Got in about 10+ hours of sleep last night. A first in a while. It was a hot steamy day in Nashville. At 9:30AM I went out for a 20 mile run. The focus today was to control my pace and really begin practicing a a run-walk routine, which will be necessary to complete the L-T-100. Ran the first 10 miles at a 1:40 pace and the last 10 miles at the same for a total of 3:20 for 20 miles. It's interesting as a runner it's very counter intuitive to not "run" or "race" the 20 mile distance. This is the trap of a 100 mile distance run. It's a war of attrition - as only 42% of entrants actually finish the LT-100. The lure of starting off at too fast of a pace is so very tempting - but will inevitably cause you to fall out of the competition.
Today the temps were at 88F when I started my run and 94F when I finished. Lot's of sun - really - lot's of sun. I had on my sun block and started my run with 16.5 ounces of Sustained Energy drink along with 16.5 ounces of H2O. As usual the little piece of shit store on wilson pike was once again closed. So ever dependable - causing me to have to stop about 1.5 miles up the road at the recycling center and refill my water bottle from a hose - which was concerning as it was well water. The upside was that I took the cool water and and dumped it on my head and body - cooling my core temp. For the next 1 mile to the turnaround i felt pretty good - an important note - get the core temp down. As I recall from 70.3 NO and IM LZ 140.6 cooling the core temp with water was very important.
But back to the Sustained Energy Drink from Hammer nutrition. It really did Sustain me. Note to self count on this for LT-100. felt great while consuming this bottle - but only had 1 hours worth of it. Post SE I ate my shot blocks - which didn't do me so well in Lanzarote - but today - well they did the trick. Sustained Energy will be my drink of choice during the LT -100. I have to stay committed to it however - cause it actually does work. My hat off to the engineers at Hammer.
Post run today, circa 1:30PM, I decided to do some yard work - which was very much needed. Weeded and pine strawed pretty much the entire landscape. Finished at 7:00PM. So from basically 9:30 AM till 7:00PM I was grinding it out in the sun and heat. Drank alot of water and several diet cokes. So for you mathematicians in the crowd that's a 9.5 hour work out. Achilles are aching as is my back. Enough belly-aching.
Choked down a spaghetti dinner with the family, a Sunday staple. Pretty tired right now. Learned a few things today. Core body temp matters, SE matters but you must stay true to it and running or working out in the heat is a bitch. Mentally the day was not an issue. I'm expecting in the LT-100 run to explore the very darkest corners of my mind. Today there were no dark corners to explore just a long day. A hard start to a challenging week ahead of me. The family will never understand the challenges as they have a summer vacation in front of them and I'm glad that they can enjoy it and be kids.
In life there are peak and valleys. When you're on the peak you can only see forever, however when you're in the valley you can't see a way out - but only there ever is a way - because of one's will - it's a pretty cool thing. Simple peaks and simple valleys.
Cheers.
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