Week 13
Good old lucky 13 turned out to not be so lucky for me.
The week started out well enough. I was off work on Monday so pretty much just chilled out, not doing much of anything.
Tuesday was supposed to be 6 880 intervals but I hate doing that stuff and don't have a good place to do it so just ran 3 miles with some Fartlek instead. No real problems there. I was supposed to pick up my new shoes today but time got away from me and it just didn't happen. I really wanted to get them broke in before Sunday when I'm supposed to do 22 miles.
Wednesday was a fairly easy 6 miles. Still didn't get my shoes picked up.
Thursday I finally got around to going to get my new shoes. This is the third pair of New Balance 766's I've used and I really like them. While I was at the store, I also picked up this little gadget: 4 Bottle Fuel Belt This thing has 4 7 OZ water bottles and a little pounch on the back for other stuff. I've been wanting to carry my cell phone with me but just couldn't stand the thought of it bouncing around in my pocket so this is a perfect solution. I've been carrying my water or Gatorade in my hand but am really getting tired of that. I set it down when I'm doing a loop and I just run so much easier without carrying it. Anyway, I used my new Belt and my new shoes on my run today. I had a little trouble getting used to the Belt. I cinched it around my waste at my belt line but it was bumping my hips. A small irritation can do one of two things on a long run, either go away or become a BIG NASTY irritation. I decided to move it lower down on my hips and that solved the bumping problem for a few miles but my hips started hurting from the pressure of the belt so I moved it back up to my belt line. Luckily, the bumping kind of went away and didn't cause me any more problems and I forgot about it pretty quick. It sure was nice to just run and let my arms swing naturally without something in my hand. My new shoes worked out really nice, new running shoes always feel so good but my orthodic in my left shoes started really hurting at about 7 miles. I finished the 8 miles without much trouble and was actually feeling pretty good about my new equipment.
Friday was an off day. Saturday I got up early and did 3 miles. I left my orthodics out just to see what would happen but didn't like it so decided to put them in for Sunday's 22 and figured I could just stop and take them out if they caused a problem. Saturday was also my wife's birthday so I spent the day catering to her every whim.
Saturday night I stayed up till after midnight since it was New Year's Eve and some nights of the year I don't get to be an old fart and go to bed at sundown. I had to wake up early Sunday to take my daughter-in-law to work and felt rather tired. I got back and ate 2 bananas and a breakfast bar with a cup of coffee and hung around for a while, just waiting for breakfast to settle. My stomach felt a little heavy for some reason, I had forgotten about that till just now (the importance of this will become apparent shortly). Anyway, about 9 or so I started getting everything ready for my 22 mile run and got out the door about 9:20. It was already conparitively warm, probably in the 60s. I started out slow and felt pretty good although I was sweating pretty heavy within the first few miles. I was running a different route and it was a very nice change, new scenery and part of the run on a very nice road with a wide shoulder. I'm used to running this back country roads and sharing it with cars so a shoulder was very nice. The road was wet and my shoes were slipping a bit in places but there was a strong wind blowing which dried things off before I got to any bad spots. The first 5 miles were very nice. My problems didn't start till I got to about the 7 or 8 mile point. This is usually a good spot in a long run, everything is warmed up and feeling good but not today. I knew something wasn't right, I just didn't feel good. I was getting very sluggish and my energy levels were dropping. There are always times during training when you feel like quitting and I just thought this was one of them so I pushed on. By the time I got to 10 miles, I was walking on and off with running. I was on a very long boring stretch of back country road that seemed to go on forever, nothing but plowed dirt on both sides of me but I kept pushing, walking when I had to and running most of the time. At about 11 miles, I called my wife to bring me out some fresh water and Gatorade and turned south on another long stretch. The difference here is I also turned into about a 15 MPH head wind. With my energy levels already down, this was the capper. I started walking as much as I was running, still trying to keep moving but not making very good progress. I managed to make a few more miles before my wife showed up so I handed her the belt and kept running. She refilled the bottles and parked a little way ahead of me. I was really dragging ass and walking by this time so she asked me how I was doing and I told her that I was not doing good at all. She asked if I wanted to quit and go home but I was determined not to quit. I felt a bit of the asthma I experienced a while back which I thought had gone away so thought maybe I just wasn't getting enough air and asked her to go get my inhaler. She took off and I kept plugging along, still walking way too much. I made a few more miles before she got back and a few puffs on the inhaler didn't help so I told her to wait a few hunderd yards ahead and let me see how I was feeling. As she drove off, I waved and she must have took this as a sign that I was telling her to stop so she did. I just decided to call it quits, knowing the next 8 miles would be damm near impossible. I ended up doing about 16 miles in about 3 hours.
