Ethan Cannon

LR today since I didn't do one last week. A couple of good news': a) my body felt pretty ok, it will really be a great blessing if I am able to ride the wave of the hills I have run this past week. B) maybe due to long and hard LRs in prior weeks, 16.86 decently chill miles on the W&OD seems extremely manageable.

Less good news: A) This run felt much more difficult than 6:16 pace. I would have pinned it as sub-6. B) I used some gel my father in law gave me. The copyright date was 2015, meaning it likely expired in 2016. I specifically took the one with caffeine in it. It tasted fine, but during the end of the run and afterwards I felt some cramping and a little other abnormal discomfort. I hadn't considered the fact that after taking a caffeineited gel, it wouldn't be easy to discern between discomfort that is simply a normal part of the back end of a long run on a humid day on the W&OD vs. something due to caffeine that will impair my race performance. Before the memory gets hazy, I'll say right here that I really don't think I normally get those type of cramps. Who knows what would happen when taking 2-3 gels over the course of an hour or two. C) Less importantly, it's funny how the W&OD has lost a good amount of its luster after I've become accustomed to the gateway trail, which overall I prefer to this. It's still nice to come to, but it's not the experience it once was. 

So now I have an important decision to make about what to do on race day. One option would be to wear my grey shorts and pack two of my gels with me, then maybe to take a caffeineted one near the end. Its kind of frustrating prepping for the marathon beacause unfortunately it's no longer as simple as "who's the fastest, toughest runner" and instead involves who has the time, money, and stomach to perfect the ideal nutritional concotion to keep glucose going without upsetting their stomach. 

6:58 pace, east river flats. It wasn't particularly enjoyable, but wasn't bad either. I'll give myself credit for having done an LR yesterday, traveling all of today, and running in 80 degrees (not much I know but I'm not used to it). 

6:55 pace coming back from west river but almost certainly slower than 7 flat pace overall. 

Wow, 6:58 pace on east river road means I must have been running backwards. Seriously though, I'm a little concerned that my pace has continued to stay slow. Then ran an extra bit around Como, not on purpose. 

6:46 pace coming back from farmers fields. They are *still* working on the road, so I got my feet pretty wet from the dew. I was grateful, it was kind of smoky air but more so in downtown than it was to the east, so I definitely felt good about running that direction. 

Once again, I didn't quite go 17 miles, this time hitting 16.78. There was a heat warning today but my run, which started late at 8:00, was honestly not that bad (the worst part was when I was in the porta potty, those are so hot). I enjoyed running east river road (which it has been quite a while since I did an LR on), although it drew quite the crowd today. 6:12 pace going out, 5:51s coming back. 6:01 overall. Yet again I wish that was faster given the effort. I stopped for a drink once near the start of river road. My marathon training aspect today was to take 2 GUs in my grey shorts (I only consumed one of them though). It wasn't ideal but was maneageable. I had one of them, and definitely felt less in the way of cramps today as suspected. But I still don't know if the GU caused how I felt last time; these shorts also start feeling uncomfortable when I get sweaty, and I'd rather wear my black ones if it wasn't for my concern about the caffeine GU. Hopefully I make a good decision.

Note that this is my highest mileage week since probably April of 2022 which is interesting. But I'm not really counting it as anything special since it only happened because I switched last week's LR with this monday. 

Other note: I am not at 2007 miles this year and have crossed the 2K thresshold! I'm grateful to be able to run.