Another weekend another NYRR race. At the end of summer I went a little crazy and signed up for pretty much every race through the end of the year. I just love racing. And spending money. Why run when you can pay to run, duh.
Anyways. So these races are for the most part shorter - which means with marathon training they will be a component of the long run.
Plan was the same as it has been previous weekends: get to Central Park as early as possible, bang out some miles, race and run some more.
Today's long run was a step back, training called for 13. Now I have been laid up sick for the past few days so wasn't sure how this was going to go. My only plan was to not be stupid and wind up more sick, listen to my body. For "breakfast" I had my recent go to of Gu Chomps, the Cranberry Apple flavor since they have caffeine. I'm a fan of the chomps as a pre run fuel. But again, I woke up and headed out the door without drinking anything. When will I learn?
We got to the park at about 7:50 or so and started running toward East Drive. Our pace was in the mid 9:30's and not going to lie, breathing was difficult being congested and I felt quite lethargic. I knew this wasn't going to be a day to break records. My left achilles was acting up and my friend's knee so at the top of Cat Hill we stopped to stretch a bit. We then ran across the bridal path to the West Side to get to the race start.
We arrived with a little less than 10 minutes to spare which was perfect because I was in desperate need of a bathroom pit stop. I sprinted to them and then to the corrals with a couple minutes to spare. So far timing perfection.
I decided I was going to hold back during the race. It was crowded, I wasn't feeling great, and knew that I was by no means going to break my 5 mile PR I just got, so I just wanted to maintain a steady pace.
We were off! I was pretty unaware of where I was at during the race since I had been running already so wasn't too concerned with time and pace. My friend was feeling good so we pretty much split off right away. I got a cramp in my side pretty much as the race started. Breathing was painful and it inhibited any means of speeding up. Dehydration will do that to you. Then at about mile 2.5 my stomach tanks again. I thought I would be fine with the bathroom stop prior to the race but all I could think of was getting to mile 3 to stop. I could care less about time I just wanted to make a stop.
And I did. After that I thought I would be okay but I was still cramped up and at mile 4 stopped for some water. I was pacing in the low 9's but obviously lost some time when I stopped in the bathroom - but after drinking water, I then got nauseous. I just couldn't win today. I just slowed it down and made my way to the finish. My overall results, nothing to be proud of but in general I don't quite care: 50:35 (I believe) 10:06 miles. Yikes. Oh just several minutes over my Thanksgiving PR ha!
In general I brought most of those awful conditions on myself: I was dehydrated from being sick, I took the fuel without water as well, I overloaded on veggies yesterday so my stomach was upset...nothing I did helped my running cause today.
After the race I was a little over 8 miles and we had more running to do.
I took plenty of water post race and then had an espresso gu - 2x the caffeine, FTW! I thought those 2 might help.
We headed back up the East Drive up Cat Hill to the Reservoir. Both of us were having some pain and figured the dirt up there would help ease up. I don't know what it is but for a couple weeks my left achilles has been acting up; as we say I am "aware" of it. Discomfort, but today it was entering into the pain territory.
To make matters worse, once again, my stomach started rumbling and I had to stop. I really just could not win.
We decided to run down the West Side instead of finishing the reservoir loop and going down the way we came up. By the time we got to the Columbus Circle entrance, we were at 12 miles and decided to just call it a day. Both of us were hurting and that extra mile really would have no bearing. I would have pushed if it was a long run week (kind of amusing that 12 isn't really "long" in my book anymore) but decided I had pushed enough coming off/being sick and my achilles acting up.
And of course nothing better than the post run Starbucks (kind of the reason why I always take the subway from Columbus Circle so that I can grab a SB on my way home :)
I am now icing my foot, catching up on my DVR and cursing that it is Monday tomorrow. Sigh. Here is hoping that I don't wake up more sick tomorrow. I am thankful that it wasn't freezing today and we are actually about to have a bit of a "warm" spell. Bring it on.
No comments:
Post a Comment