Sunday, September 21, 2008

Endurance Project Week 10 (wow)

I cannot believe we're past week TEN! This project is going by so quickly. Emotionally, I have very mixed feelings. I'm sooooo excited for race day, but sad that out Saturday meetings are coming to an end. I have not missed one meeting, but I'll admit the Saturdays after working until midnight the night before were a bit tough to get out of bed for.

Yesterday's meeting was our long run. Jim had a 12 miler planned with the route printed up for us to see. It was perfect...familiar, scenic, quiet back roads. The loop brought us back to point A for a water break every 3-4 miles. Most of the team went to a 5k race and Bethany had a track meet with her PC Track team so it was just four of us, Jim, Tess, Michelle and me.

I do the Galloway method on runs longer than 5 miles. I was taught this method from day one, I love it because I can run long distances and still feel strong. I understand this method may not be for everyone, and that's ok but it is for me! I do not enjoy getting to mile 6 or 7 and wanting to quit because I'm so tired. The Galloway lets me enjoy running distance. If I'm not enjoying it, I won't do it. Pretty simple for me.

That being said, I got to mile 9-ish and felt terrible. My knees started feeling tight at about mile 7, kinda creaky. I never felt that before. By mile 8 my legs were VERY fatigued. Almost like I was hitting a wall. It was so strange. I thought maybe it was from not running for 2 weeks (I was sick) so I tried to run through it. I casually mentioned it to Jim and he said exactly what I figured he'd say: do a cool down walk back to the gym and stretch. I did just that and I'm glad I did because I was hurting. My knees and hips are so very sore, even this morning. I'm not really sure what happened. All I know is, I was fine up until mile 7. Very strange.

I guess I can share a little known fact that does effect my running. I wasn't talking about it too much because it's hard to pretend it isn't happening if the whole world knows about it. Maybe someone out there has the same issue and can realize they are not alone, which is how I feel sometimes. Anyway, a while back I had some serious medical issues and I was taking Excederine for the pain. Took too much and completely burned my entire GI tract. My pancreas was (is) a wreck from it. It will take a long time to finish healing. It flares up now and then and is pretty painful, tiring and nauseating. Keeps me from running sometimes. It's hard to train for speed or a marathon when it's bothering me. Makes for an inconsistant training schedule. The last 2 weeks had my body in down mode. Couldn't run the Myakka 10k (huge disappointment) but just being there to see my teammates run it was wonderful. I got about 2 miles into a run Tues morning and had to stop. That's all the running I had in for 2 weeks before Saturday's planned 12 miler.

During the down time I realized I'm just lucky I can run at all and I shouldn't be worried about my finish times for the half or the whole marathons I have planned. It sounded right to me while I couldn't run, but now I'm back to wanting it all again. Haha! Can't keep a good (or crazy) woman down I guess.

I was hoping to join Ed Monday morning for his long run. He's planning at 14 miler, I would have to stop at 7am to get the kids up for school but I might have gotten 6-8 miles in first. Now I think I'd better wait. Depends on how I feel by morning!

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