Monday, Aug 22, 10.5 miles, 1:46, Shoreline Trail

Having gone to Yosemite over the weekend, I had resolved to run longer on Monday (normally the day for easy runs). So, I hit the Shoreline trail at La Avenida at 6pm and set out after a mile long warm-up to 'my easy long run'. I started at about 11 min/mile pace and then settled into a 9:40 min/mile pace. I went farther than I had gone at anytime at Shoreline and was really enjoying the process of discovering new routes. I mentally decided to take a walk break at halfway point. One part of my mind was chiding me on having come later to the trail than ideal (I had thought of 5.30pm) as I was leaving for East Coast on a work related trip the next morning and had to pack.

As you can see on the map, I followed the Stevens Creek Trail (from La Avenida, which is off the bottom of the map), took a left towards the Mountain View Tidal Marsh, went past the BoatHouse, and took a right towards the Palo Alto Flood Basin. I turned around from somewhere there (it was about 52 minutes till then). I was feeling very very good at this time. I walked for a minute and then started running (a bit faster, as I had planned) back. However, by the time I finished, I was feeling a fair bit low. This continued the whole evening and may have been because of the fact that I really was not very enthusiastic about going on the East Coast business trip (it plays havoc with the running schedule and one's general routine) but I think it was more because of lowered Blood Sugar Level. This was a first hand demonstration to me of the importance of keeping the BSL at good levels throughout the run. This run was the first longish run where I was trying a fuel-belt and I kept myself hydrated during the run, but I should have put a sports drink in one of the bottles. A lesson learnt.

Key learnings:

• Keep BSL at good levels. Take a piece of powerbar or a sports drink after at most 1 hour even on practice runs.