Week 9 - Day 6: 18 Miles in the Snow

Yes!! We did it! 18 miles in the snow. Actually it had already stopped snowing, but just barely. I think it was around 35 degrees (is that right, Michele?). Tracy couldn't swing a babysitter, so she did her run at the rec center, but Michele and I went ahead in the snow. Everything went fine up until about mile 8, when I started feeling sick and light headed. My heart rate was higher than it should have been, and I wasn't sure what was going on. I asked Michele how she felt, and she said she felt fine, and I told her I wasn't feeling so well. We talked about it a little while, and she was convinced I had too many layers on. I had on my UA Coldgear, a coolmax jacket, a fleece jacket, and fleece lined weather resistent vest on top of all that. So when we reached halfway, I agreed to shed something. We walked a quarter of a mile while I stripped on the highway - I took the coolmax jacket off and tied it around my waist and felt MUCH better. We ran the rest of the way back somewhere around a 10 min/mile pace. It wasn't my best run by far. As a matter of fact, the last 5 miles were pretty dad gum painful. When the gps registered 18.0 - I promise I do not think I could have gone another step. It hurt just to walk across the highway to the car. And at that point, I was wondering what in the world I had gotten myself into. In a split second, during the last couple of miles, here's what goes on in my head:

"Forward, Leg!" says The Mind.
"I can't! It hurts too bad - I'm tired." cries The Leg.
"I said MOVE!" shouts The Mind agrily. "If you don't move forward at once I will torment you for the rest of your life! I will never let you forget the day you quit!"
"Ok!Ok!" The Leg concedes and moves forward. "I'll go a few more steps!"
And it all starts over after "a few more steps".

Ok, so I'm a nut. I know. But it's the truth. And I have to confess that this 18 mile run was more difficult than I had thought it was gonna be. I can think of lots of excuses - the cold, the way I dressed, the fact that I haven't exactly been eating right lately...but I'm not even going there. All I know is I have to figure out how to squeeze 2 more miles out of my legs over the next week and a half. One good thing is that I enjoyed my fuel belt. And a lesson learned is to fill one of my containers with Gatoraide. Ofcourse I just had water...and Michele swapped one with me so I could have some gatoraide when I got to feeling sick. It's nice to have training partners!

I'm thinking that my gps said we finished in 3:02:57. I think that's around 10:10/mile. I guess that's not too bad for training, but it coulda been better had I not caused us to walk a quarter of a mile. Let's hope things improve for the 20 miler.