Clyde's Comeback!

Spent the majority of the weekend sick. This bad head cold and stuff moved in and it's taking it's time moving out. I feel a little better today but still packing around a heavy head. We took a family walk over to the park and around then back. By the time I was home I was kind of dizzy and ready to lay down. So we'll see what the day brings... wishing I can feel good and run this evening but it's not looking good. 

10.5 miles this afternoon = a very, very bad day. I started feeling a little better later in the day and got antsy to get some miles in. So about 4 p.m I went out to just try some. The goal was to go to mile 3 and see how things felt then take it from there. So three miles in and I felt pretty good. 4 miles in and still good. 5 miles in and good. 5.5 miles in and I start needing a potty stop. 5.7 miles in and I really need a stop. 6 miles in to the DC and I hit a port-a-potty. Wow that was close to very bad. So now I'm 5-6 miles from home basically any way you run it. I start back with the intentions of going all the way back for a total of 12 miles. I do pretty good up to about mile 9. Then it's over. It's the worst side ache of my life. The kind that will hurt for two days down the road. It actually forces me to stop and walk for about a quarter of a mile. I take the most direct line back to the house and basically just die once I get home. 

Long story short I wasn't better. I had too much Nyquil, DayQuil and every other type of medication in the system. Oh this one hurt... both the pride and the physical body.

After a bad run yesterday I was hesitant to even run today. But if this week isn't going to become a total flop I must get things going today. It was a great morning for a run. Cool (63 F) and cloudy so the sun was blocked for an extended time. I felt weak and frail but got through the run. The worst was that my side still hurt from last nights side ache as I worried it would. I hope it doesn't drag on and on like it does sometimes when this happens. This is the first time all summer (this year) I've had to deal with anything like this sickness. I'm just hoping to feel better each day but still grind out some mileage so I can kind of taper at the end of the week for the Red Rock Relay. Then hopefully have some legs to run it on. 

8 miles out and back into B-hills this afternoon. We enjoyed a none typical day here with the high only hitting 78 F. That always makes running better. I tried to relax and run without doing much. I just wanted smooth, flowing miles and didn't want to tax the system much. Still hit around a 7:03 avg for the run. 

3 mile warm up in 8:05 avg

8 miles at 6:03 avg

9.1 miles at 6:50 avg

Met Logan and Dave here at my house early for a workout. I wasn't planning on doing much with them as I wanted to just do a long run. But I was going to do the warm up with them and then see what happened. Their workout was to do 2 miles at brisk pace (6:20), 2 miles at Tinman pace, 2 miles at MP, and 2 miles at LT pace. I thought after the warm up that I'd go the first 4 miles with them and then work back into my long run pace. That's basically what happened. I stayed right there with them until mile four and then they picked it up. I didn't want to kill myself off for the long run so I didn't go much harder. But still ended the 8 tempo miles with a 6:03 avg. Logan and Dave must have turned south on River Road because I kept going straight down the river trail and never saw them again. After the 8 miles of tempo I took a GU and reset my watch. Then settled into a smooth but honest pace back home. I never looked at the watch until the last mile and realized that I'd been hitting a pretty solid effort... all things considered. I mean on fairly trashed legs, coming off being sick and after the tempo. Anyways I looped back down around the DC and then up around the Knolls park then one last loop around Jedora to get just over 20 miles for the day. 

Glad to have a nice long run in for the week. Now to rest up and only hit one-a-days from here on out so I can be fairly fresh for the Red Rock Relay this weekend. 

DC/ River road loop. I didn't want to run 3 miles this morning let alone over 10. But I just put my head down and pushed through. Feel pretty tired and wore down. Plus I got my leg assignments for the Red Rock Relay this weekend and just thinking about them makes me want to puke. Hope to rest up because I'll need it. 

I run leg #7 (5.7 miles), #19 (8.3 miles) and #36 (7.5 miles) all of which are rated "hard". So it's time to put on the work horse hat and clock in. Splits won't be fast at all because it will mostly all be uphill. Well my second leg is mostly flat but it is long and will be in the middle of the night.

Pushed Myler around the park loop. Just tried to the the belly in order before heading out to the relay. 

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Red Rock Relay.

First leg was supposed to be 5.7 but it ended up being 5.9 miles long. It started around Duck Creek and finished by Navajo Lake on Cedar Mountain. The leg was a beast. Around 800 ft of elevation climbing at 9,000+ feet above sea level. I'm just not conditioned to run at altitude so I struggled to breath and get anything rolling. On the step sections I felt I could have walked faster than trying to run. Hit this leg with a 6:40 avg.

2 miles warm up

1.3 miles cool down

2nd leg of the relay was from Newcastle to just before Enterprise. It was 8.3 miles long with some pretty good rollers, but it was fairly runnable. The only downfall was it was in the middle of the night and there was at least 5 but maybe 8 cattlegards in the road that were unmarked. This was very bad... I was hitting full stride and would basically have to slide to a stop before having to walk across each one. They at least should have laid some wood or mats down so you could run over them... and maybe marked it with a light or glow stick. Anyways I felt pretty good for this run. Even though before I left our van was attacked by a 50 year old handicap man who said we ran over his dog and he wanted money for it... Wow that was a trip! Hit a 5:54 avg for this leg and had 22 road kills.

3rd leg was 7.5 miles long from around Rockville up to the finish line by Zion NP in the town of Springdale. This leg was all uphill with the last 3 miles up through Springdale being really hard. Before this leg even started I was in a bad way. I had some stomach issues and had taken a record 30 trips to the porta potty during a relay. I was dizzy just walking around and while trying to run during the warm up I knew I was going to die. First of all I never run great in relays. Second the stomach issues were really, really bad. Third I had taken some No Doz and other alert aids before running the third leg to try and rally my system.... and I'd never taken them before to see how things would go. So I was jacked up and if bailing out would have been an option I would have taken it.

I started out just pushing along up a pretty good hill and then tried to relax one up the hill as it kind of leveled off for a half mile or so. Then once we hit the hills just before Springdale and all the way through that town I really started to struggle. BAD. Going into this leg our team had a 2 min lead over Mike Vicks team. He was also running this leg. So I knew I was jacked and I knew Mike was going to hunt me down but I wanted so bad to try to hold it together.... didn't happen. He caught me as we entered Springdale and didn't even try to go with him. Then on the miles up through town to the finish he just kept gaping me and ended up beating me by 2 mins. So I ended up running the leg in 46 mins (a 6:09 avg) and he ran it in 42 min's. I felt pretty pathetic about the whole deal. I think I could have ran the leg at least 2 min's faster had I not been so jacked... but Vick still ran an amazing 3rd leg. I was however surprised that I was even able to run a 6:09 avg being so sick and the leg it's self is pretty tough with lots of hills. And it was over 80 F by the time we started running so I was hot.

Anyways the relay was fun but very taxing. In a 40 hour time frame I got less than ONE hour of sleep. Even on relays I've done in the past I've gotten more rest than this one. But for some reason sleep just didn't happen. I always kind of stink in relays too. It was fun to run it with this team and we did somehow finish 3rd overall. In the end it was just what I wanted going into it. My goals was to run this relay to get a good workout in. And that's just what I got. Three legs at around Tinman effort but no lagging soreness to bother me the rest of the week.