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.

Hey, remember when I was going to be all productive during my post race running hiatus?  Do some house projects, ride my bike, yadda yadda. Guess how many of those things I got done. One? Nope, sorry loser. ZERO. And I don’t feel bad about it, either because I believe we set a new personal record in going to the bar & eating out this week, and that took up some serious time & effort.  Priorities, man. Priorities.

Some race highlights/lowlights -

• Surprisingly consistent splits. I went out too fast for the first two miles, but dialed it in by the fourth.
• Almost choking on a crumbly Fig Newton. It’s probably time to experiment with gels again.
• Seeing “One Walker is beats [insert some number which I can’t remember] runners” chalked all over the road, thinking WTF? and then getting a lesson in Wisconsin politics from the dude running next to me who was definitely voting to oust Cheeseland Gov Scott Walker in the upcoming recall election.
• Eagle themed aid stations.  One had a old dude wearing a George Washington-looking wig, yelling into a PA system and waving an eagle puppet at all the runners.  Josh said he high-fived the eagle. I ran to the other side of the road. Creepy.  The other had a little kid sitting on the pavement on a pile of sticks that was supposed to look like a nest. She had cardboard wings strapped to her arms and sprung up from her nest and made screeching eagle noises when runners went by.
• Have any beer? I heard it at almost every aid station, but the only one which could have honored the request was the aid station at the bar and they could barely get water out in time. Sorry, lushes.

Soda Pops restaurant.  It’s a soda fountain!  Lots of fun drinks and yummy food. It was so good we went there twice.

The Hodag in Rhinelander, WI. We zipped over there to find me some shorts because it was going to be warmer than I anticipated and didn’t bring any. It was a bust. I have the absolute worst time finding shorts that fit my thunder thighs. Grumble.

Cocktails and sandwiches! I so wanted to go there, they were closed.

Strangest mannequins I’ve ever seen. The first one reminds me of the Joker.

Post race bar crawl photo at the Black Forest Pub in Three Lakes, WI. Drinks were expensive, food was good.

Compression socks & moccasins. My sexiness is beyond compare.

The view from our little cabin. Pretty, but that was about the only nice thing I have to say about that place. It was a serious dump.

Next week, running! Biking! Or, something.

Did you know that “Mad City” is one of Madison’s nicknames? Me neither.

Capitol Building

State Street

Machinery Row Bicycles. I have never seen so many bicycles in one place. Ever.

Graze, local food restaurant.

Artisan cheese plate with blue, cheddar, black truffle goat and govarti-capri. So. Good.

Josh had the grass fed pub burger with bacon and fries. It looked yummy…

…but mine was better.  Seafood Stew with shrimp, scallop, mussels, clams, halibut, chorizo, cannellini beans & braised greens in lobster broth. Winner!

Horsie carriage on State Street

Knuckleheads Tobacco, where I got yelled at for taking a picture of all their “tobacco accessories”.

New Glarus Spotted Cow. Yum yum.

Protest signs

Fin.