Our pre-race shirts for The Rut showed up in the mail. These shirts are the bomb! Unfortunately, Mitch has a rule about not wearing the same clothes at the same time ("Oh, how cute... they match!") and because he pretty much loves his, I don't get to wear mine much. Haha!
Because the Yellowstone Half Marathon is mostly on trails and so are the Rut races we are doing, trail training is important. I might be getting carried away though. Even though I run much slower on the trails, I love how much more engaging it is to be on them versus the road.
Last week was a bit chilly, but we got 7 miles on the Back Nine trail before I hit the road for five more to round out my long run. Trails are so much fun! Sad though... no matter how much upper body strength training I do, I still can't even start to do an unassisted pull up.
We hit this same trail again today and unintentionally got 10 miles in. Much of it was hiking, so we were out for nearly three hours. It was such a gorgeous day, I couldn't even complain about adding ten miles to my 12 mile long run from yesterday.
Mitch takes great pictures for my blog. If it weren't for him, this place would be a dull, lifeless blogger.com page with only boring Angie selfies to look at. Thanks for making my blog fun, Mitch.
Appropriate Captain Morgan pose
This trail run/hike was awesome, but I think we were both pretty excited to finish up. Give it up to Mitch for a strong finish... I couldn't keep up.
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Because running a 31 mile kick ass trail ultra marathon will require a new approach to race day nutrition, I've been experimenting with some new options other than my traditional GUs.
Yesterday during my 12 miler I tried a new line of products from CLIF. Most people know CLIF bars, but they have a fairly extensive line of gels and workout/recovery beverages too. They've recently hit the market with organic food pouches - real food for your run.
This one is pretty darn good. It has the consistancy of baby food, but tastes like a pina colada. It didn't aggrivate my digestive system so that's a plus. It's sweet without being sugary, which is a nice switch from gels. This pack is 100 calories just like most gels. The cons: The pouch is about 2x the size of a GU pack and has a bulky, twist-ff lid so it takes more room in the pack than gels do. But I was impressed enough that I stopped back at the running store and purchased another pouch as well as a Sweet Potato and Sea Salt one to try next weekend.
Today, we tried Epic Bars. These are made with meat and are a savory alternative that require chewing. On a run that will take upwards of 8 to 10 hours, some real food will be necessary but it still has to be portable.
The Beef (Habenaro Cherry) shown above had good flavor. We also had a Turkey with cranberry and nuts which I wasn't impressed with AT ALL. The downside to these are definitely the texture. I have to say that for the price you might be better off just packing jerky.
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So this happened this week!
I am one happy runner chic for sure!
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