Oh Everest, My Everest

I had a rumble in my tumble again today, but I persevered and finished my first half marathon. I hope a 3:00 half marathon is never a PR for me ever again!

Looking forward to that well-earned massage tomorrow night...

Labels: half marathon, massage, race, Riley's Rumble

I feel worthless today for postponing my run another day when I had planned to do Monday-Wednesday-Friday this week in preparation for Riley's. But Monday brought on the most painful four miles of my life. I felt like I had heartburn the whole time. I brought water with me, though no beans or gatorade since the workout was only about 45 minutes. I threw up some water right at the end when I could feel my body running out of something after about 3.5 miles (was it dehydration? did I use up my glycogen stores? who knows?) and I pushed my limit and made myself finish the four miles.

The second I stopped running, it felt like that was the worst decision I had made all week... only I couldn't tell if the mistake was making myself keep running to that point, or stopping when I needed to keep going. Either way, after that first step I walked, the damage was done. I swirled some water in my mouth and spit out some kind of nasty goo that had formed in my mouth and the tried to drink some only to wretch it back into my mouth. Gross.

I had eaten a buffalo burger for lunch that day and it was slightly undercooked, but you'd think if it was that it would have bothered me sooner than seven hours later! What's worse is that I didn't wake up feeling better yesterday. I've been feeling queasy and heartburn-y since then and my body just doesn't feel like it's recovered from Saturday, let alone the second beating I gave it on Monday. I scheduled my first massage for Monday night, so I know that will be well deserved after I have a go at the Rumble on Sunday.

All this and those 10+ miles on Saturday felt like such a breeze at the time! Eesh.

But the real point of this entry should be that I looked back at my last few entries and--lo and behold!--the last time I felt this kind of a bodily funk was exactly a month ago. Fancy that! I guess I haven't taken a cut-back week since then, and my body is hollering at me for it. It's too bad Riley's falls on this week, but I guess this will just make into that much more of a test for me. At this rate, MCM might be falling on my off week! (Please no, please no, please no...) I think it will actually be a week after the off week if it keeps going exactly every 4th week, but I know that sort of thing is never predictable.

I don't know what else to say. The more I sit here to type, the more opportunity I have to whine, and that ain't helping no-one.

Can it be Monday now?

Labels: got dat funk, heartburn, long run, massage, race, rest week, Riley's Rumble, short run

I think it's time for me to start setting aside some more dough so that I can start getting massages... maybe once monthly is in my budget? I have to find a good affordable place first.

Basically since I started this running business, I have suffered from the same ailments - achy joints and overheating much too quickly. I had a system for after the long runs: stretch and eat at the run, drive home, turn the shower on, stuff whatever food was immediately available into my mouth, and get into the shower to let the cold water run over my legs for a few minutes before warming it up a bit for a more humane shower. Then I'd prepare more food, turn on some cartoons or grab a book, and sit on the couch icing my knees with frozen fruit (peaches seem to stay frozen longer than ice) until numb, and then curl up for nap time on the sunny spot of my couch with the a/c blasting. You know what? This worked. I had me a good system.

This last week, though, I have found myself taking hotter and hotter showers, wanting to just curl up and lie down at the bottom of the tub and wanting badly to soak in the nice hot water. My whole body aches and even though it's still pretty hot outside, I just want to curl up in a nice hot bath. These peculiar urges are what make me think that maybe, just maybe, I need a massage. That hot water isn't going to do much good to my joints, so I have been refraining, but the all-over aches are NOT going away. I think I may succumb later today and take a nice hot bath before I get back to icing my knees and popping NSAIDS.

Yesterday, I thought maybe I just really missed being in the water so I decided to actually do an ice bath rather than a cold shower and it was fun to slosh around in the small body of water I created for the occasion. It was fun with the sloshing, but not with the cold. My legs cooled down pretty quickly, which is obviously the desired effect, but then my muscles just ached again and I really wanted to make the water hot. Then I realized that there are definitely two things going on here: (1) I want to go to the beach, and (2) I need to have a massage.

Apparently I have always been able to spend at least a few days every summer in the water somewhere. Last year brought many visits to Florida and its beaches; most summers before then were spent in California (sometimes with brief sojourns out of the country), and the beaches were always part of that. Somehow, I have ended up in a place with no beach to speak of and my body is actually telling me to go find one!

The regular massage thing has always been a dream, but I really don't have the money for that kind of lifestyle yet. Now my body is aching something fierce and I may just have to give up some other things to make sure I have that money. There's just so much research and planning involved, I don't think I'll be getting one anytime in the next week. For today, a hot bath will have to do. And I'll have to see about that beach thing sometime. There has to be some place closer than Virginia Beach with a decent place to build sand castles and splash around in the ocean. Maybe Ocean City? I don't really know much about either of those places, but I think they are the closest beaches. Hmph.

Labels: beach, knees, massage, nsaids

A fresh perspective on recovery runs

I ran an easy mile today (could have done three if I hadn't waited until noon to do it), and it hardly feels like I ran 12.75 yesterday. Hell if I had known I was making myself hurt worse by lying around like a lazy slug on weekends after the long runs, I'd have gotten my ass up off the couch a lot sooner! Usually I'm still hurting on Mondays and have to wait until Tuesday to start in on the shorter runs again, but I feel like I could do another few tonight as soon as the sun goes down. I may still wait until tomorrow for that though. :)

Labels: recovery run, short run

My fatal flaw only got me partially this morning - I woke up 20 minutes before my scheduled alarm to use the head and didn't just stay up. I thought, I'll just enjoy my cozy bed for 20 minutes and then get going. I've got time.

