This weekend was another long running weekend. 12 miles on Saturday, and 26 on Sunday. I don't think I have put that kind of mileage in before. The key to my survival was running slow (very, very slow). Since I am going to do the 50 K race in a couple of weeks and since the 50 mile race is still a candidate shortly after, I at last realized I needed to slow down to avoid burning out at 15 miles. So it was enforced walks up all the hills, easy going elsewhere, lots of stops for food. It seemed to work better as I was able to continue with relatively normal activities for the remainder of the weekend.
The new gadget for runners seems to be GPS systems. Of the 5 of us that ran on Sunday, I was the only one without a GPS strapped to my wrist. Garmin do this nice little compact device that tells you how far you have gone, current pace, average pace, elapsed time, heart rate, the current Dow Jones, $-Euro exchange rate, etc. (OK I kid about the last two but with the technology I am sure all is possible). I don't know if I need to be that well informed but they certainly seem to be catching on. I suppose on trail runs where mile markers are few then they could be worthwhile. I think I will hold out and be a luddite in that area for a while. All I need is another techhological toy - I have too many of those already. Isn't it amazing, and more than a little sad, that a good part of the world go to bed hungry every night and over here we know pretty precisely how fast we are running over some trail in the foothills.
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