http://www.strava.com/activities/110036977

Well…it was a little weird.

My nutrition was off today (and yesterday). I think it’s  the pace of work right now (lots of morning meetings). This is pushing my 2nd breakfast out later than normal, causing blood to go to my stomach for digestion when I’m leaving to run. This in turn is making me feel really slow at the start of my run – the first 3 miles today. Ugh. (And we all know it’s not socially acceptable to bring a food bag into a meeting and just eat the entire time…unfortunately).

In reality, those miles weren’t that slow, they just felt like it.

I’ve run 3 times now since the bionic eye procedure – and kept sunglasses (yellow lenses) on for the first 2 runs. Today, with the temperature and the up – they were just fogging and I decided to pull them off.  Much better.

I took the SJ Ultra vest out for the first time today. Really just to see how it felt – I typically don’t carry anything on runs shorter than 10 miles – just a key and my iPad shuffle.

Today I carried :

• one full bottle in the front right chest holster – just water
• 4 Clif shots
• 1 Pedialyte ss mix packet
• 2 gatorade ss mix packets
• a fleece hat
• my Go-Lite shell (windbreaker)

Everything rode very smoothly. I was worried I would get a lot of bounce from the water bottle, but that wasn’t the case.  The load stayed balanced and I barely noticed it was there.  I did have music in, so I didn’t hear any water sloshing – which is a common complaint.

My only issue is with the nipple on the Ultimate Directions bottles – the suck. Literally. You have to pull the nipple out and then it has a valve inside that has to be compressed before water will flow…if I have to write a sentence describing how to drink water from a bottle – the design is flawed. I’ll use non UD bottles from now on. Or my old UD’s without the weird nipple. Nipple.

No chafing, no bounce – lots of storage and it carried very well.  The sizing is tricky (as many people state in other reviews).

My favorite section of this run is …. well I have 2 actually.  The first is after you cross the road descending from Pittock Mansion. Smooth with wide switchbacks – easy to run fast on not too steep a grade. And the other is ascending through Hoyt Arboretum – I had no idea there were giant sequoias in Forest Park. It’s amazingly beautiful – ferns, spruce, sequoias. Nice trail too.

Those sequoias are down the hill to the right… my running direction is up the hill to the left… of course.