Today was my longest run to date! I am so excited to be getting even closer to 20, which will be my longest run of this training cycle. I was suppose to long run saturday, but the weather had other plans. It stormed from 4 am till almost 7 am, so I chose to sleep in rather than go out and try to get 16 in post storms.
Let me back up a little bit. My pre long run meal is pizza. Since I had already had said pizza on friday night, my hubby made some chicken Alfredo to help me carb load, yet again. I also was bad and had one leine's shandy. I haven't had one all summer, so I figured why not now?
Three of my running friends were going to meet up with me and run with. I hoped my choice of beer with dinner would not betray me:) Got up at 4 am after a long night with the kiddo. He had taken a long nap yesterday, and didn't want to go to bed at all. I think we finally got him out around 11 pm, which is way to late for me, especially if I need to get up at 4 am. He also woke up around 3:30 am after having a bad dream. His dreams are becoming very vivid and he remembers them well the next day. Last night it was something about bugs, and he didn't want to go back to sleep. I seriously thought about just staying up after we got him back down. I managed to eek out a few more minutes of good hard sleep before the alarm went off.
After my usual UCAN and coffee, we met up and started out in the pitch black dark. I think my running partners were a little shocked i ran on the gravel when it was that dark without any lights. I kind of know that route like the back of my hand:) There were storms to the north of us, and the threat of storms coming. This also meant it was SUPER humid, even at 5 am. All of us were dripping with sweat only a few miles in. I was very glad I brought my Nuun water bottle for stella and I. The ladies I was running with were super speedy, so I lost them around 4 miles. I was okay with that, because I really like my walk breaks and had not had one yet. I managed to get almost 12 miles in on the gravel before I made a trip back to the house to drop stella ella off and refill my water + Nunn bottle. I did see some pretty slow times on my watch, BUT I knew it was the humidity and i knew the humidity was making me feel pretty tired. I fueled at mile 8 like usual, and had planned on trying to go the full 16 without another round of fuel, but my tummy had other plans. I started getting really, really hungry and needed some fuel just to get my tummy to stop rumbling! I decided rather than taking all three at mile 14 (when my tummy started protesting pretty loudly), I would take one chomp at mile 14 and one at mile 15. That seemed to stave off the hunger and settle my tummy. This happened when I did my 14 miler too. Kind of odd and kind of good in a way, because that means my tummy is still functioning. I am going to try taking a honey stinger waffle with me to snack on next time to see if that will help. My coach also suggested adding protein powder to my UCAN, so will have to try that as well.
I kind of had some brain fuzz as I headed back out to finish the last four without stella. I was trying to figure out how many miles i needed to go out to finish as I didn't need quite 4. Math and fuzz brain don't add up. Turns out that since I figured wrong, I ended up running around the neighborhood, which was nice and shaded, and I found Trevor Brazile was in our hood!!!! For those of you who don't know who he is, he is HUGE in the PRCA and has been to and won the NFR many times over in the all around. All around is a cowboy who can do pretty much all of the timed events like calf roping, steer wrestling, and team roping. I have NO clue why his rig is parked in our hood, but I had to stop and be a total fan girl and take some pictures. I saw him walking around the trailer once but didn't make it back over quick enough to get a pic or an autograph. Will keep being a stalker and try and head down next time I see him out.
When i finished up finally, the humidity had made it down to a cool 83% (harr harr). I was so glad to be done. I was pretty tired, but again, I think it was lack of sleep and the humidity. I did institute a walk/run after my friends sped off, and I did stop twice for bathroom breaks. I feel like even though I was tired, I could have easily gone 10 more miles. I also felt excited for next week's 17 miler. My leg, while a little tight, felt great. I wore my compression sleeve, and as soon as I got back and got my chocolate milk, did another round of ice bath.
I am trying to be very proactive with compression, stretching, icing and elevation with my leg. The pain has actually moved down into my ankle, which is what it did last time too. It's like it travels down that tendon, and will eventually hurt at the attachment point at my foot as well. I think Doug's massage helped loosen everything up, and I will continue to see improvement as long as I play this smart. I am still undecided about races. My long runs are way more important than local races and I don't mind just donating my money to the good causes. I have a 5 K this coming weekend and a 17 miler the next day, so will have to make some decisions. I can't run and not race, so I can't just use it as a training exercise.
I ended my mileage a lot lower than I needed to, since I had to leave a work out completely out, but it is quality not quantity. My leg needed the break and i listened and gave it that break. I am hoping we are past this little speed bump and I can finish out my training strong! Have a great rest of the weekend and upcoming week!
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