Running Chick

Pretty much sums up the final miles of my 17 mile run this morning.  Feet aching, out of water and food, and I think it’s a good idea to climb a giant hill.  What the hell was I thinking?  Running does do that to you, though. You have a couple of really good runs, think you’re all badass and then it bitch slaps you right back into your place.

Josh does this climb on his daily bicycle commute to work and he says it’s pretty brutal on a bike.  Basically it’s a 500’ elevation gain in just over 3 miles on a twisty road with no shoulder and in terrible condition.  Add in a bunch of lunatics driving way too fast and there you have Cole’s Creek Road.

Josh and Zoe did come to rescue me with about 1.5 miles left, just as I was giving serious thought to dropping down to the half marathon instead of the marathon.  Either I got a second wind or Zoe pulled me up the rest of the hill, but we knocked the last of the miles off at a 10:19 pace, that’s faster than my entire long run put together!

Aside from my aching feet, and the shitty last five miles, my run was pretty uneventful.  It got a little warm in the end once the sun came out, but the morning was long-sleeve weather. 

I ordered some new Glycerin 10’s, which will hopefully take care of my sore feet. I also ordered some S!Caps, which is an electrolyte supplement meant to replace all the stuff that you lose from sweating. I’ve been on the fence about taking them for a couple of years, but now that my runs are getting longer, and I’m sweating more, I decided to give them a shot.  We’ll see how they treat my stomach.  On a side note, I’ve always wondered how much, if any, weight I was losing during a long run but I could never remember to weigh myself before I took off. Today I actually remembered and when I got on the scale when I got home, I found I’d lost just over 3 pounds.  I have to do some reading on hydration, but I think that might borderline on too much. In other words, I’m sweating too much and not drinking enough. 

After some stretching, lunch and a shower we headed up to Calumet so Josh could bike the Swedetown trails. He’s doing the Great Deer Chase mountain bike race in a couple of weeks and wanted to do a pre-ride of the course.  Zoe and I walked around the trails for an hour and then hung out on the deck of the chalet until Josh came & found us.

Last weekend, I did my long run in Waterloo, IA.  Josh finished up a RAGBRAI, a week-long 400-something bicycle ride across Iowa and I headed down to pick him up at the finish. The Waterloo/Cedar Falls area has a pretty extensive paved trail system, so it wasn’t a big deal finding a 15 mile route. Josh biked along with me and did my navigation and carried my extra water. I like having company on my long runs, it makes them go by faster.

Zoe is transitioning well. She’s a lot more calm & mellow than the day we brought her home and she’s not had any accidents in the house.  We’re still working her cues for going outside, and making some really good progress.  She’s getting better on the leash, but there’s still work to be done in that area. She’s skittish around cars, but interested, so she gets distracted easily when they go by.

The cats are also transitioning well, but you can tell they’re not exactly amused by her presence. She mostly leaves them alone, thanks to a few well aimed swats to the nose when she got too pushy.  She’s confined to a crate at night at the moment so their favorite thing is to sit outside the door and stare at her. Probably moon her as well. Brats.