churning out miles

week in review (8/17 - 8/23):
total miles: 56.15
time spent running: ~ 8 hours 18 minutes
avg hr: 158.00
avg pace: 8:51/mile (avg temp: 80.17*)
off days: 1 (easing back into the swing)

i kind of wanted to jump right back into the 60+ mpw groove but i didn't think 11mpw to 60 was a great idea. clearly i did a great job of holding back and "only" did 56... that's way different than 60. my new garmin and shades may or may not have put an extra bounce in my step.

after getting over the nausea at the beginning of the week i felt fine for the remainder of the week's runs. i took thursday off and did some weights for the first time in months. i then walked around like a 90 year old man for the rest of the week and took a good 10-minute shuffle warm-up at the start of my runs. other than the doms, i felt pretty good.

friday (8/21) pm run: 8 miles, 1:11:50 (avg pace 8:58), avg hr (156), 77*
verrry stiff and sore legs shuffling through this run

saturday (8/22) mid-day run: 8.8 miles, 1:18:16 (avg pace 8:53), avg hr (147), 72*
slightly less stiff and sore but not by much

sunday's long run was, well, another story. my body felt ok - legs had a little lingering soreness but were otherwise fine. i was running slow splits from the start but assumed maybe i was just a little tired after practically taking last week off. the weather seemed ok, 72* partly-cloudy and semi-humid but it's definitely been a lot worse so i didn't think it was a factor. i took a sip of water at each mile for the first hour and then refilled my bottle with raspberry gu20 (the predecessor of gu brew, an electrolyte replacement).

the miles ticked away slowly but i figured at least i was getting in a long run and time on my feet. luckily this week's long-quality run was "just" an easy 20 miler (i might have secretly wanted 21). around mile 14 i started to feel different but i couldn't quite figure out what felt off - legs felt ok, lungs felt ok, upper-body form wasn't sucking yet. i was running through a park with fishing ponds and was tempted to stop and ask some of the picnic-ers if they had an ice cold water to share. i chickened out and stopped for some free, regular temperature water instead. i continued on my run and felt alright for another 2 miles.

before i hit mile 16, i started to feel like my vision was off or something. i could still see clearly, but it just wasn't normal (hard to explain). i was a little light-headed, but not nauseaus. because head-fuzziness just isn't enough, i rolled my left ankle ~mile 16.25, graceful. short of mile 17, i stopped and slumped over. a nice old man in his driveway nearby asked if i was ok and told me to not push it too hard when i told him i was just tired (might have been a lie). i began running again, but found myself stopping about every .30 miles. i didn't think about cutting the run short until a few stops later when i started feeling dizzy, couldn't see straight and wanted to throw up.

after puking from the meds last week, i wasn't afraid of having to do that again. i was worried about the dizziness and trouble focusing my eyes though. i took a shortcut back and still had to stop a few times to keep from falling over into the passing cars. at mile 17.97 or so, i rolled my left ankle again. nice. i stumbled into the hotel, struggled to finish off the gu20 and refilled my bottle with cool water. i slowly made my way down the hall and up the stairs, stopping a few more times to try and contain the dizziness, and promptly collapsed on the floor of the room. i wanted to take an ice bath but the desire to lay down was stronger. i showered, put forth a very shoddy stretching effort, and crawled under the covers.

unfortunately i forgot to put on my hr monitor so i don't have that data to look at and see if anything funky was going on there. i also forgot my road id, probably not the best day for that, but thankfully i made it home. perhaps it was just "one of those runs", or maybe i can (still) blame it on the meds from last week. i'm sure my diet for the past 11 days didn't help - soft foods don't have the best nutritional value. i just started eating some normal foods again thursday (veggies, rice, chicken etc.) and it is well worth spending 15 minutes flushing my wisdom holes out with a syringe.

anyway. a tough long run in the books; i'll take 18 miles. this is already the best training i've ever done for a marathon period with higher base mileage and more/longer-long runs. i'm hoping my stronger aerobic base will contribute some brownie points come race day and that some of my "speed" will decide to show up as well.

sunday (8/23) mid-day run: 18 miles, 2:46:27 (avg pace 9:14), 72*
looking back, i ran 20 miles faster than this 2 weeks ago.