New trails and new gels

The 5km jog on Wednesday has turned out to be uneventful the last few weeks, but not this week. I had an appointment to change the car tyres (we were still driving on winter tyres) and the idea was to go for those 5km instead of just waiting there for 45 minutes. The original plan was to go 2.5km down the road and back again, but already after 600m I was so bored that I jumped on the occasion of a bike trail into the woods. I had never been there, it was much "hillier" than the woods in our immediate surroundings, which is good for my training. And then there was this nice sandy slope...

You can't really tell from the picture, but it was about a 40° incline and deep sand for most of it. It was short, less than 50m I would say, but hard! I think it's a good place to do some repeat hill work, I will definitely go back there. I need to prepare for this monster bridge

+30m elevation in 1km (and the equally challenging descent), which will be crossed twice along the Stockholm Marathon course, at 8km and at 32km. And the rest of the course is also continuously going up and down so I really need some kind of hill work. 

Thursday was another early morning run, I was out at 6:40am for my fast 12km. My husband signed up for the Eindhoven Marathon and he's a fan of GU Gels, so we bought a big box of Lemon Sublime flavour with the intention of sharing it if I liked it. I took one with me on this run because I didn't want to try it during the 28km, and I'm glad I did. I just can't stand the thick texture of these gels, I can foresee myself puking if I should try to gulp one down 30km into the marathon... drink gels it is for me. I couldn't get the one I had already tried a while ago (Dextro Energy Liquid Gel), so I ordered a nice supply of Maxim Gel Drink hoping the taste isn't horrible. Sponsoring works: Maxim is one of the sponsors of the Stockholm Marathon, they will offer Maxim Electrolyte drink along the course and Maxim Energy Bars at one aid station and this is one of the reasons for my preference, the others being availability and price. 

This weekend I will be busy with the celebrations for my daughter's 4th birthday, so I will move the long run to Monday, which is a holiday here. Just two more long runs before the marathon: 28km and 32km...