In hindsight, I should have given some warning about the light blogging that might be occurring over the weekend. It started with the girls and I making a five hour round trip to NC to drop off our oldest for some beach fun with her friend and didn't end until we had landscaped, gotten in some pool time, exploded some fireworks and made one of these:
That, ladies and gentlemen, is a proper low-country boil. It was absolutely delicious and a total spur of the moment decision on our part. We were planning on having no visitors and what, at least initially, looked like waaaaaay too much food. I wish I had a picture of the post-meal carnage but suffice it to say, we killed it. A four person family with two elementary school kids, we put away enough chow for 6 people. It was AWESOME. The perfect meal to have the night before a long run on Sunday. Hat tip to wifey for hatching the idea at the pool.
What wasn't awesome was the heat. The news is not kidding around. It's freaking hot. The only thing worse than the heat is watching the douchey Fox and Friends hosts try and talk about the heat. (Actually, listening to them talk about anything is pretty painful to be perfectly honest.) As much as I HATE getting up early, it's really the only option for running right now. And no time like the present, as I will begin my language classes next week; it's about time I get back to something approximating a working man's schedule.
And so, I dragged myself out of bed on Sunday morning around 6 am to try and knock out the long run of the week. 9 miles was on the calendar and I was feeling pretty good. I felt strong too despite all of the hills around here. As much as I wanted to push it, I stayed as close to a 10 min/mile pace as I could. From the research/conversations I've had so far, it's seems fairly critical to not only get the long runs in, but to do them at such a pace that teaches your body to burn a little fat while it's running. This in an effort to keep from doing this:
It seems crazy, but this is what happens when your body just simply runs out of energy. There is nothing left. No amount of will power, prayer or wishful thinking is going to get your body to burn calories that aren't there. It's a fairly painful thing to watch as you know that this guy is only 200M from the finish line; he can SEE IT and can't get his legs to move. That's powerful and scary stuff. Plenty enough motivation to make me drag my sorry ass out of bed on a Sunday morning. They are the famous last words of every would-be marathoner out there (of which I am one) "I will not bonk". I don't think I can yet work up the courage to utter those words exactly, but I can say that I'm damn sure going to do everything I can to prevent it.
But I digress. The run felt pretty good, I hit the 10 min/mile mark right on the nose (chosen as it's about two minutes per mile slower than I hope to run; hope being the operative word) and it wasn't until mile 8 that my body started to ask for calories. And by ask I mean to say that my stomach growled so fiercely that I could actually FEEL it over the din of my headphones. So note to self, probably need to start banging some calories into my system around mile 6. Overall though, I was stoked that I could feel a few more gears behind the pace I was holding onto. Less is more at this point. Or so says the book/experts/blogosphere/wiki's/coloring books that I'm using as reference materials.
In other news, my buddy Michael is giving barefoot running a try on his home beach in Santa Monica. He's had some Plantar issues in the past and I've convinced him that giving BFR a try might go a long ways to reducing that pain. So far so good from what I've been told. I'm horribly jealous that he 1) doesn't have to deal with this heat and B) gets to run on the beach barefoot. *Shakes fist in the air*
The other esplosion (sic, for you smart asses out there) has been the mercury on my little donation meter. We crushed the 1k mark. Wow. Friends and family your generosity has astounded me once again. I sound like a broken record but, it is what it is; thank you again. We'll keep upping the goal and see how many more donation meters we can break.
And finally, my wife is becoming quite the expert with her iphone. Too bad she doesn't have better material to work with. While holding a beer no less. And yeah, it's a Miller Lite. And yeah, it's Star Trek the Animated Series. I make no apologies.
2 comments:
Today in San Diego it was 65 degrees with no humidity. Was that mean?
Yeah yeah, keep rubbing it in. Go run along a fault line or something :)
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