Sunday, May 18, 2008

The Week in Review












































The Mothers Day hike at Dog Mountain was apparently a HUGE mistake. Wednesday wasn't pretty, but I got my bike ride done. By Thursday, my legs were so incapacitated by DOMS that I couldn't even swim. Since I was unable to train like I was scheduled to, I did my own tire changing clinic with Steve and the kids. I practiced taking both the rear and front tires off and changing the tube and using the Co2 cartriges and feel a lot more confident about all that now.

I did about 17 miles on the stationary bike on Friday but my legs were still not working right. It was like they had a mind of their own. I was stumbling, falling, even having weird twitches where my legs would just kick out in front of me for no reason at all. As you can probably guess this did not look good for my long 15-18 mile run on Saturday.

I was up bright and early and decided to just go for it so I headed downtown and toward Forest Park but when I arrived at the meeting place the parking lot was completely empty. It occurred to me that I probably should have read the e-mail for the meeting place more thoroughly before heading out but I went ahead and took this as a sign that it was not yet time to attempt running. I headed home, got on my bike shoes and helmet and went out for Sunday's scheduled 35 mile EZ ride.

Today I got up and did the long run on my own. It was supposed to be a trail run but I was short on time and not knowing what my legs would be up to today, I decided to stay close to home. I took Ki with me for the first 7 miles...S.L.O.W. 7 miles. She pooped twice, peed three times, ate once, chased one cat, 4 birds and 3 squirrels. I did finally get her to drink from the camelbak. I've been trying to get her to let me squirt the water into her mouth during runs and today was finally hot enough that she was very thankful for it.

I dropped her off after the first loop, refilled the camelbak, grabbed my iPod and headed back out. Before a mile was up, the iPod went dead (poop!) and so it was just me and my own mind talking back and forth for the next 7 miles. I was coming to a hill at mile 13 and decided to hit the top, slam a gel and finish off the last two miles strong but I got to the top, tried to take a slurp of water and realized I had gone completely dry.

Immediately my body went berserk. At the first thought of no water my tongue swelled to the size of a chicken and around the chicken a bunch of cotton sprouted up, my lips started to chap, a headache came on and my mind said "I can't finish". Such drivel. I decided I probably "could" finish the last two miles without water but I couldn't take my much desired gel without water so then my head started playing games with me about how hungry I was. I'm such a wuss! At mile 14.5 I had about had it - seeing mirages of drinking fountains and people standing in their yards with running hoses saying "c'mon - have a drink!" Finally in desperation, I pulled off the camelbak and opened up the bladder thinking there might be a least a drop or two of water down in there and to my glorious amazement I got a full gulp! Hooray, I'll live! So off I went to finish the run and be done with it at last.

I did realize that I do need to start thinking about how the run will be in the hot Sunriver sun. We've mostly been training in rain and cold conditions and it wasn't until today that I actually remembered what it's like to feel thirst like that. I know there will be many aid stations but I do need to try to train in some good hot afternoons if at all possible between now and then.

I got home, slammed a berry smoothie, showered and then headed over to my in-laws for my MIL's birthday party. The kids stayed cool in the sprinkler and I added to my dehydration with a couple glasses of wine. We played our own version of Family Feud and had a lot of fun.

I'm headed upstairs behind a locked door to practice putting on my wetsuit again before doing it in front of the whole gang at our first open swim at Vancouver Lake tomorrow. I'll let you know how the swim goes. Hopefully I'll get some pictures, too.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Loved being "in your head" for your run! It is amazing how powerful our mind is...great job running through your "thirst" ;-)

DD said...

Lotta "slammin" for one day. :) haha! love, Kristin

GClef1970 said...

Julie, your endurance always amazes me.