Saturday, June 27, 2009

Bwap!

Leg Two at the DeCelle Memorial Lake Tahoe Relay knocked the stuffing out of me. Literally. I ran it two weeks ago and it destroyed my running until today, when I finally ran a decent 9 miles on the Mall in about 1:20. I was exhausted at the end but I made it and I feel good about it.

I have been exhausted ever since the Relay, and mostly not running. On Wednesday, June 17th, I did the monthly noontime Tidal Basin 3K Run I always do, in 14:13 (7:38). The last time I was over 14 minutes for this short, fast and furious race was over three years ago. ‘Nuff said. (After finishing Leg Two at the Relay, I was not feeling well . . .)

On Saturday, June 20th, I ran a club 4-miler race on the flat C&O Canal Towpath, in 33:47 (8:27). My only other two 4-milers were both run in under 30 minutes. This race was mental agony for me as my legs felt like mush the last three miles. (. . . and when I bent over and noisily barfed . . .)

I asked an Ironman I know if he thought eight miles at altitude, with the last four miles being up one big hill, could take so much out of me that I needed a long time to recover, like after a marathon. Oh yeah, he said.

But now, two weeks later, I feel more normal. It took a long time. (. . . my teammates all did their best to politely ignore me. L-r: Ashley who killed Leg Seven, Bex who did a good job on Leg Four, the longest one, and John, an excellent bicyclist who discovered that those skills don't necessarily transfer straight over to running during a rough Leg Five.)

I’ll tell you about my hardest run ever, perhaps in my next post. Consider this image in the meantime, running hard for 38 minutes to a stadium and then immediately running up its stairs for forty more minutes without ever stopping or getting to the top.

5 comments:

Petraruns said...

Are you okay Peter? you have me worried.

Sunshine said...

The Lake Tahoe event must be fun to look forward to every year.
There are reasons why the word "recovery" is used by runners. Keep taking care.

Canal towpaths sound interesting. We have abandoned railroad beds.

ShirleyPerly said...

Congrats on completing your mission for the team!

Nothing wrong with taking extra time to recover after a hard race. Sounds like you earned it and your body is demanding it.

Anne said...

Those photos say it all. This is going to be one interesting race report, I can tell. I'm sure it didn't help that after the altitude sickness you come home to the typical wet blanket humidity of D.C. No wonder your electrolytes are still going haywire.

jeanne said...

do i have to consider that image???
you are HARDCORE to keep going back to tahoe for more torture! You and Ray, with the tossing of the cookies!