This will be a quick update. Friday I ran an easy 5 mile recovery run. That afternoon I drove to my parent’s house in Ashland, Wisconsin. Here’s a photo or two if you’re not familiar with Ashland. The second photo shows Ashland in relationship to Duluth, Minnesota. That line that represents Highway 61 also represents the Grandma's Marathon course. And back in the early '80s there was actually a 2 lap marathon on Madeline Island (see the first map).Saturday I ran by every school I went to, every house I lived in, every park I ever played it, etc. That took about 5 miles. For the other 5 miles, I just ran down Main Street and added on part of the Whistlestop Marathon course. This run gave me 68 miles for the week.
Since I missed Saturday’s group run, I ended up going long yesterday. While I love the group runs, it sure is nice to go out for a solo 20 miler and be able to run your own pace. After about 70 minutes in the mist, the skies opened up and it poured for the next 90 minutes. I was a little worried because I was deep in the woods at Lebanon Hills without any ID. With all the rain recently, I was just waiting for a tree to fall on my head. Anyway, out of the 20 miles, I spent 2 of them on a golf course, 2 on the roads and 16 on the trails. Best of all, I didn’t see a soul - the entire run!!!
Recently, I mentioned the 30-day free trial I received for Accelerade sports drink. Unlike other sports drinks, their’s contains protein. That made me curious about trying their gels, which also contain protein. I took two during my long run and was really happy with them. I usually find other brand’s flavors, other than plan or vanilla, to be really sweet. However, I tried Accelerade’s Kiwi-Strawberry and Orange flavors and I didn’t find them overly sweet. They were easy on my stomach and seemed to work as well as any other gel that I’ve tried. It looks like I’ll be carrying a few of these with me at TCM.
Quote of the day;
“I somehow sensed that the marathon sprang from greatness to inspire greatness.” – Dorthy Deslongchamps
3 comments:
An age-old question of mine. What's the best way to carry gels in a marathon?
Have you got a pocket in your shorts? I don't. I'm definitely not wearing a fanny pack over the whole marathon course. I once carried 3 gels in my hand for 20 miles (well, the last one for 20 miles), but that's not ideal either. I tried pinning them to my shorts, but felt they were dragging my shorts down.
What's your preferred solution?
Thomas,you can buy "race ready" shorts, they have enough pockets around the waist to carry gels, band aids,and pain killers etc. Recently I just bought Addidas shorts and they have a pocket in the back with a zipper, it can fit about three packs of gels easily, but not enough room for other survival stuff.
Thomas, I've taken numerous approaches including wearing Race Ready shorts and carrying individual gels, wearing other shorts with a single pocket in the back and putting my gels in a flask, having friends/family hand me gels along the course, etc.
At Grandma's this year I pinned 3 gels to the front of my shorts, between my shorts and my race number. If you pin your race number fairly snuggly you can limit the bouncing. Just be careful when you unpin the gels because you can easily drop them if you're not paying attention.
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