Long Run, Saturday January 30th

It's 12:38pm, and I am sitting, warm and comfortable, at my computer desk. A hot shower has rinsed away the last of my coldness, and a belly full of pancakes has ballasted out the high-energy but unsatisfying grub I downed during my run. I am feeling moderately pleased. Since you're already reading this, you're probably curious how things went. Well, let's go back to 4:30 this morning. I will sum up.

I wake up at 4:30, 5 minutes before my alarm. I am feeling just dandy, no pain anywhere. 30 minutes later, I am kitted out. My equipment load-out looks like this:
* the ordinary nylon pants, tech shirt, vest and hat.
* brand new mittens, with a chemical hand warmer in each one
* Petroleum Jelly, slathered over my nose and cheeks, as well as a few other spots.
* quart of gatorade in a 50oz bladder
* 3 energy bars, one already in my stomach
* bag full of gumdrops (poor man's gu)
* GPS watch.
* the Frees on my feet.

My nutrition plan will be to eat energy bars at hour intervals, starting at hour 0. I estimate it takes between 60 and 90 minutes for one of those bars to start kicking in, so it makes sense to start with one going. In particular, the bar at hour 1 will be crucial, because it should hit right around the 2.5 hour mark--where I got into trouble last week. The gumdrops and gatorade will be sprinkled in at various intervals as needed.

I step out the door. What a morning! The temperature and the hour are commensurate. The full moon is a stunning orb in the inky clarity of the sky, the snow-cover (no more than a dusting now), lit up with an ethereal brilliance. And cold, yes. Cold as advertised. Talk of your cold! Through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail. / If our eyes we'd close then the lashes froze, 'til sometimes we couldn't see. Cold enough to make me think of Robert Service, but only in a theatrical light, for the wind was low, and it would take that to transform this chilly day into a brutal one.

Feeling light and easy, I settle into my pace. It seems hardly any time has passed before I am approaching the hour mark. I try my gatorade. Despite running the straw down inside my shirt with the tip pressed against my abdomen, it has still managed to freeze with ice. Damn. My hands are doing all right--better than last week, despite the conditions--but I still don't think I can fumble out my hour-1 energy bar and eat it. Double-damn. At around 80 minutes I fumble out some gum-drops and have a few.

I have long since passed through Dover center where I exchange Walpole street for Dedham street. Now I am starting up the Summer Street hill, and it feels grand. I gust up it like a leaf. I've been running for an hour and a half and at last the sun is coming up. Birds start singing, the hardy fellows. I wonder at the dumb tenacity that lets them live through nights like this. Amazing what you can do when you don't have any alternative.

I reach the Vellos parking lot around 6:50, and head out for a short out-and-back, in which I run into Jeff W and a pack of other GNRCers (sorry I didn't know you right away Jeff, my eyes were really blurry!). Alas they are just finishing. I return to the shopping plaza and orbit it a few times, but head out again around 7:02. Ah well.

I have gone 13 miles by now, and decide to do another Westwood/Dover lap. If I was worried about doing a long run in 2 laps I needn't have; everything is different this time and it's not the least boring. Back at the shopping plaza I had managed a few more gumdrops, but had to slip off my left mitten to manage it. I really struggled getting it back on and decided I wasn't going to do that again. Too bad. I have had my last food for the run.

My vision starts to get pretty swimmy at this point. I'm not low on calories--it's the cold. My corneas have stiffened up, and then to top things off I feel like I've got standing tears in each eye. Eh, I can see the road and cars, at least.

I hit Dover center for the 2nd time around mile 18. Feeling great.

Around mile 20 I take right off Dedham street onto Summer Street. Hill time. I am starting to feel the miles, but this is exactly what I came out here for today. I find I am anticipating what is to come.

I do not float up the hill this time. This time I have to think about it. It's resistance, but it's strictly with a lower-case 'r'; nothing like the devastating enervation that capped my run last week. I think of breakfast. A hot shower, then pancakes with syrup. It surprises me how viscerally I can imagine putting a warm slice of pancake into my mouth. I finish off the hill at mile 22, and try to coax myself into loosening up again and finding some kind of flow.

Back to the shopping plaza for the third time, at mile 23. At this point I had entertained some heroic notion of doing an extra out-and-back, making this into a marathon. But I'm pretty close to home by now, and that thought dominates all my other intentions. All right, then. 1 more mile. Make this another distance PR.

There's some stiffer resistance this time, on the last of the last legs. I can't say if it's my brain, knowing I'm almost done and trying to trick me into stopping a little early, or the declined energy bars at hour 1 and hour 2. I think, if the chips were down I could do another two miles, but not today. A warm house and a good meal are too near.

The final score:
distance: 24.2 miles (d.PR)
pace: 8:06 min/mile.

Thoughts from the run:
* The LLBean hand-warmers really do work (I found they were still quite warm 7 hours after opening them, just as advertised). Next time I will put them straight in my mittens, and not in the warmer pockets on the outside. I think I can manage this without burning myself, and it should much increase their efficacy.
* I need to make a checklist for these early morning starts. Things like: pre-shuck energy bars; and, bring money! (with those long runs, you never know).
* I clearly still haven't figured out the whole trick for eating on long runs, at least runs this cold. I'm thinking of peeling my energy bars ahead of time and then keeping them loose in my outer vest pocket, instead of my zipper trowser pocket. This means I'll be able to get at them with my mittens, but it also means they'll be brick-solid, like eating them out of the freezer. If I break pieces off and hold them in my mouth for a bit, maybe it will work.
* The gumdrops are *almost* a great energy food--nice and discrete, easier to eat and more palatable than gu, and (I suspect), just as a fast a glucose delivery mechanism. But they do have one little problem:




Can you tell which ones ran 24 miles with me? All that jostling does something interesting. It transforms the outer crusting of sugar into something resembling confectioner's sugar, light and powdery, messy, and easy to choke on. I feel there is some clever culinary solution to this problem. Deep-fried gumdrops, maybe?