Weekend Wrapup

Friday- Since I've been doing this training, it seems most of my mornings are spent trying to workout while also getting things constantly for my boys. Perhaps if I woke up before them, we'd still have a lot of the day. But instead, since I'm on vacation, I lay my lazy ass in my bed until the two little turkeys come to wake me for breakfast. So on Fridays, since it is my rest day, I try to make it a super fun day for the boys. Last Friday, we went to an awesome park we have in my city called Riverfront Park. It's beautiful. It has over 100 acres and a river that runs through the middle of it. It has a carousel, ducks and geese in the river, a giant red wagon replica that's actually a slide, a large train that tours you around the park, a gondola ride over the river, an IMAX theatre, and many MANY amusement style rides for the kids. We were there for about 6 hours in over 90 degree heat! The kids had a blast though. We went with my best friend and her boys so 5 boys running wild all together.

Saturday- I have been having the hardest time on my long runs. It has to be the time of day and heat factor because I'm never as miserable running as I have been the last 3 Saturdays with my long runs. As I said before if I were a smart person, I would run before it got hot outside. Well this Saturday was a scorcher. It was already 70 degrees at 7:00 in the morning. What did I do? I waited around, talked to my mom, snuggled with my boys, to finally get all my gear on for my run at almost 10:00! Right now I only run with a small handheld water bottle. A question to you fellow runners, do you run with a belt or a CamelBak? I think I would like the belt just because I can stash my Gels or jellybeans inside of it where a CamelBak would either not have that option or just make it trickier to get to my stuff. Do you wear anything? When it was late winter/early spring, I didn't need to take anything on my long runs. But with it being so hot, I have to at least have some water. When I started running on Saturday, my first mile was just around my neighborhood and I felt fine. I think a lot of the problem I have with running is mental. I think when I'm in my neighborhood I don't feel like I've gone far so I'm fine. The minute I start the journey away from the house, suddenly I have issues. I ran my first mile and ran back to my house. I crushed more ice into my little watter bottle and took a puff of my inhaler because I felt like I was having a hard time breathing. Then I headed back outside. I was OK for the next couple of miles but felt like I had a mild pain or something near my diaphragm. It was annoying me! Around the 4 mile mark I found a giant tree and I took a minute under it to enjoy the shade and munch on some of my jelly beans. I'm trying them out to see how I like them. They are delicious but the taste stays stuck in my mouth for a long time. They're Cold Stone ice cream flavored Jelly Bellys. I guess Gel kind of does that too. I drank some water and was back off. I ran up and down a small hill and immediately my left hip and knee were hurting. Not sure why. So started running on the other side of the road to see if that would help but it didn't. Around 4.5 miles I had to stop again this time for an intersection. I noticed that I was REALLY wet and sweaty. Normally I sweat but this was on another level. I wondered if it was because I put on both sunblock AND bug spray before going outside. I had a nasty little critter bite me last week and I didn't want to have a repeat. As I started heading toward my one big hill for the day I was quickly denied. The road was all ripped up due to construction so I changed directions to find another hill. I live in a fairly flat area, so I try to find as many little hills as I can during my run. As I was starting on mile 6 my right side was hurting bad. The road has a slight incline and I wondered if that was making it worse. Finally around 6.7 of my run I went down a very large hill. It helped to make up some time since I was running so slow! I stopped again to catch my breath, have a few more jelly beans and water, to then turn around and run back up that hill. I kept going this time until I was stopped again by intersections. Going the opposite direction on that road, my legs felt a little better. Maybe again it was just all mental because by now I only had 1.7 more miles to go. When I got 8.5 miles into my run something felt wrong. I knew I was thirsty but I was soaking wet. My shirt and shorts just felt drenched. It was probably upper 80's if not in the 90's by this point with not a breeze in the air. But for some reason, I started feeling cold and shivery. I knew this could not be good. There was no reason in this heat, no wind, no shade, that I should suddenly be cold. So I just kept running until I got to my 9 miles, and I ran just a little more until I got to my street where I walked the rest of the way home. My girlfriend and her husband were having a yard sale. I felt bad for running right past them without talking to them, but I was wearing a white running tank top. And I was wet. So...you know....I was probably looking like a girl in a wet t-shit contest and didn't feel it was appropriate to talk to anyone with areolas showing! When I got home, I had to wipe myself down with a towel. I drank about 24 oz. of water right away. I'm thinking it was early signs of dehydration? Not good whatever it was. I knew I need to have more than a 6 oz. handheld water bottle next Saturday. I bought some Nuun which needs to be mixed with 16 oz. of water, so I know I need to invest in something. Any suggestions?

Sunday- Oh lazy laziness. My mom had my boys so I slept until 11:00! What am I a teenager again? Holy smokes! Anyway, I woke up and knew I was NOT going to run outside that late again. I hopped on my treadmill and felt great. It wasn't hard, I was sweaty but not to the point of being obscene like the day before, and my knee and hip felt fine. Is it mental? Could it be that run the street running hurts me? It did help that my treadmill is the basement of my nice air conditioned home. Again, I think it just might be the heat. Please feel free to yell or give any comments or suggestion about what I need to fix. And I already know I probably shouldn't been running when it's so hot. I see people do it all the time though, why am I different? Just a weirdy I guess. :)

Workouts-
Friday- rest
Saturday- 9 mile long run in 1:24:04 blah!!!
Sunday- easy 3 mile in 27:18 minutes
Monday- Jillian's No More Trouble Zones DVD + 25 minutes Wii Active