury prone right ankle.

Another good thing about the break in our heat wave, I walk the dogs again. It was took hot for my hairy friends, even shaved down, to walk their ~2 miles at 8pm. And then there is always the issue of them being snacks for the wild life. We have had coyote and mountain lion sightings, by neighbors not us personally. At about 10lbs my dogs are snack size treats!

On to the tasting. Yesterday I bought 7 gels of 5 different flavors from 2 different companies. I chose Vanilla Bean, Chocolate Outrage, TriBerry, Lemon Sublime from Gu. From Hammer Gels I chose Vanilla, Chocolate, and Cinnamon Apple.

They all tasted pretty good to me. Both vanilla flavors reminded me of frosting. The chocolate is chocolate, although they both were more of a pudding consistency than the rest. The TriBerry reminded me of a berry jam, in flavor and consistency.

My least favorite was the Lemon Sublime, mostly because it was the tartest of the bunch. If I had it on it's own or with a lemon-lime energy drink I may have liked it better.

My favorite was the Cinnamon Apple. It reminded me of fast food apple pie filling. I say reminded, not tasted like, as it's still an energy gel. I'm not sure that I'd use this one on a run though, it's a dessert!

I'll try these on runs soon. I'm running a little over 45 minutes, so it may be on the borderline of actually needing them, but since I have them opened and in my fridge, I'll go for it.

Running in Skirts

I have a new product I love, running skirts/skorts. Skorts have shorts, skirts have panties, although both can be referred to as skirts.

I own 2 that I've run in, the Brooks running skort and the Running Skirts Athletic skirt. Both have two pockets and can eliminate the need for a waist pack, depending on how much stuff you carry with you.

I like the skirts because they give me all the benefits of shorts (meaning less clothes when it's freaking hot) without worrying about what the people behind me are seeing. I don't usually go crazy over something this fast, but I love it. I'll have to take a picture of me in one and post it.

Oh and I ran hills today. Really just 2 hills, they're reverse hills really. I run down, run flat for a bit, then run back up, repeat. It wasn't fun, but I was able to get up both of them. I'll try it again tomorrow!