"Perhaps the genius of ultrarunning is its supreme lack of utility. It makes no sense in a world of space ships and supercomputers to run vast distances on foot. There is no money in it and no fame, frequently not even the approval of peers. But as poets, apostles and philosophers have insisted from the dawn of time, there is more to life than logic and common sense."
- David Blaikie

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Uwharrie 2, Weezyl 1

Saturday's run at Uwharrie wasn't pretty. The rain cleared out of the area leaving us with partly sunny skies and warmer than expected temps (70). A beautiful day actually. I was hoping this would be a good test of my recent training approach of faster pace, lower mileage and technical trails. I was also looking at it as a good benchmark before the 2009 buildup, but alas, Uwharrie got the better of me (again) and I'm not sure what conclusions I can draw.

The first 8 mi split 1:21 was 4-5 mins slower than I was looking for. Okay, I took a wrong turn, the leaves were thick, and the creeks were high, but I don't think that really contributed more than a minute or two. From mile 8 the run deteriorated quickly. I had a couple Honey Stinger gels and shortly thereafter emptied my stomach around mi 13.5. I forgot the S! Caps which would have come in really handy at this point (duh). Dehydration set in and by my mile 16 I was feeling pretty wonky and turned back. I tried a couple times to get something going on the way back but I had nothing. Legs felt fine, but no energy.

32 miles for the day. Ugh.

So, not sure what to take away from this. Certainly, 1) don't forget the S! caps, 2) aid at 8, 11, and 20 isn't enough for a warm day, and 3) more experimentation needed on the Stinger honey before I try that in a race.

On the positive side, I remembered Uwharrie being much more technicaly challenging and hilly. That may be a good sign that all the technical training is paying off.

2 comments:

George Linney (aka Monk) said...

At least it wasn't on race day. Get the bad Uwharrie day out now and you'll have good flow on Feb. 7. Be fun to run the 20 on a day between Christmas and New Year's if we could sneak down there super early one morning and try to be home about noon. Maybe put down a 3:10 effort?

Anonymous said...

32 miles... ugh. What a disgrace.
SO good to see you tonight, Weez! I'll be there for coffee in a few hours...