I've just been for a run. It's deceptively muggy outside - I thought it would be quite cool but I sweated like a sweaty thing. I'd been planning to a tempo run at Princes Park today but then realised I'm doing the fun run at Daylesford tomorrow, so just did an easy 5 km around the block instead. I'll do the harder session on Sunday.

When I was seeing my PT at the gym, she made me do this horrific exercise (if you can call it an exercise) for my IT bands - you laid on a hard foam roller then dragged your body along it screaming in pain. Awful, but it worked. I'd like to try it again but since I no longer have my gym membership, I have no hard foam roller. I'm thinking of filling one of those large water bottles and freezing it then wrapping it in a towel and covering it with maybe a sock or something to hold the towel in place. If anyone has any better ideas, let me know.

A couple of people asked me about the energy gel I had on my run. It was the GU Chocolate Outrage (thanks Andrew) and it does taste like melted chocolate or like milo when you eat it straight from the tin :) It's hard to judge how much it helped but I did have heaps of energy left after my run so I figure it can't hurt. I had another one too that Simon tested out that was citrus - I don't know the brand - he said it was like concentrated powerade and he had a lot more urgent need for water afterwards than I did. Wow, I feel like one of those restaurant reviewers that say things like 'my dining companion choose the lobster'. I think the best thing about mine was that it fit in the pocket of my running shorts nicely while the one Simon had was longer and kept running against his waistband.

Speaking of shorts, I wore the new running shorts on the long run. I wore them on Monday but felt so self-conscious cos they are MUCH shorter than my old ones that I put on tights underneath. It was too hot to do that on Wednesday. They were great but I think it defeats the purpose of the technical fabric if you wear your big, cotton granny knickers underneath.

Anyway, as to the gel, I think it helped. I mainly took it because I wanted to experiment for when I'm doing longer runs training for the half marathon later in the year. Since we were running around the city, if I got a stomach ache I could jump on the tram and get home without any issues. I don't think I'd take something like for a run like R4tK without trying it out first because they can upset your stomach. Now I want to buy more chocolate ones to have as snack foods - 100 calories and I felt like I'd had a chocolate pig out!