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August 27, 2005
sacred author
Back from vacation, back to work, back from the miserable raceday heat of West Virginia to the everyday heat of west central Florida. At least hurricane Katrina stayed away from here. The east side of the state was not so lucky.
We left WVa Sunday and drove to Baltimore for my husband's grandmother's 86th birthday. After the birthday dinner we got back in the car to start on the 14-hour haul back to Tampa; I had a 24-miler scheduled for Tuesday so I wanted to get back Monday night if possible (typing this right now I realize how idiotic and selfish that sounds; I'm really glad my husband runs too, otherwise he'd never put up with it). We made it to Richmond, and after a little sleep I hit the fabulous Hampton Inn fitness center for some treadmill miles. I was supposed to run 10, but the TV was tuned to decnalab n raif and after 7 miles I'd had enough. Then we drove like mad and made it home Monday night in time to see the fairly sad last episode ever of Six Feet Under.
Tuesday morning was the 24-miler, which is the longest I'd ever run in training. It wasn't too bad; I split it up into 3 8-mile loops and tried not to drag. I was fine until the first half of the last loop; I suddenly ran out of gas, then had to slow a little, then a lot because of some sharp pain in my foot (peroneal tendon, to be exact). I thought I was going to have to bail, but running with better form helped, and after a few miles the pain went away as mysteriously as it had come on. By then my pace had slipped to the 9s, but I decided I was gonna force myself to run 7:30s for the last mile and a half, and somehow I did.
The rest of the work week was pretty nondescript with the exception of a good 15-miler on Thursday. Today was the dreaded tempo run, and the dread was even bigger and badder after that miserable half last week. It turned out fine, almost. The first mile felt hard but not impossible, and it turned out I was going about 15s too fast. I settled into the right pace and began to realize that this would be a 10K PR if I could hold it through the entire 7 miles. Which I could have, I think, if my stomach hadn't exploded around 4.5 miles. I had to stop home for a few minutes. Boy was I mad; I'd taken every precaution: got up plenty early, drank coffee, took immodium, stopped home after the warmup, blah blah blah. After that fun I did the last 2.5 miles, and after an uneven half-mile I got back on pace. I ended up with 6:45 pace for the 7 miles, which is still faster than my 10K PR pace.
So the questions I'm chewing on now are: why can't I do this in a real race, and why did the prospect of success make my stomach explode? I'm afraid the answer is I'm a bit of a head case. I hope that's not the answer, so I'll chew on the questions a little more.
Posted by joe positive at August 27, 2005 4:45 PM
Comments
"why can't I do this in a real race, and why did the prospect of success make my stomach explode? I'm afraid the answer is I'm a bit of a head case."
How about "I haven't yet done this in a real race -- after all, I'm obviously fitter than I've been in the past but training days outnumber race days by around 50:1 -- and because I'm human and care about the outcome, I tend to get nervous about the whole process."
See if you don't feel a little more relaxed after stripping away the overly judgmental stuff. Running is a game, and you are playing hard at it, and as long as you remember to have fun from time to time everything else wil fall into place. Not every time out but often enough to make it well worth it.
Posted by: Boca de Mierda at August 27, 2005 9:53 PM