7 miles high...

Today Kim and I went for our 7 mile run and while she's run a marathon, 7 miles is pretty much my record distance. But let me tell you, there is something so amazing about adding distance to our runs. I was terrified when we started out because...

a. It's been a a couple of days since our last run.
b. Have I mentioned that I've never run more than 6 miles before?
c. I still haven't started thinking of myself as a runner, though at this point, I've been running regularly for a year now.
c. I was going to try out my new "hydration belt" on this run and was nervous about the extra weight. For those of you not in the running know, a hydration belt is this incredibly geeky velcro thing you wrap around your waist (yes, like a belt) and it holds water bottles. It's fine when your bottles are full and heavy, but after you take a few sips, the water sloshes around while you run and the noise is totally annoying because oddly, it makes me have to pee. But the bottles do have this really cool shape that makes it easy to drink while running.
d. Halfway through our run, we were going to try out this energy stuff called Gu, that you suck down while running.

So I got past all the hurdles fairly gracefully, except the Gu one.
Kim handed me this little pack and told me to suck it down while we continued to run, and then to wash it down with some water. Still, while running. For someone not particularly graceful, this was hard enough.

But have you ever tasted Gu? It's as disgusting as it sounds. It is flavored Roctane gel--in this case, it was vanilla bean. Vanilla bean gel. And what the hell is Roctane, anyway?

And so as I squeezed that little tube into my mouth, I gagged and shouted and swallowed as quickly as I could. And apparently I had a few onlookers laughing at the sight of me shouting and retching because Kim couldn't stop laughing.

And, in memory of the taste, I even gagged while looking at the hero graphic on their website of those guys with their Gu packets hanging out of their mouths.

But that disgusting goo was amazing since it did give me the energy to make the run seem like something I could keep going with. Which is good, since somehow I have to add six more miles to my run by the end of November.

And if anyone has any other energy supplement suggestions that are a bit more palatable than Gu, I'd love to hear about them...