Sunday, August 16, 2009

The Long and "Shorts" of it

Random Road Run: Temperature range start to finish 64 to 75 degrees; Splits 9:32; 9:12; 9:03; 9:08; 9:09; 9:05; 9:21; 9:19; 9:21; 8:46; 1:31:47 total for 10 miles; 9:10 per mile pace.

I woke up at 5 a.m. so that I could get out of the house early enough to complete my 10 mile run before it reached 90 degrees. Prior to running I had a Hammer Nutrition Expresso Gel with its 50 mg. of caffeine, an Endurolyte pill to keep away the cramps (Works like a charm), and of course two cups of coffee and two english muffins with pb and j on them. I mixed up 24 oz. of water with Hammer Nutrition Mandarin Orange Heed, filled my 16 oz. water bottle, grabbed a Hammer Nutrition plain flavored gel, and put them all in my "tool" (hydration) belt. As promised, I was wearing the Sugoi(TM) Mobil Trail Short and Headsweats Relay Hat that I talked about in Friday's post. It was the second attempt at wearing the hat after an unsuccessful trial run with it on Friday. First, the run. Normally for a ten mile run in the heat I'd be following the Jeff Galloway run-walk-run training plan of running for 5 minutes, walking for a minute, and repeating this pattern for the entire ten miles. I decided to see if I could run the entire ten miles without taking a walk break. Why? I don't know. Perhaps to challenge myself a little more. It was one of my better "long" runs. I felt good the entire time, so I skipped the walk breaks. Impressive to me, since I was running for the fourth day in a row, which to a lot of you isn't a big deal, but to me is! The water and the Heed definitely helped, along with the one Hammer Nutrition unflavored (blech!) gel I consumed. My splits were fairly consistent (I love consistent splits) with the exception of mile 7, nature's bathroom break; and mile 9, uphill killer hill. It was great actually seeing people at miles 3 to 7, the Farmington Canal Linear Trail part of my run. I thought that by me being there at 7:30 to 8 a.m. it would be deserted. I thought wrong. The parking lot was filled, and I saw a variety of people along the trail, from the elderly to the young, beautiful, and much faster than me female runners. Needless to say, I had a lot of people to say "Hi" to. If someone's running past me, I just wave. Most runners will make eye contact and/or wave. I've found that about 50% of the "non-runners" won't make eye contact or respond to a "Hi" or a friendly wave. Why is that?! Are they jealous of my studly (not) psyche? Are they offended by my sweaty smell?? Are they jealous of runners in general??? Or are they just anti-social snobs???? Ah, the great mysteries of life...OK, product re-review. I gave the hat another chance. I wore it tighter around my head, and made sure it was ready to soak up my sweat (Ewwwww). I kept it on the entire run this time, because although not perfect, it performed better than its initial test run. Still, with a retail price of $22, and the fact it still didn't do a great job wicking away the sweat from my head, I cannot recommend this hat. It will become my new hat to wear whenever I mow my lawn. The shorts failed miserably. Sure, they wicked the sweat away from my body, but they also kept all the sweat in the fabric. When I arrived home from my run and walked into my house, my wife burst out laughing. It was then that I realized that it looked like I had (I'll put this nicely) been soaked with a hose during my run. My entire shorts were wet. Noticeably wet. So wet that I could have wrung them out after I took them off. Wet and HEAVY feeling. There's nothing positive I can say about them, especially with a retail price of $50.00. I don't even like the color, "Vicuna," or ugly brown as I've called it, so I won't even wear them as casual shorts. They'll be washed, dried, and donated to Goodwill or another deserving charity.

6 comments:

Tara said...

Hey Rick! Thanks for stopping by my blog and signing up to stalk me (welcome to the insanity)! I will be stalking you as well. I've noticed that same thing about non-runners. Half the time, the non-runners are blocking the whole trail and won't get the hell outta the way! Theya re definitely jeolous. :)

Unknown said...

Eew on the shorts Rick...but I forgive you because you're such a cool runner guy!

Lindsay said...

was it humid or just plain warm? i am always soaked from head to toe on these nice, warm summer runs. i don't own a single pair of shorts that can stay dry during a summer run. even on my one-mile walk the other day my clothes got a little sweaty - not nearly as bad as when i run for much longer but still, a one mile walk!

joyRuN said...

I've seen those shorts - they always looked soaked & dripping wet - not comfy at all!

I've been thinking about Galloway run/walk for my long runs...

Thanks for the tip about the monkeybutt. I'm marinating in desitin as we speak to make this chafe better.

Tina @GottaRunNow said...

Glad you were able to get that 10 miler done w/o walking!

Happy running!

Irish Cream said...

I miss friendly runners! Back home (in Chicago), runners (and people in general) were much friendlier . . . but in NYC, people (runners or not) look at you like you're some kind of freak if you so much as wave or smile as you pass them. It's so sad!