14 miles: Take 2

So Sunday I did another 14 miles.

End result?  Well, it's cool to see improvement.  I got faster and with less pain.

I did the half marathon in 2hrs 50min.  Would be nice to whack off a good 50 minutes off that time, but hey I've done it only about twice now and there's good improvement.

Got the 14 miles done in about 3hrs.

I think this was about 15 minutes or so faster than last week.

It was about 10F.

Part of this was less monkeying around on the road.  Maybe most of it, given the time I spent talking to the neighbors and then monkeying around with my pack and moving food last time.

Water...
Well, I now have the insulated tube from Camelbak.  Umm...  So it IS better than the UNinsulated tube.  However, I have the one with the meter on it, and THAT part is not insulated.  Guess what freezes first?  It also has a little turbine in there, so guess where the slush gets stuck first once the water starts getting thick anywhere in the tube?

So about the halfway point, I just took out the meter section and stuck it in my glove so I could thaw it out enough to clear it so as not to worry about it breaking anything with further freezing and then tossed it in my pack.

Well...  Then there is the bite-mouth piece that's not insulated...  Thought that would be open enough to not be a problem.  Guess what?  It was a problem.  So, about 5-10 minutes later when I went for water again, I took that off, and repeated the thawing, clearing, toss in bag process.

So the rest of the trip was done with just the open end of the insulated hose.  That pretty much worked.  sometimes at around 10 minutes it would require a bit of work to get it flowing again though.  If I wasn't hoping for Spring soon I might think about trying to get some heat of some sort going or something...

And on the water front, I ignored the meter anyway since it seemed to only read about half of what I was drinking(presumably the freezing doesn't help much with accuracy).  So I just basically ended up trying to take a sip every 5 minutes or so and/or after/between gummy bites or other fuel eating.

In the end, it seems as though I drank a LOT less as the bag still seemed pretty full, yet I did not seem dehydrated.  I still ended up having to find a few pee spots, but I think I may have cut a couple of them out.  Would be nice to get that figured out a bit better as I'd really rather not have to stop a couple times at porta-potties(if I'm lucky) during an actual half marathon...

I also tried a Honey Stinger Waffle for fuel.  Somehow I thought that's what they were intended for, but after actually using one, I rather doubt it.  They seem to be made to be eaten 160 calories at once and the main ingredient is wheat.  I think they worked just fine, but I guess closer to a normal bar than running fuel.  I think I shall be switching to raisins and/or honey rather soon.  Need to find a travel bottle or something for honey.

Made sure the phone was fully charged before I left and used the wired yurbuds headphones since I needed to shove them under my balaclava with the cold.  No problems other than the usual wire issues where they get caught or otherwise pull and are annoying.