Whoa, 16 miles today

Ok, 16 miler today. Hmmm, what to say, it was a beautiful day on FT Bragg, nice, sunny, about 60 degrees or so (couldn't help but notice that it was 32 degrees in Bellevue this morning). It was a pretty standard run, 8 miles around the Pope Airfield and 8 miles on FT Bragg. Not much to say about the run really outside of it was a PRETTY SWEET PACE, 7:20 a mile, and I did that without my trusty ForeRunner 205. For some reason, I left that at home. I was a little concerned about that because I normally use that to set my pace, so I felt a little naked without it. To top that off, nobody from the Manna Multi-Sport group or the USASOC Boston Marathon group wanted to go 16, so I was pretty much on my own.

At the Boston Marathon two years ago I ran a 3:18, that averages out to about a 7:20 pace, so, during a training run two years later I was cruising along at a 7:20 pace with no real strain. Next week's long run is a 20 miler, John Y will be running with me, I am going to see if I can talk him into pacing me at about 7:10 or 7:15, if I can maintain that pace the magic of race day will take care of the rest. Next week will be the first week that I go over 50 miles in a long time, should be a hoot.

One of my loyal readers (thanks Julie) asked me what my favorite flavor of Gu is. For the record, Gu (the little packets of carbohydrate magic that you eat with a lot of water to replace the electrolytes you sweat out during a long run or race) is not one of the foods that I would turn to when I need a little flavor pick up. When I do go buy Gu, I normally look for whichever flavor has no caffeine and is not a strange combo or flavor. That all said, VANILLA Julie, vanilla. I will probably be carrying about 3 of them during the marathon (one every 8 miles) and will try to maintain solid Gu discipline: I failed to do that at the Army Ten Miler earlier this year, I was planning on having a Gu at mile 4, which I did, and another one at mile 7, which I did not. I was feeling a little cocky about mile 6.5 and decided to throw it away (who wants to carry 2.5 extra ounces?). Naturally, about mile 9 (after going over that last bridge) I was wishing I would have slugged that baby down.