Lulu's Challenge... rise from the ashes

I was planning to run 15 this morning but didn't. Bubbles is still quite sick and needed her Mommy. Also, my throat felt a little funny early this morning and then fine a couple of hours later. I sat funny reading the paper last night, as my husband pointed out when I was doing it. He said "Honey, does your back hurt?" I said, "no, why?" Then he pointed out that he thought I was sitting like it hurt. Yeah, well my sciatic hurt when I got up. My piriformis was very tight and it affected my whole left leg. I used my electrostim machine and soaked in Epsom salts and felt better. It was still a little tingling this morning. All reasons not to run a big run. My body was talking to me and I listened.

I will adjust the schedule this week based on all the weird stuff that happened this last week. The changes and today's rest should make for a good week of training.

Ran 4.3 easy with Bubbles in her Chariot this evening. It is easy to run a nice mellow workout with her. It does require a bit of extra work on the part of my hamstrings, but her company is nice. No Ipod, no watch, just Bubbles, the Chariot, and me. Usually she falls asleep somewhere between the first and second mile and at some point I realize I have been chatting with a sleeping baby for the last half mile :-). Today, I finally bamboozled her at about 3 miles. She is still quite sick, but I think the fresh air was good for her. She was very happy when we finished. Tomorrow, we see the doc to make sure it is just a stomach virus that has been hanging on for more than a week.  Anyway, this run felt GREAT!

This week I have 7 Yassos, a five or six mile pace run and the 15 mile run I was suppposed to run last weekend. I hope it is enough to stay ahead of Jeff. He's really starting to put in the miles.

Ran 5.5 easy miles with Bubbles in the Chariot. She finally seems to be getting better. With her being sick and me not sleeping much, I haven't run much this week. Good thing it is scheduled as a recovery week.

I got a deep tissue massage today. It made tonight's run seem like a breeze. I will be ready for 15 on Saturday. The next few weeks are going to be tough with lots of miles and some travel for work thrown in.

TREADMILL = DESPERATION. Yes, I actually ran on the treadmill today. I went to bed too late last night and wasn't going to try to get up early, and I wanted to get my run in early enough today to go to bed EARLY tonight. I haven't run on the treadmill in a year. The last time was when I was pregnant, and it was hot outside. Needless to say it wasn't pretty this morning but I tried to make the most of it.

I used the opportunity to calibrate my Nike + Ipod again. It turns out that it has been slightly underreporting my mileage. Bad for me, good for Jeff. It was about 1/10 of a mile off. It is not too bad when you think of it, but at 30-40 miles a week, it adds up. Now it is accurate.

I ran marathon pace for this run, and the pace felt good. The song my Ipod was on when I finished the workout: Springsteen: O Mary Don't You Weep (from the Seegar Collection). It is going through my head now.

Periodically, I am going to rate some of the running gear I use, especially if I get something new. I already seem to be doing this since I have already posted a review of the Chariot and the Nike+.

Men, if you aren't interested in sports bras, read no further.

As you might have read, I had a baby a while ago and that radically changes your body during and after pregnancy. Needless to say, I had to buy new sports bras recently. I researched it, and I found one and bought it to try it. It is the Hind Motion Sensor Bra. This bra is like crack. What I mean is, you buy one and try it. Then you buy another, and another, and another. I now have it in four colors. It is interesting, because Runner's World Magazine just rated bras and this one wasn't even in the list. They missed the boat!

As you can see 5.5 miles is not 15. The ever-ellusive 15 miler seems to be the theme for the week. Life and Lulu seem to be getting in the way.

To someone reading this, this may seem funny. Go ahead and laugh if you want. After my pace run Friday, I didn't post everything that happened. I didn't want to complain or make excuses. Soon after I came home, I stubbed my left big toe. This was on the new tile I laid down about a week ago (isn't that a theme to these blogs? I've read at least two blogs where people have recently laid tile. We must be fast running tile-layers.). So what about this toe? Well after I cleaned off the blood, and there was a lot of it, I saw that I had several layers of skin missing from the end of my toe. Basically, the end of my toe is missing, and it was looking quite ugly. My first thought was "there goes my 15 mile run." So since I have a pretty good knowledge of first aid and great supplies, I doctored it up. I sterilized it and placed Second Skin on the end and wrapped it up nicely with athletic tape. It looked beautiful, and the pain was much less. "Ah, 15 miles is doable now!" As you can read it was not to be. But not because of the toe.

After about 4 hours of sleep because I was wound up and also my toe hurt in every position I put it in, I got up at 4am. I went out at 4:45am to run 15 miles in the cool of the day, about 80 degrees and 95 percent humidity. I ran the first mile and was feeling great. It turns out too great because I was running much faster that I should have been -- but this was not my undoing. After each mile, I normally take 2-3 gulps from my Camelbak which is filled with my concoction of energy drink (Hammer Nutrition Products). After mile 1, I drank and thought "hhhhmmmmm, that tastes funny." I talked myself into believing it was because I had just had a buckwheat waffle drowned in maple syrup for breakfast. Since the drink does not have simple sugars, I talked myself into believing the slightly sour taste was because of my sweet breakfast. By mile 2, it still tasted funny, and I was burping and a bit more awake. The contents of my Camelbak had been in the freezer and then refrigerator for a week since I didn't make my last long run. I don't like to waste things, and I thought it would be ok. I need to stop thinking and just throw it out next time. It turns out, it was slightly fermented. I could have run the 15 and trashed my body and ended up slightly drunk (I drink socially extremely rarely). I decided to run 5 or 6 and call it a day. I found out later, I was running about 30-40 seconds per mile faster than I should have been anyway. I could have come home and made more and started again, but it was not to be. It was pure torture to run home with 3 pounds of water on my back and not able to drink it. I was pretty dehydrated when I got home. Wildbull posted about old water in his Camelbak a couple of weeks ago -- perhaps I should have paid closer attention and learn from his mistake.

Toe feels fine as long as I have it wrapped. The plan is to run 15 tomorrow, Sunday morning.