I have the best little brother ever.

So... I'm home, back in MA for the weekend, and it's the weekend of my first 20-miler. I was really nervous last night, and my dad made me eat a hamburger AND spaghetti.... I thought I was going to explode. Anyways, I mapped out my route last night, into town center, down the bike path to the neighboring town, into the old army base, 6-mile loop, and back home on the bike path again. My little brother, Sam, goes to school in the old army base and helped me plan out the route. Then, he told me that he'd wake up this morning, bike out to meet me at the 7-mile mark, and bike around the 6-mile loop with me. So anyways, I downloaded Harry Potter 7, started out at an easy pace, and by the time I got to the end of the bike path I was already dreading finishing the run. I was just so... alone. And sort of bored. So then I see my brother and dad in the car, and I felt a bit better. Sam had on his backpack full of bananas and water bottles for me. I told him that he didn't need to stay right next to me, considering that I was running so low that he almost had to WALK his bike... but he did. He stayed next to me, biking right alongside, chatting me up, for the whole 6 mile loop. And then the next 7 miles back. SAM BIKED NEXT TO ME FOR THIRTEEN MILES ON A SATURDAY MORNING. He was so awesome. And I didn't listen to Harry Potter at all once we'd met up. We talked the entire time. The surprising thing was, I was ABLE to talk that whole time while I was running... and that helped me to keep pace. It was so awesome and Sam was my hero today. Maybe for the next month even.

I ended up running really really slow today. When I started my run, I decided to go at it with this mindset: "This is all I have to do today. I just need to finish, there is no rush." So I tried to run at (what I thought was) about a 10-minute-mile pace. It ended up being more like 11-minute miles at the end, which is really slow-sounding to me, but I'm so glad that I did it now. It was a great learning experience, because at the end I didn't feel nearly as bad as I'd anticipated feeling, so now I know that I can definitely do that distance faster than I did today. The only thing I feel a bit disappointing... is that we took a little detour and I ended up only doing 19 miles... OH WELL!! Great run. Great, great run.

Minor Scare...

So I say that this was a "minor" scare, but I was pretty freaked out when it happened...

To preface this story: On Saturday morning I woke up feeling too weak (both mentally and physically) to do my long run, so I decided to switch Saturday and Sunday's workouts, and do 5 miles at the gym on Saturday. I ended up doing part of it on the elliptical, which I haven't done yet through this whole training program, and honestly, cross-training felt kind of good.
Anyways... so on Sunday I woke up feeling bit better and decided that 12 miles was doable, so I strapped on my water bottle belt, plotted a map through the plateau, and set off. It wasn't hot out at all, so I didn't end up drinking too much throughout the run. The run itself was fine, not particularly difficult, but I've got some nasty blood blisters forming.
After my run I sat around my apartment, read, showered, watched TV, for the rest of the afternoon. After dinner I started to feel strange... the muscles in my torso really started to hurt -- like that feeling you get on Thanksgiving after eating too much and you're just stuffed. I didn't feel nauseous, just.... in pain.

So I went to bed, woke up Monday, still felt pretty bad, had breakfast, went to work. Around about 11:30 I had to go home.... I felt so bad. Pain, dizzyness, weakness, a touch of nausea... but I couldn't think of any reason why. I fell asleep for about four hours, woke up, had some gatorade (I thought it would help with the weakness 'cause I didn't feel like eating yet) and sat around some more. A few hours later I felt a very strange painful feeling in my abdomen, but realized I just had to pee. And there it hit me.... my pee was dark and thick.  I freaked out. I called my dad, thinking I had some crazy kidney problem. But... after rethinking the previous 24 hours since my long run I realized how little I'd had to drink during and after that run. I looked up "dehydration" in my running handbook... and there was an anecdote written by the author about his biggest scare with dehydration: "Once, after a 20 mile run when I'd barely drank anything, I had one of the biggest scares of my running life.  I felt very weak, and several hours later I went to the bathroom and my pee was purple! I freaked out at first and then remembered that after my run I'd chugged two grape sodas, and my body must've been so dehydrated that it didn't even have time to filter out the artificial coloring."
So... I can only assume that this is what happened to me with my dehydration and red gatorade.

Feeling a bit better now, had a lot of water last night, but still a bit sore and tired. Moral of this story: after running, drink 'til you pee.

