I thought that my 5 mile run yesterday would be great because I so didn’t want to do it. But it wasn’t great. It was one of those runs that starts out with me thinking it must have been months since the last time I ran because I could hardly breath at the beginning. I hate that. I thought maybe I was going too fast but the Garmin had me pegged at some pokey pace and I just felt incompetent. A couple hundred feet later and Garmina told me I was huffing it at a sub 9 minute pace. So I slowed down and just ran at roughly a 10:30 pace or so I thought. The cool thing about the run, though was that I discovered that the trail I was on has a zillion water fountains. I just never noticed them before.
In an effort to avoid carrying a water bottle tomorrow I just went out in the dark and drove my car sort of along the trail and stopped every once in awhile to leave some water bottles. I hope I can find them tomorrow when I go for my final 20 mile run before The Big Day. I also scored some Cytomax and Ctyomax Gel which is what will be on the marathon course so I’m taking it for a test drive. I hope I don’t spend the rest of the day hugging the porcelain Goddess.
Splits on the 5 miler –
9:39, 10:12, 10:21, 10:12, 10:24 and the last 480 ft at 9:39
so now I have both consistency and symmetry. I hope it serves me well.
21st-century-mom.com 
Personally I am not fond of Cytomax. I did not agree with my GI tract.
Personally I am not fond of Cytomax. I did not agree with my GI tract.
awesomeness on those splits, your speediness! cytomax is sounding worse and worse. good luck!
I always find that my breathing is better initially if I do belly breathing before I start.
Good luck in running your final 20-miler. I have a love/hate relationship with my garmin when it tells me that I am going slow and then (after I speed up) it tells me some crazy fast number. I now know several areas on my usual runs where this occurs and I just avoid looking at the pace.
Wow, good luck with 20 (although by now, you have probably already finished it, so I hope it wnet well.) How did the water bottles work for you? It’s a good idea, but is the water blazing hot? Does anyone take the bottles? I’m intrigued.
Sometimes it’s better to throw out the chronometer. The fountains during the route are magic!!!