When I got home, I didn't feel good at all. My stomach hurt a lot and I just generally felt like crap. I took a 10 minute cold water bath and then a shower and laid down in bed for a few minutes. I was getting sleepy but she had left to go pick up the kids and had told me not to go to sleep so I got up and watched TV. About an hour later, she came home and brought me a burger and even though my stomach wasn't feeling very good, I thought I needed to eat. I only got about 3/4 of the burger down and couldn't eat any more. My stomach hurt bad the rest of the day and I went to bed about 8 PM. I tossed and turned till about 2 AM when a big cramp hit me and everything came back up. I felt a bit better afterwards and was able to sleep the rest of the night but I felt so bad the next day, I didn't go to work. I'm still feeling like crap today, very washed out and weak. I still can't hardly eat but I came to work anyway, too much stuff to do. At first I thought I had gotten food poisoning but this didn't feel like that. I've had it in the past and within a few hours, my body always violently rejects the infidel but it was a good 12 hours between my last meal and the bad part in the middle of the night. I heard there is a bug of some kind going around and that must be what happened, I was probably already sick Sunday morning (hence the heaviness in my stomach) and that is what sapped all my juice. There is simply no other explanation for tanking like that when 18 miles and 20 miles have been fairly easy.
Well, I've got two more long ones before the marathon, plenty of time to see if I've got what it takes for the long haul. Believe me, I had lots of bad thoughts out on the trail on Sunday, why am I doing this, why am I putting myself thru this, etc but I'm not going to quit. It's just that simple, I'm not going to quit, nuff' said. I am going to take a few days off to get better though so we'll see how it goes.
Wish me luck.
The week started out well enough. I was off work on Monday so pretty much just chilled out, not doing much of anything.
Tuesday was supposed to be 6 880 intervals but I hate doing that stuff and don't have a good place to do it so just ran 3 miles with some Fartlek instead. No real problems there. I was supposed to pick up my new shoes today but time got away from me and it just didn't happen. I really wanted to get them broke in before Sunday when I'm supposed to do 22 miles.
Wednesday was a fairly easy 6 miles. Still didn't get my shoes picked up.
Thursday I finally got around to going to get my new shoes. This is the third pair of New Balance 766's I've used and I really like them. While I was at the store, I also picked up this little gadget: 4 Bottle Fuel Belt This thing has 4 7 OZ water bottles and a little pounch on the back for other stuff. I've been wanting to carry my cell phone with me but just couldn't stand the thought of it bouncing around in my pocket so this is a perfect solution. I've been carrying my water or Gatorade in my hand but am really getting tired of that. I set it down when I'm doing a loop and I just run so much easier without carrying it. Anyway, I used my new Belt and my new shoes on my run today. I had a little trouble getting used to the Belt. I cinched it around my waste at my belt line but it was bumping my hips. A small irritation can do one of two things on a long run, either go away or become a BIG NASTY irritation. I decided to move it lower down on my hips and that solved the bumping problem for a few miles but my hips started hurting from the pressure of the belt so I moved it back up to my belt line. Luckily, the bumping kind of went away and didn't cause me any more problems and I forgot about it pretty quick. It sure was nice to just run and let my arms swing naturally without something in my hand. My new shoes worked out really nice, new running shoes always feel so good but my orthodic in my left shoes started really hurting at about 7 miles. I finished the 8 miles without much trouble and was actually feeling pretty good about my new equipment.
Friday was an off day. Saturday I got up early and did 3 miles. I left my orthodics out just to see what would happen but didn't like it so decided to put them in for Sunday's 22 and figured I could just stop and take them out if they caused a problem. Saturday was also my wife's birthday so I spent the day catering to her every whim.