Daunting Week

So this week will be by far my biggest challenge, I think.
I have three 6-mile runs in a row, and I've only got one of them down so far. My long run coming up is only 12 miles, so that's not too bad... it's just the wear-and-tear that I know will build up over the course of this week that I find daunting. It has started on a good note though! I came home from work in a not-so-great mood and really really didn't feel like running (which I usually WANT to do when I'm in a bad mood...) but I went anyways, and it was hot. The funny thing is, that despite this whole mind-game I'm playing with myself about how hard this week will be, the 6 miles just passed. They were started and over just like that, in the blink of an eye. I think I'm going to have to re-listen to the chapters of Harry Potter that played on my MP3 player today because I really just zoned out. The run didn't feel particularly long or hard or anything. It just.... went. 
There is this whole branch of thought about running and how it is a form of meditation, and I think I am only now just touching on what those people are talking about. Your mind really does leave your body sometimes. An hour that I spend sitting at my desk at work feels ten times as long as that 55 minutes of running did. 
So what does this mean? I'm not sure. Have I hit some new level that you can only get to by experience? Do casual joggers feel this and I am just far behind the crowd? I'm not sure, because I've definitely felt "in the zone" or whatever you want to call it before... but this is something new. 


I'm reading a book right now called "Once a Runner" by John L. Parker Jr., which is supposed to be the best novel ever written about running, and the main character is a track runner whose life-goal it is to run a mile in under 4 minutes. He runs over ten miles every day, but doesn't buy into the whole zen-meditation running idea, and his only true motivation is to be faster than his fastest. One of the chapters is a long, internal monologue that he has while running at night, about the loneliness of running and why he sill does it, and as lame as this sounds.... it spoke to me:

"The true competitive runner, simmering in his own existential juices, endured his melancholia the only way he knew how: gently, together with those few others who also endured it, yet very much alone. He ran because it grounded him in basics. There was both life and death in it; it was unadulterated by media hype, trivial cares, political meddling. He suspected it kept him from that most real variety of schizophrenia that the republic was then sprouting like mushrooms on a stump.

Running to him was real; the way he did it the realest thing he knew. It was all joy and woe, hard as diamond; it made him weary beyond comprehension. But it also made him free."

lots and lots of miles

So I did 32 miles this week, over half of them were all done in ONE BIG 18-MILER on Saturday. 32 miles is a new week record for me, and so is 18 miles in terms of long runs. I'm pretty proud of both! My only two big hurtles left are the two 20 miles runs that I have (one in two weeks, the other in four).

The 18 miles was... interesting. I decided that instead of doing a big loop I would take the metro out as far as I could and run home. This meant literally taking the metro OFF THE ISLAND of Montreal early on Saturday morning, and zigzagging a very long ways home. I decided to make a little map for anyone who is interested...

The red star is where I took the metro too... and the dotted line is an (approximate) path of where I ran all the way home, to Peel.
I took a lot of time preparing for this run, I drew out a map of all of the roads to turn on and carried it with me in my WATER BOTTLE BELT (and proceeded to lose it once, having to jog back and retrace my steps to find it). I also carbo-loaded on baked penne the night before, and even brought one of those running gels that are just a straight shot of 100-150 calories of carbs with me... I'd never tried them before but ended up eating the raspberry one at about mile 8. Despite all of this though, something about the run just wasn't good. Maybe  I didn't mentally prepare enough or something... but my mood just wasn't right for the entire thing. I didn't want to be out there running for so long, and I didn't find myself taking joy in the new sights I was seeing or the constant rhythm that I so often take pleasure in while running alone for a long time.
It's okay though, I'm not discouraged. Out of this entire training period which has consisted of at least 60 runs now, I really think that this is only the second one that I haven't felt too good about. I'll take a 97% success rate!!

Even better though, is despite being very sore and tired after that 18 miles for most of Saturday, I went on an easy 3-miler today (Sunday) and felt like I was flying.

A reason to keep running

Progress

So, despite all of the brutal heat and humidity last week, I still ended up totalling 28 miles and my goal was 30, so I'd say that a shortage of only 2 is pretty great, considering.

