Exhale

Saturday was my first real encounter of the summer with Swiss Avenue and the first time I had to face 20 miles in almost a year. For the most part, I was a little 5 foot rock star defying the heat and keeping on pace. I'm not saying that it was easy --- just that I felt confident for most of the course. It helps that we have these great runners at Luke's that go above and beyond the call of duty every single week. They put out extra coolers on Fisher, they reward my run up Sperry with cold wash cloths, they bring Popsicles at the end of every run... I can barely get myself out the door each week. I don't know how they manage to get up early to take care of the rest of us, but I would never survive the long runs without such great support.

Hard to explain the feeling of having a 20 mile run under your belt. It makes you feel all at once like you're confident that you can do this and that this whole thing was the dumbest idea that you've ever had.

Little did I know that the dumbest idea would come later in the weekend when I decided to take a core chisel class at Exhale. The class was supposed to strengthen my core, but the description failed to mention the beating that my legs would take on the "bar" portion of the class. You know it is bad when the worst thing you did you your leg muscles this weekend wasn't forcing them to run 3 hours straight.

Piece of Cake

Last week, I met Scott. He teaches a class on Wednesday evenings at Tread called Tread 54. It is set up the same way as a normal-demented-Tread class, but you only run for a total of about 18 minutes of the hour. The rest of the time is spent cursing the day that you were born while lifting weights ... or maybe doing my personal favorite, 1,000 walking lunges on the treadmill. If Scott said, "don't cheat yourself" one more time during that workout, I was sure that I was going to punch him. I kind of hated Scott and the next day, my legs kind of hated me.

A loop around the lake hardly seems worth writing about. It was easy going on Saturday for ATP. I thought that we were running 12, but it was only 9.3. Cakewalk.

Naturally, the easy week was just a ruse. This week we're back to craziness -- hill training with a big, fat 20 miles staring me down --- which, for those of you that don't know, is the exact opposite of a cakewalk.

Waterlogged

There's wet and then there's me on Saturday morning. When we got to the lake, it was raining with a side dish of lightning. Luke's cancelled the official run and pulled the water stops. I had a choice --- go back to bed (nothing sounded better) or push through the EIGHTEEN miles that I was supposed to run. The thought of getting hit by lightning was bad, but the thought of putting the run off until Sunday morning was worse.

The main problem with the Saturday a.m. run is that you don't just go about your life and then roll out of bed and run 18 miles. There's preparation. There's beer sacrifice. There's an alarm before dawn. As bad as it is to go through that, it is much worse to do all of that for nothing. All I could think about (standing in the pre-dawn drizzle) was that I was already out there. I was already wet. I would kick myself later if I didn't get it done.

I did two loops around the lake. I will admit a crisis of conscience when I passed my car after the first loop. So easy to just get in the nice dry car and head to my house. "Just run another mile," I said to my feet sloshing in my soggy socks... "You can always turn around." 9.3 miles later, I survived my first 18 miler of the season. It wasn't pretty (and neither was I), but I finished.

Take that, rainy day. POW.

My Cheating Heart

Taco Joint - you have to believe me - I never meant for this to happen. I was on the east side of town and ... well, Fuzzy's opens at 6:30 a.m. ... and bacon, egg and cheese tacos sounded so good after that ATP torture. So, I admit it, okay? I stopped. I ate two tacos, but it meant nothing to me. Nothing. The bacon wasn't crispy, the napkins were sub par, the ratio of cheese to egg was completely off. It wasn't the same as you. Not even close. I was a fool. I hope you won't let this ruin what we have on Saturdays. I never meant to hurt you.

Sweet Sixteen?

Here's what I thought was a good idea last week --- death by treadmill at Tread fitness. Imagine a 20 minute block on the front end of the class where you run massive hills and sprints until you're ready to pass out. Then, you move to the floor for work with the weights that makes you beg to get back on the treadmill. 10 more minutes running and finally, a few more exercises on the floor. Here's the death wish part... after I finished my first class, I decided to stay for the first 20 minutes of the class after mine. While everyone else packed up their stuff, I ran through the break and started the whole thing all over again. 7+ miles of hills and sprints in addition to some torture by dumbbells. What was I thinking?

Saturday, I ran 16 *$%# miles. When I arrived at the lake at 5:30, it was 81 degrees. I did okay until the last few arrows below, but I was definitely done by the time I hit the lake post Sperry loop. I don't know how I'm ever going to make it through 18 in two weeks. This third marathon might be the end of me (see "what was I thinking" above).

The course: Bath House (yawn) --> (special warm up, 7-11 water stop) --> Winstead (up, up) --> Lakewood --> Lakeshore ---> Cambria (pick up speed to MP)---> Lakewood --> Belmont --> Alderson ---> Richmond --> La Vista --> Swiss (turnaround, thank god) --> traceback to Lake (sigh at water stop) --> Sperry (up, up, cursing, up) --> (cold towels) Lyre (water stop) --> Santa Barbara (another hill??? up, up) --> Fisher (great water stop) --> Branchfield --> Westbay (ugh!) --> Lawther --> (at least 100 miles more) --> Bath House --> Taco Joint