End of the Week Recap 4/4/10

Hail my running brothers and sisters!  In clearly a week that should have been a recovery week, I…wait for it…wait for it…over-did it.  Awesome.  Yes.  Definitely worth the wait.  After a strong (for me) half-marathon last week, I followed it up this week with 32.02 miles at an average of 9:29/mile.  I managed 20 minutes of conditioning, but just barely.  My weight has stayed around race weight at 156.8 this morning before my run.  A little higher than I like, but I should be right around 152-154 by the marathon.

As for my training this week, I wish that I could say that my pace was a result of strategic recovery, but I really can’t.  I tried to knock out some quality workouts this week, but I had nothing…NOTHING…in the tank.  The only exception may have been my midweek run with my buddy Matt, but overall my kung fu was weak.

Case in point, my long run today should have been a decent workout, but it wasn’t…shocker.  I had planned on a 14-15 mile run today, but due to the shaming I got from reading Adam and Psyche’s training plans, I decided to make today’s run a progression long run.

Let me preface, the rest of this story with the fact that I have terrible allergies, and on occasion, I will take Claritin to alleviate the symptoms.  Today, I took Zyrtec.  If you have allergies and need relief, Zyrtec is the bomb.  If you need to run a 15 mile progression run, Zyrtec may not be the best idea. 

Despite what my wife says, I’m not completely insane.  I did bring my fuel belt with me today along with 2 bottles of G2, so I figured I had plenty of liquid for 15 miles.  I was doing my run at PWP, so I purposely rested 2 days before to make sure that I could hack the all those damned-runner-hatin’-you-suck-dumbass hills (Oh yeah, Lent' is over.  I get to swear again!  Yay for me.)  I started off slow to work into my easy pace, but for some reason, it took some effort to hit it.  I chalked it up to being tired and plodded on.  Eventually I made it to the park entrance and managed to start building up to marathon pace on the flats.

It was at this point in the middle of my run that I realized my predicament and the cause.  As I said, I had been sipping on my G2 throughout my run, and the weather was hot, but not unbearable.  However, I noticed that despite the profuse amounts of sweat coming from my forehead my hands were remarkably dry and chalky.  Here in Tennessee, we see all sorts of weather and I’ve trained through most of it.  I’m used to running in 100 degree heat and watching the sweat evaporate into salt.  However  (Why does this word keep coming up in my stories?  Clearly I’m an idiot and I need an intervention.  Hi, my name is Joel, and I’m an obsessed runner.), I’ve never actually sweat out salt before.  Now I’m not a medical doctor, and this may not actually have been what was happening, but I really think it was.  I quickly figured out that the Zyrtec was not only drying out my sinuses, but it was adding to my dehydration.  Rapidly.  My hands were so dry that I had to run them through my hair to keep them cool and wet.  I found a water fountain, drank several greedy gulps and cooled off my face in the water.  Despite all this, I had to admit that there was no way I could maintain any semblance of pace that I had been running without ride in an ambulance.  So for once, I did the smart thing and pulled back.  I decided to walk the uphills and jog/run the flats and downhills.  This worked fairly well though I felt like a complete asshat for not having more fluid on me to re-hydrate, and eventually I made it back to my car and home.  When I checked my post-run weight, I tipped the scales at 152.2.  Yeah, that’s 4.6 lbs of weight loss due to dehydration.  Not good.  So, I’m a little tired now.  To say the least.  And I think that I’m gonna crash now.  Hopefully next week will be better as it is my last week to get in some quality workout's before I start my taper.  Later kids!