Barely Legal

Today was 18 miles (about 29km) of grueling running. Earlier in the week I had to skip my 9 miler do to fluish-ness. So, of course, the logical step was to strut right into the weekend's 18 like a distance pimp handing out smack downs to those fresh faced unruly miles with little consideration in regards to what skipping runs, still being weak, and facing 16°F (-8° C) temperatures would do to a person; even one with platinum plus MasterCard of pimp-licious street cred such as myself(?).

I had spent the hour prior to the run adjusting my Vegan Marathon Runner playlist. I've got it up to 2 hours & 22 minutes so far (road tested and approved too!). If you've ever used a Nike+ unit before, you'll know that there's a custom setting for distance runs. SO it was somewhat amusing at the outset, standing in the freezing cold windy afternoon, while my thumb spent what seemed like forever winding around the clickwheel in order to set the mile marker to 18.

Then I was off...




I had marked out, via Googled maps, a decent 6 mile loop for the day. It seemed mentally appealing to only have to do THREE 6 mile loops. Obviously emphasizing the three there as much in my mind as in this post. Threes seem reasonable. Threes are finely dividable into thirds. SO despite the bitterness of the outdoors, the first go round was a snap, leaving me with only 12 more miles to go. I sipped some coconut water & had a few dates that I stashed at my makeshift water station and was back on the road for round two. Everything went fine up until about the 11th mile. I had felt my knees slowly giving away for a while, but after 11, my calves started twitching as if something was slithering around under my skin. This dropped my speed down to where I felt the elderly could whip nickels at me as they zipped by, maniacally taunting me with fowl-mouthed-gutter-sass talk, the likes of which haven't been heard since 1848 when prospectors would cuss as they cut their chafed hands on the rusty pans that, day after day, they used to sift through unrewarding silt deposits this side of the Mississippi river. I finished out round two at 12 miles with the outside of my left leg feeling like the muscle was slowly tearing away from the bone. I took a little longer at this water stop than before. I stretched a little bit. I tried to eat more dates, but since they'd been in the cold they had turned to stone as if Medusa had been gazing away at them the whole time I was running, which would have been fine if I were the rock eating monster from The Never Ending Story, but I'm not, and they were useless...except as retaliation for that roving gang of nickel tossing elderly.

I wasn't going to stop. I was sure of that. I had been weighing injury vs. essential training at this point, and due to incliment weather 2 weeks prior, I had to skip out on the scheduled 16 mile run. SO here I was at the end of week 13, 5 weeks away from race day, and I couldn't cut out a second LSD run. Leaving my longest ever run thus far at 15 miles. Sigh...I finished off the coconut water and hit the road for round 3 (the final countdown). If you mistake my slowness mentioned above for hyperbole, I can assure you I only got slower & slower in the last 6 miles. My calves didn't want to move. The hills were killing me, the cold was annoying me, & now my other knee was coming undone...I had been in the cold coldness for so long my cheeks were completely numb. I was smiling & making faces just trying to keep my face from permanently forming into an agonized version of the Rocky statue, that sits at the base of the Philly art museum steps. Though I wouldn't complain if, having keeled over during my 18 mile jaunt, someone thought I was deserving enough of being placed alongside that sly champion.

Ignoring the suffering as best as possible, I changed the scenario into a mental game. Nike+ chimed in with 5 miles left, and I immediately went along with "well 5's less than the first loop was" and soldiered on along the battlefront. Eventually, the news came that there were 2 miles left. So there I had made up the 16 I missed before, and I was hobbling like a Hinken to get to the end. My knees were on fire. My muscles had left my skeletal frame what was basically hours ago. I just wanted to be done. I knew if I broke stride I'd lose my momentum and probably just fall into a snow drift along the road and be buried alive until some would-be neighborhood hound dog found me while sniffing out a promising patch of post-precipition to micturate upon. On I went...

The final mile was brought to my attention, then the countdown from 400 meters to GOAL was whispering sweet nothing in my ears. When I began walking I noticed immediately that my hips down to my toes were wrecked. I messaged the outside of my thighs as I waddled along to my apartment steps. I attempted stretching briefly when I got inside, but my knees hurt too much to even bother. I drew a hot bath, and just hopped in. I gnawed on a banana and a lunabar while in the comfort of the scorching waters. I've never eaten in the tub before, but I needed something in my stomach so multi-tasking was a must. I can't promise that I won't do it again. I kinda felt a bit like royalty. Nike+ estimated my average mile time was 10:13 per mile. I was expecting a lot slower actually, and even from my earlier runs in the week, I can tell the flu definitely took the wind out of my sails, because speed has been compromised even in the lesser runs. It also reported burning over 2,000 calories! When I got around to it, I basically ate 2 dinners about an hour apart from each other. I'm pretty sure that's justified!

SO here I am, hours later, icing and re-icing my knees and hips. I've tried to stretch, but again, my knees hurt too much to really get a good stretch accomplished. I probably made a mistake by not taking walking breaks at any point during the 18, but I generally avoid them anyway: I just never seem to want to stop running until my distance is done. Really, I can understand why Forrest Gump did it that way too. We'll see how things are tomorrow after, what I can only hope & assume, is going to be a good night's sleep. If I feel anything like I do now, cross training is most likely out. Unless I can get some walking in. But I already pushed the 18, I don't need to push the cross training too. Yea, I need to train for a marathon, sure, but I don't need to overtrain for it. At this point, I'm on track again. I'd like to stay on track well through now and into finishing the race. Take it easy folks, I did more than enough today for all of us.