well, i got another 16 miler under my belt and i completed the full suite of mid-week junk miles. today's long run was easier and harder than last week. the good news is that i remembered to bring along some goo and it warded running out of energy. the bad news is that it is doing some horrendous things to my gastrointestinal tract right now. at about mile 14 i started hearing and feeling rumbings of the kind that strike fear into the heart of any runner, for it can only mean one thing - runners trots.

luckily i made it back to the house without having to dive into the bushes. i suppose i can't blame it entirely on the goo, since i ate a serving or two of pasta a half hour before the run, but now i have the rather unfortunate association made in my mind. the only other drag is someone decided that the gatorade and fig newtons that we left for ourselves at mile 7 was actually a gift for themselves. we've had this problem before and started to pick seeminly innocuous locations like churches and the like, but it doesn't seem to have solved the problem completely. i guess we should do a better job of labelling the stuff. a runners gel is hard enough to stomach, but it's even worse when you don't have enough water to properly flush it down the gullet.

next week, i'm going to keep the mileage exactly the same - 5, 8, 5 and 16 miles - so, finger's crossed, next week should give me a bit of a breather from constantly increasing mileage.