So after I hit 'snooze' for the 9th time, it was almost 8am, which is pretty much time to get ready for work. I keep hearing that I need to gradually get up earlier and earlier to go from an 8am rise-and-shine to a much earlier one that leaves time for running. The only problem with that is that I can't add running gradually; I either run or I don't. So this morning, I decided to turn the tide even though it was so late. I know I can run a mile in under 15 minutes even on a bad day, so I made myself get dressed and walked over to my running spot.

Then I got really ambitious and thought, I can run three miles at a 10-min pace so then I'd be back to my room by 8:30... perfect! Problem is, I haven't run a 10-min mile since 10th grade (well maybe once a few years ago, too). So with my forerunner beeping at me to speed up pretty much the whole time (at least on the uphill half of the loop), I completed one mile and pretty much wanted to vomit. Only reason I didn't was that there was nothing to cough up. 8am is a lot hotter than 7am is a lot hotter than 6am. I need to make this gradual process go faster so I can enjoy more running at an almost decent temperature.

Work was frustrating and stressful as usual. I just got by those nine and a half hours. Thankfully the big scary thunderstorm rolled through and hid the sun and broke the humidity a bit. Around 8pm, I headed back out to try again on the speedy 3-miler. This time I kept a 10:43 average pace. That's pretty damn good considering the shape I'm in! I mean, I almost wanted to throw up the whole time, but this was foreseen so I'd only eaten an apple before the run and went mostly hungry.

I've been eating pizza and pasta and apples and yogurt for the last few days, so I think I had a good store of fuel that let me run under-hydrated and under-fed *twice* today. So, I can't complain too much. I'm happy just putting in the miles and hoping to find the will again tomorrow.

Labels: body fuel, food, morning run, speed run, two runs in one day

I keep meaning to go back and write out the details of each run so I can benefit from my notes about all the variables later on down the road (say, in about 16 weeks), but I've barely even had the time or energy to run, let alone document all of the little things that happened or even update my run log before today.

Let's just say it's been a rough 3 weeks at work, and it isn't over yet. Overtime really sucks, but some things just need to be done. The source of my livelihood has to come before the source of my liveliness, much as I'd like it to be the other way around. My boss swears to me that we're hiring someone this week so I can have help by the 16th at latest. I'm not holding my breath, but I think it will be safe to start asserting my own personal needs that day in case the inhuman workloads continue, whether a person is hired or not. One more week of a crippled training schedule, I can handle (barely). More than that, not so much.

I guess the thing for me to keep in mind is that it is also JULY and not just that I am "losing conditioning" by skipping out on my shorter runs during the week. Every time I do get a chance to be out there, it is between 5:00 and 10:00pm, and hotter than Hades. I have also been too self conscious to wear my fuel belt to run around campus because all of the college students will laugh at me, but I'm beginning to realize that I just don't care (and they probably don't really care enough to laugh either). I'd rather run than not run, and I'd rather look like a dork than have my body overheat so that I have to cut the trip short every time.

Last week's long run was pretty much agony. I started out with the best attitude I had, but I clearly didn't eat enough the night before. In fact, I had fallen asleep without dinner. As important as it is for me to get proper amounts of sleep in order to feel good while running, I discovered that filling up the old gas tank is more important. I need to have a big hearty dinner the night before a long run and there ain't no bones about it.

This Friday, I ate like a champ and drank so much water I thought it was going to start leaking out of my ears. I woke up 3 times in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Then I woke up and had an apple before I went on my way, feeling pretty damn good. I brought just enough water and watered down gatorade (4 of water and 2 of 1:4 diluted gatorade), half of a clif bar and some sport beans. I probably could have eaten a bigger breakfast or brought 3/4 of a clif bar, but that was okay. I didn't get really hungry until the last mile and I just had to squeak that one out. Thank goodness for the bananas at the end. It's nice to have food and cold drinks waiting for you after you clean out your supply during the long run.

All in all, this 10 miles was breezy and I am in fine shape, considering how little training I've been doing for going on a month now. Last week I tried a walk break every mile (probably added to my agony) but this week I went back to my halfway rule. I try to break down the distance and get "just past halfway" before taking any significant breaks. I ran the 5 miles with no stops, only slowing down near mile 4 to digest some clif bar and let the water soak into my system, then I stopped to walk after the aid station at the turn around. Here, I really needed to hit the 'reset' button. Even though I would like not to walk more than a tenth of a mile at a time, I had just run 5 straight, so it seemed the thing to do.

I walked for about three tenths of a mile, drinking up and letting my body cool down and my joints rest. I lengthened my stride and took exaggerated steps to let some different muscles get in on the action. Then I started up again and felt pretty good. I knew I'd need to walk another 1-2 times so I stuck with my halfway rule again and said to myself that I'd walk after mile 7 and then again at about mile 8.5 in order to break the last 5 miles into a 2-1.5-1.5 deal. When I got to 7, I felt a little shameful since I'd walked more than a quarter mile at my last break, so I thought I'd just hold out for mile 8 and then walk.

A quarter mile before I got there, my stomach started to seriously devour itself. So, 7 and three-quarters it was! I chowed down on the last big bite of clif bar, munched a sport bean and drank down most of my fluids leaving just one bottle for the last couple of miles. It felt sinful to walk, but at least I knew I'd earned it (unlike the multiple, truly sinful walk breaks I'd taken last week). I was surprised to discover today that I averaged under a 13:30 pace. I had set my forerunner to yell at me if I dropped below a 14-min pace and that wretched little thing kept beeping at me every time I paused to sneeze! Harumph.

Labels: body fuel, food, long run, sport beans