Session 44/2014 – I’m singing… oh no… I’m running in the rain – 40.2 km – 22.03.2014

Soaked and dirty shoes after 40 km training run

I had a déjà-vu experience today, reminding me of the wet 2012 Two Oceans: It started raining the moment I started today’s 40 km training run.

But who cares… running is an outdoor activity, and such a training run prepares you for tough race conditions.

For about 2.5 hours it was pouring, sometimes in combination with wind, making it quite chilly. I guess I started in about 8-10 °C, but with the wet gear and wind it felt much colder.

Even in those conditions I run with shorts and a short sleeved shirt and with a cap. In addition to warmer temperatures I add thin gloves. The gloves are nice until they are completely soaked with rain…

Trying to open a PowerBar product became quite a challenge – my hands where only useful to hold the food, but incapable of opening them. The fingers were simply too cold. So I had to fight for a few minutes, trying to open it with my teeth.

I tested 2 new products (new for me):

• PowerBar NaturalEnergy Cereal Bar Cacao Crunch
  This Cereal bar really tasted pretty good. For a training run it’s very nice and I like that fact that it’s not sweet (in contrast to many other endurance products).
  For competitions I would NOT use it, since you need to chew the cereals and this would not work for me when running at peak level.
• PowerBar Energize Berry
  This is quite a chewy product (maybe this is also related to the 10°C, but I’m not sure), the taste was ok for me.
  For competitions this also would NOT work for me, since you need to chew  too much. For training runs at a reasonable pace absolutely fine.

Back from my wet and chilly 40k training run (12°C)

After 2.5 hours the rain stopped and even if the sun did not came out, it got much more pleasant to run.

Anyway, I was very happy to complete another 40 km run and I seem to have recovered completely from the light cold I had this week.