THE WORKOUT: Long Run 1.5 hours
Yesterday was my long day. After taking Friday off and shooting a wedding on Saturday I just really wanted to get out and go. The hard part is that I've not yet figured out nutrition on wedding day to prepare for a long run the next day. We're lucky if we get 30 minutes to eat total from about 9am to 11pm. As I've said before, it's a pretty tiring ordeal even in good shape.
So, trying to make up for my poor nutrition on Saturday took up much of the day Sunday as I got in some fuel and hydrated for the run. That finally put me heading out just after 2pm.
The first three miles went fine, mile 4 I developed an intense side cramp that I was finally able to get to go away before mile 5. 5-7 were pretty uneventful, other than getting lost on the trail and having to take a different route, I was able to get back to my pre-staged water and gel I'd left earlier in the day. I had already eaten three Strawberry Shot Bloks and was making my way slowly through the other three as I went through miles 6-8. I experienced a few more side cramps, ran through them, and maintained my pace. My ITB's were both giving me some problems, the discomfort never developed into much swelling so I continued, but stretching those babies out is something I'll have to work on. In the first Half-Marathon I did back in the early 2000's I had a really bad problem with my right ITB. At mile 9 I had to stop and walk and stretch it out for quite some time. It had swollen up to about the size of a golf ball (no joke), there was just this swollen ball off the right side of my right knee and it rendered me almost immobile. I ended up finished in 1:38, but was out of training for a while afterwards. That injury and my torn meniscus have caused me to change from a heel strike runner to running on the balls of my feet and not hitting my heels at all, but that's a story for another post I suppose.
So, 8-10 were nice. I got into a nice groove and before I knew it the two miles were up. I was beginning to get weak and had that one gel left, but I didn't want to take it too early and bonk with a mile left. I knew it would be good for at least 3 miles, so I decided to take it at 10. 10-13 went by really fast, on mile 12 I thought I might have my fastest split. I was feeling really good and moving along at a decent clip, then there was a long slow grinder of a hill that took the wind out of my sails. It also upset my goal of finishing 13 with a faster split. Then all of the sudden it was over!
I had just finished the 4th run in my life of greater than 10 miles and I felt really good!
Fast forward 2 hours and the picture isn't so pretty. I started to get REALLY bad stomach cramps and was so weak that I could barely peel myself off the floor. I laid on the floor for a good 45 minutes trying to make it through the cramps. Finally took some Immodium (at the recommendation of my awesome saint of a wife) and they began to get better. I really needed to hydrate. I had lost 4 pounds in the course of the run and it was making me feel pretty dang bad.
As I write this morning I'm still recovering, and feeling better. Now I just need to figure out a game plan for in run hydration and pre and post-workout nutrition. I'll just be doing some cross-training later today with the heavy bag and give the legs a rest before tomorrow.
All in all it was a great run and I'm thoroughly happy with my average of 7:50/mi. I was expecting between 8:00-8:30. The run info is below.
No comments:
Post a Comment