I had to do my long run on Sunday this week, and it was only 12 miles, so I didn't think about it too much ahead of time. I didn't do my normal carbo-loading with pasta the night before, or get myself particularly mentally prepared... I just sort of thought, "oh yeah, I have to run 12 miles tomorrrow." And the run was fine. I (stupidly) went at about 1:00pm, at peak heat/humidity, so that was really my only problem, but my legs and lungs and everything felt fine. I sort of had this feeling that I have tuned my body well enough to just make it do what I want, and the whole preparation ritual that I've been doing and psyching myself up isn't as necessary anymore. I mean, it's definitely going to be necessary this coming weekend when I have to run 18 miles but now, for twelve, it's just another day of running.

I suppose I am starting to understand those weirdos out there who, after running several marathons, become bored and seek new challenges like ultra-marathons and super-ultra-marathons and death races (yes these actually exist) but don't worry mom & dad -- I'm never going to get that crazy.

I am also officially half-way through my 16-week training program, meaning there are 8 weeks left until the race. I'm getting really excited, and I know that this second set of 8 weeks is going to be more difficult than the first, but I think I'm ready for it.

hot hot hot

Yesterday and today have been brutally hot... and humid. I think the temp has been in the low 30's both days but with humidity it's been closer to low 40's (haha I'm using Celsius now -- so Canadian.)
Yesterday was not quite as bad as today, and my 4-miler felt great, actually. I made sure to drink at least 6 bottles of water throughout the afternoon before I went, and ended up drinking a whole bottle during the run slash pouring the remainder all over myself when I got back to my street. Also, there was a park in Westmount that I ran past with a big wading pool and fountains coming up out of the ground with like, a hundred little kids in it, that I proceeded to run straight through -- sneakers, MP3 player and all. It felt great.
Today, however, was worse. I think I drank even more water leading up to my run today, but the heat was just too much. Even when I was trying to stay running in the shady parts, it didn't help. I was planning on doing my normal weekly 4-mile speed workout today but ended up just doing a flat, straight, slow 3 miles down Sherbrooke. 
Today I was first aid training and I was learning about heat stroke and apparently yesterday in Montreal there were 300 more heat stroke cases than they had anticipated (they predicted 800 but got 1100) so I can't even imagine what it was today -- and I definitely don't want to be one of those numbers. 


One last thing.... on my 16-miler last Friday (the one where I fell) I started listening to the Harry Potter audiobook during my run instead of music -- it has seriously changed my running. It's amazing. (And hey... now I'm FINALLY going to "read" those last two books....)

Milestones

1. Bought one of those goofy water-bottle belts. It's awesome.
2. Hit the 30-miles-per-week mark -- woohooo!!!!

Thick Skin

No but seriously, I must actually have physically thick skin. At about mile 14 out of 16 this morning my foot got snagged on an unnoticeable piece of plastic binding that was laying on the sidewalk and sent me skidding on all fours across the sidewalk. At this point in my run, I was already feeling pretty tired and weak (although not awful) and when I hit the ground, the water bottle in my hand exploding everywhere, I just thought "Oh man, I'm gonna have to take the bus home and there's gonna be blood everywhere." I was wrong on both counts. Because as I laid there, staring at the sidewalk right below my nose, I felt two hands on my shoulders. I took my headphones out and there was a man, about 50, in running shorts and a tank top speaking to me in French, asking me if I was OK.
"I don't speak French... sorry..." I replied.
"Oh, you don't speak French? Are you alright? What happened to you? You trip on this thing here?" He pointed to the plastic binding with his foot.
I looked at it and laughed. Such a small, stupid, unsuspicious thing on the ground couldn't have possibly sent me flying like that. But it did, and I laughed, and then looked at my skinned palms and knees. No blood.
"You are not bleeding!" He exclaimed. "I saw you fall though!"
"Yeah... I can't believe it..." I laughed again and got up.
"Are you ok?" He asked. "Come. Walk fast. Don't slow down." He walked with me for a few minutes.
"Are you training for the marathon?" I asked him.
"Yes! I just did one hour and a half. You?"
"Yeah," I replied, "I just did about two hours.... I have only two miles left to go."
"Ohhhh, will you be ok?" He asked.
"I think so! Thank you so much for helping me!"
"Good for you! You will be great, you are young!" He replied before I took off again.

So even though it didn't come quite as I had expected it to, I think I got the morale boost that I was looking for, that I wrote about in my last post.
See, after I got up and dusted myself off and walked with this man for a minute, I suddenly had the energy to keep going. The weakness from the previously 14 miles that I had felt before my fall was gone, and the end seemed so much closer and the long run so much more doable. What I guess I am trying to say is that sometimes you have to fall before you realize how easy it is to get back up.