Saturday night I stayed up till after midnight since it was New Year's Eve and some nights of the year I don't get to be an old fart and go to bed at sundown. I had to wake up early Sunday to take my daughter-in-law to work and felt rather tired. I got back and ate 2 bananas and a breakfast bar with a cup of coffee and hung around for a while, just waiting for breakfast to settle. My stomach felt a little heavy for some reason, I had forgotten about that till just now (the importance of this will become apparent shortly). Anyway, about 9 or so I started getting everything ready for my 22 mile run and got out the door about 9:20. It was already conparitively warm, probably in the 60s. I started out slow and felt pretty good although I was sweating pretty heavy within the first few miles. I was running a different route and it was a very nice change, new scenery and part of the run on a very nice road with a wide shoulder. I'm used to running this back country roads and sharing it with cars so a shoulder was very nice. The road was wet and my shoes were slipping a bit in places but there was a strong wind blowing which dried things off before I got to any bad spots. The first 5 miles were very nice. My problems didn't start till I got to about the 7 or 8 mile point. This is usually a good spot in a long run, everything is warmed up and feeling good but not today. I knew something wasn't right, I just didn't feel good. I was getting very sluggish and my energy levels were dropping. There are always times during training when you feel like quitting and I just thought this was one of them so I pushed on. By the time I got to 10 miles, I was walking on and off with running. I was on a very long boring stretch of back country road that seemed to go on forever, nothing but plowed dirt on both sides of me but I kept pushing, walking when I had to and running most of the time. At about 11 miles, I called my wife to bring me out some fresh water and Gatorade and turned south on another long stretch. The difference here is I also turned into about a 15 MPH head wind. With my energy levels already down, this was the capper. I started walking as much as I was running, still trying to keep moving but not making very good progress. I managed to make a few more miles before my wife showed up so I handed her the belt and kept running. She refilled the bottles and parked a little way ahead of me. I was really dragging ass and walking by this time so she asked me how I was doing and I told her that I was not doing good at all. She asked if I wanted to quit and go home but I was determined not to quit. I felt a bit of the asthma I experienced a while back which I thought had gone away so thought maybe I just wasn't getting enough air and asked her to go get my inhaler. She took off and I kept plugging along, still walking way too much. I made a few more miles before she got back and a few puffs on the inhaler didn't help so I told her to wait a few hunderd yards ahead and let me see how I was feeling. As she drove off, I waved and she must have took this as a sign that I was telling her to stop so she did. I just decided to call it quits, knowing the next 8 miles would be damm near impossible. I ended up doing about 16 miles in about 3 hours.
When I got home, I didn't feel good at all. My stomach hurt a lot and I just generally felt like crap. I took a 10 minute cold water bath and then a shower and laid down in bed for a few minutes. I was getting sleepy but she had left to go pick up the kids and had told me not to go to sleep so I got up and watched TV. About an hour later, she came home and brought me a burger and even though my stomach wasn't feeling very good, I thought I needed to eat. I only got about 3/4 of the burger down and couldn't eat any more. My stomach hurt bad the rest of the day and I went to bed about 8 PM. I tossed and turned till about 2 AM when a big cramp hit me and everything came back up. I felt a bit better afterwards and was able to sleep the rest of the night but I felt so bad the next day, I didn't go to work. I'm still feeling like crap today, very washed out and weak. I still can't hardly eat but I came to work anyway, too much stuff to do. At first I thought I had gotten food poisoning but this didn't feel like that. I've had it in the past and within a few hours, my body always violently rejects the infidel but it was a good 12 hours between my last meal and the bad part in the middle of the night. I heard there is a bug of some kind going around and that must be what happened, I was probably already sick Sunday morning (hence the heaviness in my stomach) and that is what sapped all my juice. There is simply no other explanation for tanking like that when 18 miles and 20 miles have been fairly easy.
Well, I've got two more long ones before the marathon, plenty of time to see if I've got what it takes for the long haul. Believe me, I had lots of bad thoughts out on the trail on Sunday, why am I doing this, why am I putting myself thru this, etc but I'm not going to quit. It's just that simple, I'm not going to quit, nuff' said. I am going to take a few days off to get better though so we'll see how it goes.
Wish me luck.
posted by Big Ed at 11:46 AM
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