My long run today was quite a challenge.  At the end of the run, I felt a little faint, and so I bought a bottle of coke, from the ice cream stand in the park.  That drink made a huge difference and I started feeling better almost immediately.

My run was a negative split run, where I needed to increase my pace every fifteen minutes, for two hours.  This workout requires some planning ahead.  The key is to pace it effectively, which mostly means, not starting out too fast.

I paced the run quite well today, but didn’t quite negative split the final few miles.  When the time came to run my fastest, the route happened to have a couple of significant uphill sections.  On those hills, I just didn’t have the strength to achieve the faster pace I needed.  I was able to maintain my pace, but it took a lot of effort to do so.

As soon as I finished my run, I didn’t feel quite right and as I mentioned above, that bottle of coke was just what I needed.  My conclusion from this, is that I was low on sugars and should have done a better job with my nutrition, during the run.  I did take a couple of gels, but after a big day yesterday, it was probably not enough.

It might sound like I had a horrible run, but I was actually very pleased with it.  There was a section of the workout, just before those hills at the end, where I was running fast and was feeling great.  It gave me hope that I can run fast while feeling tired, at my upcoming race in Chattanooga.