Stung by Honey Stinger's energy gel

Today's run (street): 7.4 miles at 9:52

As planned, I went out for a long neighborhood run today with a target distance of at least 6 miles. I've only covered that much distance a handful of times over the summer but I know I need longer sessions to build more stamina. This morning's route included my primary neighborhood, the nearby business park and neighborhood #3.

Hurricane Earl turned out to be a non-event for us and the morning brought in some cool winds from the west. It was neither humid nor hot when I set out for my run and after thirty seconds on the road I could tell that yesterday's rest day prepared me well for today. I purposely kept a moderate pace and I lost about ten seconds per mile between miles 2 through 5. At the five mile point I pulled out a Honey Stinger gel pack that my friend KWL had given me after his 10K race a few weeks ago. I was curious to see if I'd see any benefit from this carb blast and judging by my pace over the last two miles of my run I think it did provide a small benefit. Despite that slight energy boost I found the gel to be problematic as it burned my throat going down. I managed to recover from the shock of that experience but six hours later I'm still coughing from the irritation.

I felt pretty good when I finally reached home and thought I still had a couple of slower miles left in me if I wanted to keep going. It was great to cover the distance but I do regret my experiment with the Honey Stinger gel. After running and showering we headed to NYC to see the Blue Man Group to cap off the kid's summer break. Back to school on Tuesday. But Labor Day provides an extra weekend day for me and I'm hoping to cover 6 or more miles at least once more before I return to the office on Tuesday.