Cougar!

Today a LONG run was on the schedule, and it was my son's 5th birthday party this afternoon.  So Sarah and I start at the crack of dawn at 7:00.  As we trotted along the river and started our climb UP, I was thinking about what I might blog about today, as I seem to be running out of great commentary.  Then, around 8:00 as we were climbing up to our first summit of the day along Branch 21, we saw...our first COUGAR ever!  I saw it first and thought it was a deer.  Then I thought, "Oh, that's some kind of wild dog!", and as I look over Sarah is pumping her first in the air and shouting "YA! It's a cougar!"  Hmm.  Not my first reaction.  It was definitely a small cougar though, with a white belly and a really long tail that looked something like this pic.  Luckily it was scared of us and ran into the forest about 200m ahead of us. Needless to say, Sarah checked her GPS and we had reached our goal for that climb and turned around to scamper out of there.  I'm glad I was with her and the kitty cat was keeping his distance!

Despite the pouring rain of the last 2 days, this morning dawned with dry skies (not dry ground) and a little sun.  We changed socks 2 hours into the run which was like a little slice of heaven.  I've never done that before and I will sure carry an extra pair now.  I also experimented with different food today.  I tried potatoes with olive oil and salt, steamed and then broiled.  Wow.  They hit the spot perfectly, although they took a little while to reach my blood stream. I also tried Oskri bars for the first time...lots of coconut that made my tummy squirrely after 4 hours, but good nonetheless.

Just after cougar siting.

Since I had a time limit due to my son's birthday party and this was the first time we added elevation to the long run, we only did 33K again rather than the 36 planned, but time of feet was a full hour longer than my previous longest run.  So recovery was super important if I was going to be functional as a mom this afternoon.  My epsom salts and compression socks came through again!

Some of the rain run off from the last few days!

Total Distance: 33.14
 Time: 4:21
 Fuel: 2 Oskri bars, 4 Mejool Dates, 1 cup potatoes (895 calories)
Notes on Fuel: worked pretty well, the coconut pineapple Oskri bar is best saved for post-run as it's heavier and hard to get down, the potatoes were a definite repeat item
Post run recovery: I actually gained 1.5 lbs this run but no symptoms of hyponatremia, and felt ok due to better fueling mid run, so the recovery routine worked well but my legs are pretty tired.
Plans for next week: Keep checking those runs off!
Gratitude: Cougars that keep their distance, and dry skies this morning!