Andrew Schrauben

One of these days I'll have to write about something other than running in this journal, but today's run was pretty interesting. I ran for 21.3 miles! It took me 3:45 to do it. My route took me from downtown Lowell to downtown Ada, then to downtown Cascade and finally almost back home. Amanda picked me up about three miles from our house. It was tempting to say "what's another three miles" and finish it out, but my legs were cramping for the last two miles and I wasn't going to gain anything by continuing much longer.

As it turned out, that run kicked my ass. Amanda and I brought home some Subway but I was only able to eat half of a six-inch, to go along with barely being able to walk and my entire body feeling sore. I did dehydrate toward the end of the run as I finished the last of my Gatorade around mile 18, but I was probably dehydrated before that since the cramping began at mile 19. Actually, at mile 14 my legs were feeling really tired and it occurred to me that I hadn't eaten anything the entire run, so I ate the Power Bar that I brought along and within ten minutes my legs felt better again (it was one of the Power Bars that Mom and Dad gave us yesterday; incidentally, it tasted very good).

Speaking of the protein stuff that M&D brought out, we also tried that chocolate protein shake mix. We'll see tomorrow how it works as a recovery drink - if my muscles feel good, then maybe it has some merit - I drank some right after my run. However, Amanda and I agreed that it tastes like melted chocolate ice cream mixed with sawdust. No kidding, it tastes the way sawdust smells in a newly framed house! Still, it tastes way better than that Accelerade that we gave M&D to try. :)

One good part about this run was that I averaged about 10:18 per mile, which is a very good pace for me for such a long run. I started out by walking 3 minutes for every 30 minutes running and did that for the first ten miles, then it dropped down to 3 minutes for every 20. Twice I walked for 8 minutes, and during the rough patch around mile 14 I was walking 3 minutes every 10 or 15. All told I must've walked 30-50 minutes and still maintained a good overall pace, so when I was running I was running pretty fast.