Long Thursday morning

AIRPORT: drop husband off at 515am. ooof, had to get up early for that.
RUN: 8.65 miles in 1:20
BIKE: 16.5 miles in 1:00
RUN: 4.35 miles in 0:40

Whew, that's a lot of miles. And time! This put me at 9.5 hours for the week so far!

I got up at 3:45am to be sure I was hydrated, fueled, and ready to run on time even with the trip to the airport. I have...business...that I really have to do every morning before I run, otherwise the gut just rebels and demands attention about halfway around the park. Last time I took the hubby to the airport in the morning, business wasn't on time. Today it was. Yea!

I immediately established that I wasn't going to try and pace the group today. After last weeks session, with a similar format as this one, I knew I needed to keep a better pace if I was going to finish strong (unlike last week). And, I planned to hydrate more during the run. It's funny that in my training runs I don't drink every mile, but in a race I do. And I wonder why my race tummy is sensitive to water!? Time to simulate that sloshing feeling in training, only 59 days to go!

The pace was easy, slightly slower than last week, but I was dragging before I started. I can tell, because my feet *scuff-scuff-scuff* on the pavement. I focused on picking my feet up. I drank water at almost every mile and had a gel at 45 mins. I was going relatively slow, but in the shape I was in I certainly wasn't going any faster. Just no spark.

By the time the run ended, my clothes were dripping wet. Dried salt was caked onto my legs. Time for a bike ride! Last week was only 30 mins, today was 60. I headed out onto the Midland route, knowing I had lots of stops to make but I wasn't feeling imaginative enough to think of another route. And yup. LOTS of stops, I think I spent half the ride stopped. But the GPS stops counting when I stop moving, so I really did ride 60 mins. But frustratingly only rode 16.5 miles! Was this worth the effort? I think next time this workout comes around, I need to be nearer to open road. The whole point of this run-bike-run is to keep the heart rate UP, not stopped! In good news, I cleaned off 1.5 water bottles of Cytomax on the ride without stomach upset. I was like a dry sponge.

Back for another run. By this time, my legs were feeling the burn but I only had 40 mins to go. Was that really so much? No. I filled a water bottle and headed out again, with the plan of running up Skinker Hill so I could run back down it. Like they say, there's no such thing as a free lunch. If you want to go down a hill, you first have to climb it. There's some deep IM wisdow for ya!

This run had moments of clarity between moments of fuzziness. My legs were an autopilot, I just run without really realizing I was running. This is a nice feeling when you feel good, but my stomach was screaming for food. Apparently the 3 gels and 2 servings of cytomax and 1 box of raisins wasn't enough. 600 calories for 3 hours? No, not enough! Up Skinker Hill, scuff-scuff-scuff on the limestone path. Sweat was running into my eyes. The sun was heating up my skin, keeping me from cooling efficiently. My water bottle turned warm and bland. Oh, yeah, and a part of me was enjoying this. I wish I could identify that part of me, take if out for dinner, and learn it's agenda. Did it like pain and suffering? Or was it more of a runner's high junkie, just looking for the next hit?

Scuff-scuff-scuff. My legs were too tired to keep good form. I kept reminding myself that after this run, I get to rest until Saturday morning. I also started watching the clock tick down to 40 mins. At 30 minutes, I told myself "10 more minutes out of 3 hours, not so bad". "4 minutes out of 3 hours, completely do-able". I finished the run this way, watching the clock and counting. There's some time dilation that occurs at the end of runs like this, a phenomenon scientists should really look into.

The recovery went better than expected, based on last week's death march to work and through work. I hydrated much better this time around, before during and after. But I was still terribly thirsty. My appetite still suffers hours later. It took until 1pm until my heart rate fell below 65 bpm--normal for most people but 20 bpm high for my resting. As I type this in the evening, my chest hurts from the exertion but nothing else does. I'm tired beyond tired, but I can't sleep. What another winning combination.

Tomorrow is REST DAY!