Thursday, August 4, 2011

16 Miles, Second Time

Two weeks ago I ran a 16 mile route and “bonked”, or “hit the wall”, at around 15 ¼ miles.  I simply ran out of juice.   So after “bonking” on that run I read up on how many calories and nutrients I needed to consume before and during the run so that I wouldn’t run out of gas.  So today I had a good 16 mile run and I made it all the way through without “hitting the wall”.  I did however, wind up with horrible cramps in my left thigh at mile 15.5, but after working the cramp out I still managed to run the rest of the way.

But it was a tough run.  It’s a long way (16 miles) and I was trying to maintain a 9:30 pace.  In the hopes of achieving a marathon time of somewhere close to 4 hours, I wanted to see if I could maintain at least a 9:30 pace for this distance.  I did really well up until mile 15, maintaining an average 9:33 min/mile pace, but when my leg cramped up at 15 ½ miles, I came to a full stop for several minutes while I worked it out.  I wound up finishing the last mile in 14:24 minutes.   That made my average pace something like 9:50 overall.  My overall time for the 16 miles was 2:37:38.  I wish it were better…

During the run I consumed something like 730 calories (but I burned over 2,000!) through an assortment of Gatorade, goo, a Balance Bar (a candy bar with carbs, proteins, and various minerals), and something called ShockBloks, which are like gum drops loaded with carbs and electrolytes (sodium and potassium mostly).  In my research I found that I needed to be consuming on the order of 225 calories, or 50grams of carbs, per hour from all nutrient sources.  This includes liquids, goo’s, bars, etc…

So I made a table of the nutrient value of each (Gatorade, goo, power bars, ShockBloks) and how often to take each.  Carrying all this crap is reasonably ok….  I am able to store the ShockBloks in my waist pouch, along with a package of goo.  (the waist pouch is like a thin fanny pack and a good place to put my phone and other goodies…).  My camelback, with my very necessary Gatorade, has a small pocket in which I can store more goo and power bars.

I came up with a plan to suck on a ShockBlok every 2 miles, eat half of my Balance Bar at mile 8 and 12, and do the goo as I felt necessary.  For fluids, I just make it a habit to take a few hits from my tube every ½ mile (which I figure gives me approximately 2-3 oz’s  per mile).   For the run, I wound up doing the ShockBloks every 2 hours, only consumed ½ of the Balance Bar, and did the goo at mile 12.  I went through all 48 oz’s of the Gatorade that I carried with me.

I felt the biggest lift of all from the goo at mile 12.  After it kicked in (it takes about 6-8 minutes) I felt strong and like I could run on for a long time – nice!  It was nicely timed.   I didn’t do the rest of the Balance Bar because it was a bit more difficult to get down, although it also gave me a nice lift at mile 9.  It’s difficult to tell if the ShockBloks did anything, because I was popping them with regularity, but I think that they helped maintain my carb and sodium levels.

A big problem though, is the fact that I cramped up at 15 ½ miles.  An acquaintance that does some serious cycling told me that he solved cramping by chewing on a version of ShockBloks that had a substantially higher amount of sodium (219mg vs the 70mg chews that I was using).  Cramping remains a medical mystery, so all “cures” are the result of hearsay and empirical testing.  Besides, every runners’ body is chemically different, so there is no one-solution-fits-all… 

Next week I have an 18-miler on my training plan, and so I’m going to try alternating between the “Na+” ShockBloks and the regulars.  I’m also going to try to get the full Balance Bar down,  maybe do it in thirds.  In addition, I’ll do more goo towards the end, like with 2 miles to go, just to make sure I have enough juice.  And of course, make sure that I have enough Gatorade.  Carrying the Gatorade is the biggest problem – 48oz is something like 3lbs, which doesn’t sound like much, but it is when you are lugging it around for a bunch of miles.  Of course, it does get lighter and lighter as the miles go by, so perhaps I’m just complaining for nothing…  But I’d love to not have to carry it.

Funny things happen near the end of a long run:  I can just sense that the end is near; it’s almost like a hazy image that is beginning to form.   At this point I’m basically on auto-pilot, with my brain ignoring the fact that my feet hurt and the straps from the camelback are bugging me, and so on.  Little signals from my legs are constantly bombarding me as the lactic acid build up stiffens my legs, and I just keep repeating to myself that “it’s just a little bit further”.  In a running magazine that I get I’ve read a couple of articles about mantras and I never understood them until now.  I’ve never gotten this tired before, I guess.  But I’m here to tell you – they work.  The one that seems to work best for me is simply “I am going to do this…”.  I’m sure that I’ll be saying that a lot to myself on October 9.

No comments:

Post a Comment