Training: April 6 - 12, 2009 and Camelbak Commentary

Good training week - was my last chance to "cram" for Boston.  I just finished a 19 mile trail run at Watchung Reservation.  Felt just fine.  I love my Camelbak and PowerBar Gels.  It is so great to finish a long run not dehydrated and craving carbs!  I tried out a new Camelbak today.  It is the "Blue Wave Vigor ".  Seventy ounces of fluid.  I had been using my skiing Camelbak "Zoid". The Zoid's tube and pack are insulated, and the bite valve has a heavy rubber cover to prevent freezing.  So the tube bounced around a bit too much for running, and I always had to tuck it in under the shoulder strap when not in use.  The new one works much better - no tucking necessary - once I figured out that the sternum strap was movable.  At first it was set as shipped, which was too low.  The strap was bothering my chest and I couldn't get the shoulder strap fit right.  After about an hour I took it off to grab a gel, and I realized I could move the strap.  It took me a couple minutes, but once I moved it the Camelbak fit perfectly.  It also has a better zipper pocket than the Zoid version.

Training March 30 - April 5, 2009

This week was an improvement over last.  The weekend was breakthrough.  I had been feeling bad on every run for almost two weeks.  Obviously overtraining and lack of sleep.  So I took Friday off and slept 9 hours on Friday and Saturday nights.  The result was a morning 7 mile run with my son on Saturday that felt good, and a great 34 mile bike ride in the afternoon.  The bike ride was very windy and I managed a 17 MPH average on my single speed.  Today I ran 21 (or maybe it was 22) miles at Watchung Reservation and I felt kinda fine for the whole thing.  Today's run was pretty muddy, but I importantly got twice through the area where I fell and broke my rib last January.  I ran that area very carefully because the memory of that was actually weighing on me.  Silly, huh?  It was the first sunny warm day in a very long time.  Ran with my Camelbak and almost finished the whole thing.  Used three PowerBar Latte gels.

Training chart from Zelky below, some pics of muddy shoes and legs, and a cool new Blogger location widget!