Sunday, must be time for the long run. Woke at 7:20, blood sugar a terrible 370, a testament to why you shouldn't eat jam with blinny late at night. There is a blinny festival going on, it is part of the pre lent gorge yourself that happens all over the world, ours comes with jam, thin pancakes and all you can eat. I took 4 units of humulog and settled in to the morning internet read of the news and two cups of coffee. I was 324 when I headed out the door at 8:30.
I changed up the pattern this time. I intended to take on water and/or GU/food every five miles and see what that was like. Also, I only have/had one GU left and went with my catch all of catch alls, Snickers bars. We have something called Snickers Super here which is two smaller snickers (not the regular size) in one wrapper. I packed to Supers so I had four. Took money, test strips, insulin, mobile phone, keys, etc.
I will say that the first piece of information I gained is that I have gotten used to the pack. I barely knew it was there today. At 5 + I stopped for water (750 ml) and tested, BS 106, so I took a GU and headed on. I stopped for water again at 10 +, no BS reading but ate a Snickers and had 500 ML of water. At 25k I did water, tested, BS 154, Snickers. Went through the 25k in about 2:17. I had to make myself remember it was a training run and that I was only half way done and needed some patience.
I stopped again at about 40km for water and Snickers, BS was 105. At this point I was really starting to feel it. My right upper leg seemed to be feeling it more than the left. I still felt I was putting one foot in front of the other pretty efficiently though. To get to this point I had run down the Dnipro River road for about 4 miles or so. It was kind of disappointing because there used by to be a bunch of boat restaurants down there so there were businesses, now there is nothing and as a result no work done on the paths and that put me back out on the street. From 40 to about 43 km I was supposed to go uphill and then go uphill again from 46-48 km. Ha.
Missed my turn, basically ran uphill for about 7 km off and on, with some downhill, completely lost, though all on the same road. I should have turned on Lecy Ukrainy, instead I stayed on the road and ended up on 40 Richa Zhovtnya (40th anniversary of the October Revolution) and I was so far gone it was ridiculous. I really knew I was in trouble when I passed a park that said Praga, 400 meters later I stopped and considered my options. I chose taxi home. The guy said 50 UAH, that is a lot of taxi ride in Kyiv, I must be seriously lost. I took it. I swear the entire ride, up till the last 5 minutes I had no idea where I was in the city.
When I got back I mapped it out and it turned out to be 50kms and it also turns out that if I had chosen keep going I would have ended up in Bila Tserkva in about a day.
Its funny how with experience you kind of figure out that the distance is done. When I google mapped this "lost" route it turned out to be about 55 meters longer than 50km. Did the whole thing in 4:43 and change so I am very satisfied with that.
Lessons learned, Snickers are okay, no problems, water every 5 miles is a very good idea, however, less water but more often might also be the trick. Testing is still problematic, very hard to do on the run, impossible in fact, but must be done. Also, have to eat something, at this speed the body processes well and low BS is a real possibility without food.
Saw the ice fisherman again today. They are about done though, they are down to the last hectare of iced water on the river. The bigger concern for all of us are the roads, there are serious collapses all over the city. I had noticed this on the 15k's, but on this run there were a lot more and many of them were very serious. Hope it gets worked out.
Today was a whole lot of long, getting lost was just so strange, uphill forever, but still 50k is long, isn't it?
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