S Caps revisited

Karyn and I went for a run yesterday on the Lake Minnetonka Trail, a converted rails to trails with a crushed limestone surface that goes from Hopkins to Victoria. We picked it up in Excelsior with the thought of going to Victoria, returning to Excelsior, grabbing more fluids and then running a few miles towards Hopkins and then back to Excelsior.

The plan was to go for 19 as Karyn is back in marathon training mode. Turns out, she is a marathon away from qualifying to join Marathon Maniacs (Bronze Level - 3 Marathons within a 90 day time frame) . She did two in May, so she needs to get one more by the end of July. We are thinking of doing Okoboji in Iowa on July 17th, I tried to convince her to do the Afton 50k or 1/2 Voyageur but she is not sure that a conversion to trails is where she wants to go.

Back to the run and my hydration, at FANS, the good Doctor thought I took in too many S Caps (and I am sure he was right) so I didn't want to take in too many on this run. We had gotten a late start not getting there until around 4 PM. When we got there I was feeling a bit sloshy from drinking water on the way up so I took an S Cap. Hoping that it would help. Not wanting to overdo them again, I held off to take another one until after an hour even though it was a bit warm with temps near 80.

About 20 minutes into the run, I knew I was having a bit of low blood sugar. I have had this happen on a couple of runs and thankfully have learned that taking a Chocolate #9 or Clif Shot Bloks usually get me back in equilibrium fairly quickly. I took in a #9 and sure enough all was well within 10 to 15 minutes.

We ran the 7 miles into Victoria to where the trail ends. At times it seemed uphill but I don't think it had that much grade. We started back and I suggested we go into Carver Regional Park. Karyn wasn't too sure but agreed, our first venture into the park was at the Lake Steiger entrance, turned out to just be a boat launch. Shortly after that wrong turn we turned onto a paved bikepath that led it's way into the park. For this section we were pretty well exposed and the sun was hot. We looped a bit around in the park adding in 2 or 3 extra miles. During this section my back and shoulder blade started hurting again. I tried to stretch out but didn't seem to have too much success. We ended up stopping when we got back to Excelsior with 17 miles complete and both of us thinking stopping would be a good idea.

On the S Cap front, I ended up taking my second S cap at one hour and since I was still queasy I took another one 40 minutes later. Since I still didn't feel great, I thought that maybe I was taking in too many again and I wondered how much salt does HEED have and what about Perpetuem? It occurred to me that these are things I should know before I start a run. I held off taking any more S caps so total S cap consumption was 3 which works out to 1 every 80 minutes. Should I have taken another one, maybe or was I just getting dehydrated or was it both electrolytes and hydration?

What did this run tell me? Two things, I need to get the back tightness/pain resolved and I have no clue about maintaining my hydration and electrolyte consumption. So I guess I better get to work on both.