Goal Achievement, Energy Gels and Racing

So this week of running wasn't very eventful. The only thing I did that was more fun than usual was a run on the bonneville shoreline trail. The trailhead parking lot is quite a bit lower than the actually shoreline trail so the run up to it is steep and it's hard to get up it very quick. I managed to get up there but it was something in the range of 25 minutes before I finished my 2nd mile. That's some of the slowest running I've done in a while. But I managed to make up some time on the shoreline trail. While the trail isn't flat the ups and downs equal out more or less so there's equal parts climbing and descending. On the parts of the trail that are on the north slope of the mountain there is ice and snow that hasn't melted. I had to be careful on these parts because slipping isn't fun.

I've now done the math and the best data that I have available shows that I've ran 1989 miles in 2014. So far. My goal is 2000 miles. I should hit that next Tuesday. So, unless there's some horrible accident or unforeseen event (keeping my fingers crosses the apocalypse is here by then), I'll make my goal before Thanksgiving. And it's not impossible I'll get close to 2200 miles by year's end.

Two more things on my mind:

My wife tried a gel for the fist time this morning and she couldn't have been more repulsed by the taste of it. I thought that was pretty funny seeing as how I haven't really  thought about the taste of energy gels at all. I just chug them and keep going. She might like a flavor other than the Gu Roctane cherry lime flavor that she tried this morning. I've heard of people's stomachs not being able to handle energy gels and people don't like them based on that fact. But I've never known anyone to straight up dislike a flavor so much that they couldn't even eat it.

The other thing on my mind is the fact that I don't have a race scheduled until next April and it's driving me nuts. I want a race sooner. It has to be at least a half. But I'd rather have it be a full or longer. There's a race in Moab on Valentine's day and I'm very tempted to give that one a shot. It's a popular race with good support and a good trail. The weather might be pretty cold, but I don't think it's anything that I cant handle. The 55k distance seems like a great opportunity to add to my training for my first 50 mile race in April. The fact that I have family that lives there just helps me with more reasons go to down.