July 12, 2009

Trail Closures & Other Frustrations

It's been kind of a frustrating week!

Went out on Tuesday morning before work to get a good tempo run in at Bredesen Park, which is walking distance from my house. Only to find that the trail will be closed for resurfacing/maintenance/whatever. For. Three. Weeks. I had just enough time to get to Bredesen, do my thing, and get to work. Ended up having to scrub my workout that day.

Went out to Hyland Saturday morning to get some trail time in. I decided that the flatter terrain at Hyland is closer to what I'll encounter at Grand Island and Lean Horse compared to Afton, and it's a LOT closer to home. Just about every trail I encountered at Hyland was blocked off for maintenance/replanting/whatever. The only open trail was the flat wood chipped trail along Hyland Lake, which isn't much to speak of. No notice of how long this is expected to last. I was so pi$$ed that I went around some of the barriers and did 6 miles anyway.

Today I ended up with a 10 mile run around Lakes Calhoun, Harriet, and Isles. At least the path was open. Wanted to try some new sports drink for Lean Horse - Sustained Energy by Hammer. This stuff has a little bit of protein in addition to maltodextrin, which would be beneficial in longer runs. Problem is....it tastes like crap! I even tried the unflavored variety, and believe me, it isn't "unflavored." Tastes kinda like pancake batter, but sticks to the back of your throat and makes you gag. I even added some Hammer raspberry flavored gel - no joy.

I've got a lot of things to sort out before the end of August!

5 comments:

Mark H. said...

I don't know what to say about the Sustained Energy. I've used it some myself and what I did is mix 3 scoops of SE concentrated in 10 oz water bottles that I carried on a belt. I also carried a 20oz bottle with plain water. About every 30 minutes I would take maybe 1/3 of a SE bottle along with some water. All that seems like a good plan and worked for me at the Afton 50K up to about 4 hours. After 4 hours I would not touch the stuff. Yuck! At that point orange slices tasted good and I finished the 50K. Your 50 miler is something I have no experience in but I'll give you some advice anyways. :-) Have some alternatives to try - when something doesn't work, maybe something else will.
--Mark

SteveQ said...

Your favorite trail was closed, but mine was open - and had 5000 people on it, standing still. Thank goodness we have choices!

Wayne said...

Hopefully this week and weekend go better, Kel!

Karen G said...

I use perpetuem, the orange-vanilla flavor is good. I am not thrilled with the Latte flavor but will use it since I got it. But then what tastes good to one person doesnt always to another. I switched to using the perpetuem and Heed usually switching every other fill up and hammer gels as needed and have felt pretty good since.

Kel said...

Thanks for your comments!

I've still got some experimenting to do - perhaps making the Sustained Energy more concentrated with raspberry gel or mixing it half and half with Heed. I also got a single serving packet of the orange vanilla Perpetuem to try out - may even do the half and half with that and Sustained Energy. Better yet, perhaps just eat a Clif Bar every now and then (assuming I can stomach solid food in hot weather).

Oh, the possibilities!