Practical notes on a long run

OK, coming down from the rafters. Here's some stuff I learned running tonight.

• Bites of all-natural fruit leather are a really good on-the-run energy source for me.
  
  
• On long runs, I need to make myself drink water even if it's really cold.
  
  
• On cloudy, windy spring days, ignore the reported temperature and dress for cold.

Are you getting the idea that it was cold? I was in shorts and a thin technical tee, and all the other runners were in tights, long sleeves, gloves... when I stopped to report in to N. (who was dealing with dinner logistics) and Courtney (who worries over me, which is nice), I had to call them because my fingers were too jammed up with cold to text. Yeesh.

What else?

• Again, small corrections/attentions to form can be huge, immediate leverage to ease up on muscles.


• As my marathon running friends remind me the S in LSD stands for slow. There's benefit to doing the long run at a conversational pace. Even Mallika, the blaze, does her long runs at an 11 minute pace.
  
  
• It's good I've set myself up by marrying a kind person. N. may never as long as he lives welcome me home with effusive demonstrations of interest, but immediately and without complaint he lugged my bike from the basement and set it up on the trainer at my request. So I can spin out my calf muscles and stretch in the morning.
  
  
• Perfect post-run dinner: salmon, brussel sprouts, spicy chicken and sweet potato soup, and Boulevard Irish Ale. Which N. has been saving for me, instead drinking Old Mil himself. See previous bullet.
  
  
• Oh, and a cold water bath is a painful miracle of nature. I had to wear a sweatshirt for it; I thought I was going to go crosseyed from the discomfort; but now my legs feel as loose as they did before the run. And hey, I can call it mental prep for the May triathlons.