Week 10: 16 Mile Run in Florida

This was probably my most difficult run to date. Temps were in the upper 60s, low 70s and I started out about 8:30 AM. Did a loop from Edgewater, FL, across the South Causeway to New Smyrna Beach, down Saxon Drive and then looped up S. Atlantic Avenue (A1A) to Flagler, across the North Causeway and then down Route 1 home. I had all four bottles on my belt with Cytomax and two gels (a Hammer Gel Espresso and an Accel Gel Vanilla). Got really thirsty and ran out of fluid around Mile 10 (filled up from a hose a guy was using to wash his car), ran out again and a nice guy at the natural foods restaurant by the North Causeway filled up my water bottles. I really hoping that race day in Antwerp has low temps. In the upper 40s, lower 50s would be fine by me.

The scenery was nice -- especially over the causeways and down Saxon Avenue -- some nice homes and even a little shade here and there. I think what contributed to the difficulty of the run was that the last part of it was along A1A in New Smyrna and there was no shade and lots of noisy motorcycles (Bike Week!). And ... there the scenery during that stretch was pretty boring. A long long straight probably 4 miles at least with no shade.

I did some of the Galloway running and walking which helped conserve some energy. But I was very glad to be done! Another issue could be that I was not sleeping that well in a bed other than my own and I was eating a lot more than usual. So my system was kind of messed up. Definite pointers for pre-Antwerp -- try to get adequate sleep and try to keep eating consistent with my normal patterns.