Trying more freeze dried meals and 2 more runs in full gear

Hi everyone.  I hope that you are all well.  Yesterday I tried out some more of the freeze dried meals.  For my main course I had the Backpacker's Pantry Spaghetti and Sauce, and for desert I had the Mountain House Custard with Mixed Fruit.  Once again they were really tasty and I will be happy to eat them during the MDS.  I still have more varieties to try, and will do so after finishing this post.

Some more flavours to try

In addition to kit testing by means of eating I have also been doing more training in full gear (except for the shoes as I wanted to see if my blisters the other day were caused by the larger race shoes or by the new socks).  Luckily it has been warm enough that I can get away with wearing just my Nike Tempo 2 in 1 shorts and RailRiders Ecomesh top.  Having now done 3 decent training runs in full gear I can give a better idea of how the kit is faring for me.  I can report back that the Oakley Eye Jacket XLJ sunglasses now feel really comfortable and are not making any tender spots above my ears like they did the first time.  My feet are also very comfortable in the Injinji toe socks and no further pilling has occurred since the first run.  Since I am now running in the PT03 winter version shoes and they are the correct size, I can only assume my awful blisters after the first run were caused by wearing the PT03 desert shoes I will be using in the MDS that are one size larger.  I will try to wear the desert shoes some more times so that my feet get used to them, but running around town in long gaiters still feels a bit strange.  The shorts and top feel very comfortable, and the rucksack fits well.  All in all I am now very happy with my kit choice.

My run yesterday was 22km (5km with Anny where she set herself a new PB and then 17km by myself).  I ran up and down the Uetliberg a couple of times, but not all the way to the top, and the total elevation gain over the 22km was 597 metres.

That run was followed today by a 21km run towards Forch, with 327 metres of elevation gain.  Both times I was carrying my rucksack with all the food and gear in it, plus 1.5 litres of water.  I tried not to drink the water I was carrying and instead to drink from the water fountains so that I can get used to the extra weight.  Don't forget that I don't yet have the energy gels in my pack and they will weigh 20 times 33g so 660g or so.  The average weight of water I will be carrying in the MDS will be 0.75kg, since we will be given 1.5 litres at each checkpoint and I will try to drink it evenly between the checkpoints so that it is finished by the time I reach the next checkpoint.  That means that I was carrying enough extra water today throughout the run to compensate for the weight of the energy gels that I will put in my pack.

In terms of energy gels I have decided to go with a mixture of Gu and Gu Roctane Gels.  Gu Roctane is a lot more expensive but contains extra ingredients such as caffeine and food stuffs that aid recovery.  Gu suggest that you mix the two and that is also a cheaper option than consuming Gu Roctane gels alone.  They will be arriving in the post next week and I have ordered plenty of spares to play around with in training.  They contain 100 calories each and weigh 33g so are quite energy dense.  That will be an extra 2,000 calories or so, making around 17,000 in total now.

I plan to do another run of 21km tomorrow wearing full kit.  I will try wearing the desert shoes again and maybe put on an extra pair of socks to reduce the amount my foot slides around.  But now folks I am off to go and try more of the freeze dried meals - yum yum.  Enjoy the rest of your weekends.