Monday: 12 mile bike ride
Tuesday: 8 x 800 at 10K pace in the AM; 3 mile easy run on the PM
Wednesday: 15 mile bike ride
Thursday: 6 mile tempo run at HM pace
Friday: Cathe's SuperCuts DVD that left me with glutes and core of soreness.
Saturday: 20 mile long run
I haven't blogged in a while. My work has suddenly gotten all sorts of crazy, this being our week before school starts, and I have basically spent most of my time in meetings and at back-to-school nights. This has left very little time for blogging, unfortunately, but I am seeking to remedy that today.
Tuesday's speed work was rough. Like I've said before, I'm not used to doing eight 800s; six used to be my maximum. The real workout began in the 5th repeat, and I had to push to finish the workout-but finish I did. The same thing happened on the tempo run I did on Thursday-by mile 3 I was feeling the burn, but I soldiered onward, making it to the end and happy it was freaking over.
It was a rough week, generally, as far as my workouts went, with a lot of mental pushing and shoving. So, instead of taking it easy like I should have on Friday and doing upper-body only, I did a workout that caused my glutes to start burning by mid-day.
This did not bode well for the 20 mile run I had to do the next day.
I was supposed to do that 20 miler last weekend. However, after doing the Rugged Maniac mud obstacle run last Saturday, my ankles were screaming and crying and weeping, so I just didn't have the heart to make them run 20 miles all banged up. So I skipped it last weekend and decided to do those 20 miles this weekend.
So, after much obligatory farting around, I got dressed in an orange shirt, running shorts, my orange Ragnar compression socks, and my bright blue Glycerin 11s. (If I'm going for a long run, people are going to get an blast of color in the eyes from me, dammit.) I drove down to my usual trail and got started at about 1 P.M. By this point in the day it was hot (around 79 degrees) but it wasn't humid, and there was a nice breeze. Thankfully large portions of the trail were shaded by trees, so that made for some nice running.
I really wasn't enthused about the run, though. I kept glancing at my watch, just wanting it to be over. My legs seemed to be going too fast, speeding up even though I willed them to slow down. The heat was getting to me after running through a section of the trail that was unshaded, and I was looking forward to the 10-mile turnaround so I could finally be heading back towards my car. Just before that turnaround happened, I developed an itch underneath my right nostril. As I reached up to scratch the itch with my right index finger, my foot hit an uneven part of the trail, causing my finger to move in a more northward direction than I intended. As a result, my finger went up my nose a bit, with my fingernail slamming into the nice delicate blood-vessel-rich skin there.
It hurt, but I didn't think anything of it. Until I felt something running down my nostril and onto my chin. When I wiped it with my hand, I saw nothing but red. A river of bright red blood was now carving a valley out of my nose and down my chin, forming a small delta on my shirt.
Panicking, I grabbed the bottom of my bright orange shirt and held it to my nose, thereby drenching it in blood and afterwards looking like I had been stabbed in the lower left abdomen. Thinking fast, I grabbed the toilet paper I always have with me on long runs out of its plastic bag and shoved a part of it up my nose. It was also drenched within seconds. I kept having to tear off a piece, shove it up my nose, and replace it when it got soaked with blood. Mind you, this is all happening with cyclists and other runners whizzing by me, giving me quizzical looks and/or stopping and asking me if I was alright.
I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't had my trusty TP with me. Use a leaf? Knowing me, I would have grabbed some poison ivy rather than some innocuous plant life along the side of the trail.
This went on for about a good mile and a quarter. Let me tell you, it's hard to apply direct pressure to a wound that is inside your nose. But finally the bleeding slowed to a trickle, and I could resume my normal running. Well, actually, I was running the whole time this was happening, just slower than normal. God forbid I stop for rivers of blood flowing freely out of my snout.
Anyway, after that I began to get hot. And tired. And thirsty. I had water in the ol' Camelbak, but it was warm. I wanted cold water. Ice cold water. I started dreaming about it in mile 13, and was desperately mentally slobbering for it by mile 16. Thankfully I was running through a small town called Poplar Grove by that time, so I stopped at a small local store to grab some ice cold H2O goodness. As I stepped into the store, the manager came out from behind the counter and then stopped. And stared at my shirt. And then let out a gasp.
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| The store at which I stopped in Poplar Grove and one of the cyclists that gave me weird looks. |
I must have been quite the sight, standing there all sweaty and nasty with blood on my face, neck, and shirt. But at the time I just thought the clerk was a weirdo, not realizing the bloody mess I was, and I walked back to the coolers full of crystal clear cold water and grabbed two bottles. After the clerk cautiously handed me my change, I walked outside and promptly downed one bottle on the spot. It was like drinking the sweat of angels, it tasted so damn good. I took the other bottle and refilled my Camelbak with its cold delicious angelic goodness, and then ate a bit of a bar I had brought with me.
I did this all in front of some cyclists that had stopped at the same store. I was again getting stares. I figured those stares were out of sheer jealousy at the awesomeness of my Camelbak, and then turned and made my way back to the trail to finish out my 4 remaining miles. Right before I got back to the trail, I saw this written on a picnic table:
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| Keepin' it classy in Prairie Grove. |
It wasn't until I got back to my car that I saw I looked like I had either a) survived a knife attack or b) perpetrated a knife attack on someone and had the victim's blood all over me. Fantastic. I guess me wearing bright orange socks paired with bright blue shoes just wasn't enough to make me stand out on the trail that day.
However, despite all the blood and longing for cold drinks, this run was fantastic for another reason-it was the fastest I have ever run 20 miles. It was a full 10 minutes faster than any 20 mile training run I had ever run before. My legs just didn't seem to want to slow down at all-I meant to keep the entire run in the 11s the entire time, but ended up in the upper 10s for a lot of those miles.
It's like I'm getting faster or something. It's making that 9:30 marathon pace seem more and more realistic. If I can pull that off during my marathon, it will be absolutely amazing.
Oh, and you know what else is amazing? All that blood washed right out of my orange running shirt-it looks good as new. Just an FYI for all you crazy people like me who give themselves nosebleeds on 20 mile long runs.
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