Yesterday’s LT/tempo run was not pretty. It’s true that we Canadians like to complain about the weather (see Marci’s post) and I was not loving the 25C/77F (30C/86F with humidex) when we set out around 6:30.

Once again, it seemed like it was going to be a craptacular run. I was struggling at our easy warm-up pace before we even got close to the park where we would complete the LT portion.

But at some point along the way, I thought to myself: it is what it is, so suck it up and get it done! Complaining wasn’t going to make it any easier, so I ignored the fact that I could hardly breathe and the fact that my clothes were soaked through after 10 minutes and the fact that all I wanted to do was jump into a cold pool of water (even the boggy pond looked appealing).

And we were off. As I mentioned yesterday, our target pace was 5:00-5:10/KM (8:03-8:19/mi). I held on for the first half, but slowed down after the turnaround. Splits were: 5:27, 4:47, 5:06, 5:02, 5:18, 6:11. The first one was too slow, second was too fast, third and fourth were perfect, fifth was when I was ready to lay down on the sidewalk and die and I pretty much threw in the towel half way through the 6th. It was brutal, but I think I did okay overall. We have the same workout next week, so I’ll be looking to improve. (Some cooler weather would be nice…)

And now, it’s Friday! We’re camping for the weekend, so have a good one and I’ll catch up on the other side!

Tom and Amy are changing things up over at the The Runners’ Lounge. Make sure you swing by to check out their new concept for Take it and Run Thursdays, and sign up to be a ‘sponsor’ if you feel so inclined!

It’s been a while since I’ve participated in TIART, but I like this idea. What do you think?

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In other news, I had another craptastic run in the humidity yesterday despite getting up at 5:00AM. We’ve had such a cool July that I am not remotely prepared for this. I miss my non-summer! The ol’ Garmin 205 was not having a good day and kept shutting itself off if I moved my arm the wrong way or touched it. I need it to hang in there a little while longer!

Tonight at clinic we have a 13K (8mi) with 6K (3.75mi) at LT pace this evening. LT pace will be 5:00-5:10/KM (8:03-8:19/mi) for my group. I’m hoping it goes better than my last couple runs.

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Anyone else ready for the weekend??!!

It’s time for some bullets to get caught up on a few things.

• A couple weeks ago I picked up a jar of Eload Zone Caps (electrolyte capsules). I prefer to drink plain water on long runs, so I thought this would be a good alternative to carrying sport drink(s). I’ve had the opportunity to use the Zone Caps on two long runs (16mi and 17mi). While it’s difficult to judge how well they work as far as far as providing electrolytes, they seem to have done the trick and the best part is, they’re super convenient. I popped one (51mg sodium, 13.5mg potassium) approximately every half hour. (Note: the capsules can also be opened and mixed into water.) For more info, see: Zone Caps

• I also tried a new energy gel by Eload. They’ve done a lot of research (see here) and report that the content of their gels is less likely to cause GI upset due to the lack of resistant starch. Sounds good to me! They also advertise a “low relative sweetness”. Well, apparently I prefer sweeter gels because this one tasted like motor oil! NOT tasty at all.

• I’m sticking with Gu.

• I received an awesome seamless running shirt from Zensah this week, so watch for a review soon!

• In race news, I’ve decided to run the Midsummer Night’s Run 30K on August 22, possibly as a marathon race pace training run and possibly with my favourite pace bunny; Toronto Women’s 5K on August 29 exclusively for fun; Road2Hope 10K on October 31; probably the Whitby Waterfront 10-miler on November 22. Thanks for all your feedback!

• In Garmin news, thanks to all of your support and some begging on my part, I have convinced hubby that the Garmin 310XT is a necessity. Fortunately, my trusty 205 is cooperating (for now) with the help of some tape, so I’m hoping it will hang in there until the 310 is available here. (Next month?)

• I headed out for a little 8K after work this evening and dropped dead due to the humidity. Okay, not quite, but it sure felt like it. Summer seems to have shown up this week and I am not remotely acclimated to this heat/humidity. It was an awful run. I’ll be setting the alarm early tomorrow because I’m not dealing with that two days in a row.

Hubby’s first ever 20-miler (and first week running more than 61mi/100K) was a success! Must have been all that pasta.

My own 28K/17.5mi run went well, too. Interesting, we finished in almost the same amount of time. Actually, he was 2 minutes faster for 3.5mi more. Go figure. Must have been all that pasta.

Back to my run – it looked like it was going to rain on us all morning, but the skies cleared up just in time. This meant it was a pretty hot and muggy run. I was sweating buckets after just a few kilometres and went through all of my water really quickly. Fortunately, we had an organized pit-stop/water-station around 18K with cold water and fresh fruit. (Bliss!) Our entire route was in the country, but the home stretch took us along a major road, which was pretty busy at that time. The sun beat down hard and the cars whizzed by as I pounded the pavement. I found myself thinking that a little rain would feel pretty good! I also realized that it had been my longest run since my first marathon last September.

I’m happy to report another weekly mileage milestone – 70K/43.5mi last week! (Can you believe Denise ran further than that ALL AT ONCE? Whew.)

And now it’s time for a recovery week, in which I will still run more than I did in my peak week of marathon “training” (if you can call it that) last year. The timing works out great because we’re camping this weekend (it’s a long one in Ontario).

Speaking of which, is it the weekend yet?!

**Eload review, Garmin update and race plan coming up tomorrow!**

Hubby is running his very first 20-miler tomorrow and, as illustrated in the following photos, he takes his carbo-loading very seriously.

That would be a fruit bowl.

Getting there…

And he did it. *burrrrrrrp*

As for me, I’ll be heading out for 28K/~17mi tomorrow morning, quite possibly in rain and thunderstorms. We’re taking another ‘scenic’ (read: hilly) route in the country so I’ll be thinking of you SFM girls.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!