A last training run

Yes, I know I haven't put up Sunday's sermon yet. That will happen tomorrow when I'm in the office. Today I'm off, recovering from the weekend... and getting in one last training run.

The Ngede Challenge 50k is four days away, which is exciting and terrifying. This also means that the training is winding down. Today was supposed to be a swimming day, followed by a bike ride tomorrow, an off day Thursday, and a short mountain bike ride Friday on a portion of the race course. Plans changed, though, as I was completely exhausted when we got back from our Confirmation retreat last night and there was absolutely no way I was getting up early to lap swim this morning.

So I changed things up and added in a short 5k run instead. This allowed me to sleep in (like an extra thirty minutes but with an infant I'll take what I can get) and run instead at my leisure. Fast forward to eight-something this morning and I was walking to the arbitrary crack in the pavement where I start my run, planning, as I told Kate, to do an easy interval: code for one mile easy warmup, then one mile hard, and one last mile of easy recovery. Boom.

Hence, nobody was more surprised than me that when I reached my start I took off like a crazy person. My first mile was going to be hard. In the split second before I started to run I had decided that this was not going to be an easy 5k interval; instead, it was going to be a 5k at a hard, race-like pace. I am nothing if not a masochist.


Part of the reason I felt the need to go hard was because the race is four days away and I need more practice pushing myself, but that's really a shell of the true reason. The truth is that I needed penance. So, here's my confession: I ate terribly the last couple days. TERRIBLE. Sunday night was the wondrous Buffalo Chicken Sandwich bathed in Bleu Cheese dressing and the pile of french fries with a large Dr. Pepper. Traveling food is wonderful. Then yesterday was a 2nd lunch of a Caribou Coffee Caramel Cooler (so many c's), a brownie and a large order of french fries as we watched a ship come into the harbor in Duluth (that's right, it was a 2nd lunch hours after my original lunch we had on our morning hike). But don't think that that was the end of the french fry exploits this weekend--Don't be silly! Supper meant a stop at A&W for a Cheeseburger, fries, root beer, a Reese's blizzard, and, of course, some of Kate's chili cheese fries. Add in more soda than I'd like to admit and it was basically food-pocalypse for my poor stomach.

Now, I did exercise . We did a rather challenging hike up Mt. Trudee yesterday morning with half the Confirmation kids. But let's not pretend that makes my meals OK. It just means I had a terrible couple of days instead of the kind of thing for which I need counseling. All of this is to say that I definitely DID NOT step on the scale this morning, and I feel generally like I'm carrying a bowling ball in my gut. So, my run was penance. I really needed a terrible run to assure I ate better this week and got a mini preview of the pain ahead.

Finally on the road the first mile felt fast. This is often deceptive. Sometimes when I'm in great shape I feel awful the first mile as I run a blazing pace and have to reign myself in from there. Other times I feel great the first mile because I'm running such a glacial pace that I could hope that tempo all day! My stomach turned ominously as I checked my watch at mile one. 6:38. OK. Not blazing but fast enough that I could not run that time without pushing myself.

I made a quick calculation. I wasn't going to run a personal best. Even if I kept this pace (which wasn't going to happen), the magical 20 minute barrier would not be reachable. That was OK. I didn't set out this morning to break personal bests; I set out to whip myself out of my french fry coma. I knew I was slower on mile two. My legs were screaming to go faster and my lungs were saying "We're OK, too!" but my stomach was another matter. Things were sloshing, and the fuel just wasn't there. Who knew french fries don't provide optimal workout nutrition?

Mile 2 clocked in at 6:56. That was fine. Not fast but fine. I had one mile and change left to run, and this was what it was all about anyway: what would happen when I hit that wall where my poor food choices made everything hurt? I had a definite goal after mile two. Twenty minutes was not in play but twenty-one was going to be touch and go. I had only to run my third mile a little faster than the second and I would be in good shape to be under 21:00. My legs said "Go!" My stomach felt worse and worse. This was good; it meant I was still pushing into that uncomfortable zone I would certainly be entering next Saturday (but hopefully not because of chili cheese fries the night before).

It was during the third mile that I decided I needed to blog this run, because I had no idea what my final time would be (whether I would finish under 21 minutes or not). I had no idea if this was going to be a "success" or a "failure," and so I wanted to commit right then to write it out either way. This wasn't about the people who might read it as it was about the commitment to publicize a silly training run--success or not.

I felt gradually less and less coordinated during mile three, like my legs and arms were part of separate, misaligned machines. But, as I turned the last corner, a part of me knew this was going to be fine. One thing that's happened this summer, unlike ever before, is that I'm finishing strongly. I don't know if this is a product of good training or just a bit of muscle memory and/or wisdom my younger self never had. My last mile has been my fastest many times this year (including my last eight mile run where my eighth mile was thirty seconds faster than any of the preceding seven). It wasn't that way today, but it went well enough. 6:46.

I sprinted the last 1/10th of a mile for a 5k time of 20:56. Nothing world-changing but a solid last training run. Will that change how Saturday goes? In most ways, probably not. This was only 1/10th the distance of Saturday in all. But in another way I think this may have been my most important workout yet because it a critical nudge back to where I need to be--i.e. having salad for lunch today and good, healthy foods as I get ready for a serious challenge at the end of the week.

Here's hoping it does just that.