Cramping my Style, but Still Stylin'

Normally, my lack of posts means all is not well in the land of Ryan. Quite the contrary this time, the running is going runningly (not swimmingly) and things are groovy—just busy. So, tragically, your life is left with a void due to my lack of blogging.

Come with me now in a journey through my training log over the last week or so...

I closed out last week with two short runs. The first on Thursday was an out and back on the powerlines from home in what I logged as "almost hot" conditions. Not sure what that means, but I do remember being low on energy because I ate very little all day. Yes, I'm an idiot. Saturday, I was not only idiotic, but unlucky. I found myself in the big city (Portland) for a chunk of the afternoon, so I decided to tour the famous Back Cove. Unfortunately, I made it there just after it had stopped raining, and the sun was blaring at it's maximum intensity. It was way too hot out there. Had I started 30 minutes earlier, it would have been perfect. Either way, I managed a semi-quick, but comfortable clockwise lap in 27:50. Seemed just right for the effort and the heat.

Sunday started this week off with a bang with a great run at Bradbury with some of the crew, including Jim, Shauna, Mindy, Valerie and Yana. Floyd made a brief appearance, but was quickly lost as the Bradbury trails tend to swallow him up. Mindy, being the uber-motivated over achiever that she is, had already run one lap of the Scuffle course when we headed out, and proceeded to run two more full laps. She is an animal. I ran one full lap, and a slightly truncated second—no Knight's Woods trail on the return, which I'm calling 11.5. I felt great the whole way—nice and relaxed—but the 127% humidity combined with the still-not-fully-recovered-from-roasty-toasty effort on Saturday was taking its toll. So, I decided to cut it short and finish on a high note rather than limp into the finish. All in all, an awesomely soggy two hours on the trails. I also feel like I did a better job with my fueling: more consistent. I think that on long runs I need to make sure I down a gel or Shot Bloks every half hour, regardless. I'd been falling into the trap of "Oh, I feel fine, I can go a little longer," and then not having enough energy in the latter stages of the runs.

The rest of this week has been three shortish runs, and I've felt great on all of them. There's a little bit of the lost spring in my step, and I've felt great afterward. I even spontaneously added a .5 mile section of singletrack to my run last night at Great Glen Trails. I was headed one way, then all of a sudden, I found myself banging a right into Outback. It was just too nice out not to extend the run. Good stuff all around.

The only negative that I've discovered is some cramping on my afternoon runs. Nothing major, but definitely noticeable. No problems on my morning runs, because, presumably, I've eaten much less. The belly has been less happy in the PM. Sympathy cramps? Not a huge deal, but it's happened enough times that it's more than a coincidence. The problem is: I'm always hungry. If I don't eat throughout the day, I'll never have the energy to get through my run. I'm going to start monitoring my food intake, both what and the timing, and see if I can discover a pattern.

The biggest news of the week is my new shoes. I might marry them. Don't tell the missus. More on those later.