conquering another ten miles

This is the Golden Gate from my car on a good day. The past two weekends, I've been starting my runs at Crissy Field, toward the Golden Gate Bridge, across it to the visitor center and then back. That runs about nine miles depending on the route you take. From there, I stop at the car, re-fuel, take off the long sleeves and conquer the last mile or so along the Marina. My past two ten mile runs haven't looked like this. The bridge has been foggy and I really don't mind because the colder, the better for me. I get warm really quickly.

Margaret didn't join me for the ten mile run. As with last week, we had a sleep over at Diana's and headed to Crissy first thing on Sunday. We usually head out really early, but we stayed up late watching Samoan Wedding, which meant we got to Crissy at 10am. It was fine because it's the city. It's still cold and though I hate crowds, it was kind of nice to be out and about when there are a lot of other people there. I'm glad that Diana and Jen got to get in a good workout too. I stupidly forgot some essential things such as my headphones and had to buy a set at the local Safeway. (Can you believe that the Sports Basement doesn't sell headphones?!) I also forgot my hydration belt and hat. I had to improvise by carrying my water bottle and run without my hat (which made my face suffer from the UVA/UVB rays). Lesson learned: make a checklist and pack your shit!

This week's ten miler was much better than last week. I clocked in at a 12:45 pace, 30 seconds faster than last week. I'll say that the reason why this run was better is because I got smarter about nutrition. I made sure to eat some hearty proteins in the early morning with some carbs. I also stuffed a Cliff Bar in my pocket to snack on. Last week I was feeling like I was running out of gas in the middle of the run. I figured some food fuel would do the trick and it did. I felt a lot better. When I would pause, I noticed that my pure running pace clocked in at under 12 minutes. This was great. I'm still looking for a good nutrition bar to take with me because I'm not sure the Cliff Bars are the best. I'm experimenting with the Luna Bars and the Lara Bars. I'll let you know what happens.

Next week is a recovery week. So all we have to do is six miles. I'll do that here in Fremont. After that, it's the trial half. The schedule says to do just 12 miles, but I'm going to push it to 13.1 because I like having a practice run before the actual race.