Second milestone: TEN MILES!

I DID IT! 10 miles down, 16.2 to go!

It was a hot hot hot day today (and no Buster Poindexter in sight). The Red Rovers decided to skip this week's seminar (and read all about it) by starting off two waves at 7 and 7:30 this morning to beat the heat. Unfortunately, alarm clocks still have this annoying defect of not being able to adjust their level of rousal insistence to your depth of sleep. As a result, I woke up this morning at 7:54 and after chowing down on leftover pasta and a Balance Bar for breakfast, I rushed out the door and ended up heading on the trail at about 8:45. I passed the first wave of Red Rovers at about mile 1.5 and the second wave at around mile 2.

I didn't have the benefit of pacing with my group. As soon as I got up to 2½ miles I realized that I was pushing my speed a little. I did five miles somewhere in the range of 54-55 minutes (10:48 to 11:00 pace) and ended up finishing in 1:51:16 (11:08 pace).

I felt great at the end, but it wasn't easy. Friday's events conspired to screw up my energy reserves. First off, I spent the day working at home so I could accept a package delivery. I spend the entire afternoon waiting for FedEx and didn't go out to get lunch. Apparently FedEx uses up all its mojo on overnight delivery, because their ground delivery really sucks! They always seem to take all day to get me my ground packages, whereas UPS typically gets them to me by noon. Anyway, after finally getting my package at around 5 o'clock I got ready to go to a wine-tasting party. On the way there, I pounded down a 12-inch Subway chicken parmesan sandwich (definitely not one of their "6 grams of fat or less" sandwiches). I was pressed to get some energy gels because I knew I'd need one during the run the way my day was going. I stopped by GNC but the only stuff they had was caffeinated Power Gel; nevertheless I was pressed for time so I bought a couple of packets. (As many of you know, because of my psoriasis I stay away from caffeine so my body isn't used to consuming it.) At the wine-tasting party I had roughly the equivalent of 2½ glasses. After the party, I knew I was still a few hundred calories behind on my eating pace so even though I really wanted to get some sleep I forced myself to stop by the Cardinal for some late-night food to make sure I had enough energy for today's run.

I had to make extra sure that I kept myself hydrated last night and this morning, what with this week's abominable heat wave, 2½ glasses of wine and caffeinated energy gels. I drank water almost constantly until bedtime and while preparing to go out this morning. I swapped all four regular-sized bottles on my hydration belt for the large 10.5-ounce size. It wasn't quite enough as I had to stop for a water refill at about mile 8. The sweltering heat plus that horrible pinch of caffeine were enough to give me a slight headache. Needless to say I spent the rest of the morning drinking like a horse.

On to next week's "recovery" run: 8 miles. It's hard to believe 8 miles was a huge milestone just four weeks ago. Next Saturday, it'll just be another walk run in the park!