It’s been a minute…

Ok, it’s been more like a month, but this quarter has been kicking my butt at work. There are a lot of changes at my university, and between that, kiddos, traveling husband, and the ramping up mileage, it’s barely left me time to do anything else but sleep and eat. This weekend was all about the massive back to back long run. I had 18-20 on the plan for Saturday and then 10-12 Sunday. However, Saturday was an insanely beautiful day and my friend David was doing 50 (yes, 5-0) so I decided to take advantage of the weather and the company flip for the next weekend’s 20-22/9-11. Not a HUGE difference, but still…

David was starting at 5 and hoping to finish around 2. The idea of waking up at 4’ish to be up and running in the dark was too painful, so I shot for pre-dawn. That view of the morning sun coming up was lovely (and a full moon peeking out from the clouds on the drive). My friend Lindsay and I were up and moving by 5:45.

Because 50 miles is a lot of miles to run alone, David coordinated an event for our local ultra-running group the Flatlanders. It was an all day event, so these were just the “early birds” at 7 am. I was excited to run with some new folks. Somehow, though, other than Lindsay, I ended up running with a bunch of guys (including David).

We ran Waterfall Glen, which is a 9.5 mile trail around the perimeter of Argonne Labs. Because it was easier just to finish the loops than to cut it short and do an out and back, I ended up doing just shy of 23 miles. We started our first loop with a group of 7 of us, and finishing the second lap left only 3 of us. I was pretty beat by the hills and a week of heavy training, so don’t let those smiles fool you! I gotta say, though, I learned the joy of mint Oreo’s from David on that run (he’s the one on the right).

And because I mainly run so I can eat with wild abandon, I got the most decadent salty, savory deliciousness I could muster. A Cubano-ish sandwich on a buttermilk biscuit from my favorite pie shop Spilt Milk. Meat, greens, sauce, and eggs on a huge biscuit. Heaven. I also got a slice of pie (ha) but ate that before I remembered to take a photo.

I also took a nap afterwards while the rest of the fam went to a local St. Patrick’s Day parade. Mr. RunNerdier is a champ for letting me do that.

I gotta say that I had a fair amount of trepidation for running the next day. I was feeling pretty beat up, but I did a decent pace with the help of a friend, Julianne. We trained quite a bit together several years ago, but she’s been struggling with injuries when her mileage gets too high so she’s been doing alot of tri’s lately. We did about 7 miles together and then I finished up solo. When I was fishing out my headphones for the last couple miles, though, I realized a bunch of crumbs had got super jammed inside my headphone jack. Enter Julianne’s husband to the rescue, and his compressed air thing.

I was able to get all the crumbs out, receive some advice on where I can get decent belt (I ripped mine earlier in the week at work), and hit the road with some tunes to finish strong. Not your usual Sunday morning adventures, but that’s why I love running. Keeps you on your toes. I owe a race report on the crazy Yeti half I did a few weeks ago…that’s up next! Until then, keep truckin’.

Some more trails and a sad realization

I had a couple pictures from this weekend that were too glorious to not share. I love this one of the older munchkin. It looks like he’s about to dart off to a magical land.  And then the younger one in the cathedral of leaves
And an action shot of her running across the bridge to catch me.  The sun was definitely not out on today’s trails, however. My friend, an ultra runner, had offered to take me (read that as I begged her to take me) to a different set of trails in Palos. I was nervous about not knowing how to get to them, navigate them, etc. I also wanted to try a run on them to see how I felt about the Paleozoic 50k. There was a little bit of driving around as we tried to figure out which trailhead to pick up. We were initially trying to start at the same point the race would, but we ended up on the north side of the preserve as we had trouble locating the right trail head on the south end. We still ended up driving a bit and having to ask some folks about the trail head. Cuz there’s nothing weird about people in forest preserves in the middle of the day for no apparent reason… Although, I guess we were there too.

It was a grey day and slated to rain pretty hard later in the morning, so it was an attempt to outrun the rain. Getting to the start of the yellow trail took some meandering through some single-track with a good bit of rutted hardened dirt and roots. Exactly how I fear trail running will be. However, the regular trails actually were more like crush gravel with ALOT of horse poop, so safer for the girl with the wimpy ankles.

It did rain lightly on and off throughout the run, but the trees gave pretty decent coverage from the worst of it. I tried to take some pictures, but there was just enough light to make the shot dark and not enough light to really show the colors well. In other words, these pictures are going to make the trail look dark and dreary but it really wasn’t. In fact, we commented on how many of the trees still had good foliage.
For the flatlander I am, these were some pretty good hills. And I struggled. I had counted on my friend (who, by the way is nameless since she was playing hooky) to run slower, but she pushed a 9:30 tempo. Normally, that would not be an issue, but I was really struggling. And I even asked to walk a couple of times. YEAH. Training for the last year has definitely kicked my ass, and I am not recovered from Chicago. But more on that in a bit.

The trails were relatively easy to navigate once we got on them, although we both pulled out maps a couple of times to get it right. We did discuss, though, how it’s nice to be able to do long trail runs and not worry too much about distance…as long as you figure out when to turn back (i.e., before you’re deathly tired or it gets too dark!). In this case, I had thought we might do 12-15, but at the end of the yellow trail, which was just over 5 miles, I was tired and wanted to turn back. It was actually perfect timing because after we got back to the car, it started raining in earnest.  It had rained a little bit last night as well so my white shoes finally look like they belonged to a runner and not a gym rat!
My Garmin continues to cause me issues (i.e., it said we ran 8 miles in 1.25 hours, which was not correct), so I used my friend’s Strava data. All told, 11.2 miles just under 2 hours. That was with all our random stopping, so our average pace was 10:34. I think it was closer to 9:30 for most of the time we were actually running.

I love long runs with friends. You get so much deep stuff out there as well as silliness. We talked about how running was such a lifesaver for helping us deal with the rest of life, things on our bucket list, addictions, family dysfunctions, racial politics, educational policy…it was great. I think that’s one of the things I love most about marathon training, all that awesome time with friends doing something you love.

Which is why it kills me to admit that I can’t do the 50k. This run felt hard by mile 3. I am definitely still recovering from my ill-begotten sand run this weekend, but it shouldn’t have felt like I was pushing SO hard. My legs are tired. Heavy and tired. And I keep feeling like I’m having trouble hitting a rhythm with my stride and my breathing. All things for making me think that trying to push out 50k in under 6 hours is going to be a recipe for disaster. I will fall or sprain my ankle or just cry in public. All unpleasant, undesirable options. And every time I’ve looked at my training calendar, I’ve thought, “No. No f’ing way I’m doing that plan.” I’d fallen out of love of running training. I need a break.

Do you hear that? That was me putting on my big girl pants. Me listening to my body. Me being an adult. I’m not sure I like it. Or that it’s comfortable. But growth never is, right?

I’m still considering going out there and running the 25k. That I know I can do. The course is 2 loops, so I could run the second loop with my friend Amy, who’s doing the 50k. It would be fun to help encourage someone on their first ultra and to give back to another runner. I’m not committing to anything right now as I need to see how my legs are the next couple weeks, but I like that I have options. I mean, I don’t even have to register for the race. I could just go out there and run a couple of miles since they can’t close the course (and I would obviously not be taking aid from the stations). Or I could register and do the 25k. Or I could stay home and eat alot of cake (it’s my birthday weekend).

Anyhow, maybe I will be ok with “just” loving running and running for fun. For now at least 🙂