15

Last week we ran our 15-miler out toward Hopkinton. I started strong, and although I kept waiting for fatigue to hit me, I kept outrunning it. It was cold and windy, and when we turned around right at the Framingham town line (we finally hit it!), I was so excited for the wind to be at my back. I was pretty sore and tired when we got to Natick at about mile 10, but continued on strong into Wellesley...when the pain really hit. I had 12 great miles that day, and 3 of the worst ever. I was tired, I was cold, my calves were cramping, and I was completely miserable. I couldn't imagine running 11 more after that. I was frustrated also, because I never got to celebrate the 12 great ones that I did run...or maybe I had just gone out too fast. In any case, I finished 15 faster than I had finished the 14 the week before, so all in all not too bad.

The pilgrimage

Saturday was beautiful--sunny, kind of chilly, the kind of weather that makes you want to get out there and run. Not all my teammates agreed: it was on the wrong side of freezing when we started our run. I was feeling a little dehydrated, but I wasn't too worried about the 14 miles that lay ahead of me. It wasn't until the hills that I started to question whether I really had it in me. You know those days when you're not quite sure if you ever fully woke up in the morning? It was like that. Most runs have a beginning (where you're not quite warmed up yet), a middle (where you hit your stride), and an end (where you start to wish you were almost done). This run just didn't have a middle. I was able to run up more of Heartbreak than I was two weeks ago, but I still walked the end of it.
Heartbreak on Saturday was a strange sight--the sheer number of runners heading up wouldn't have surprised me had there been some shrine at the top. It really did resemble a pilgrimage, though trust me, there ain't no absolution at Boston College, or at least none for runners.
We turned around just before the turn down to Cleveland Circle, and started to head down--after a few miles down, I felt something in my left calf, something that I didn't want to be feeling. It's always hard to describe pain--it wasn't terrible, but I felt it every time I put my foot down. I stopped to stretch it out a couple of times, but it kept coming back. I tried to massage it away with The Stick, but it was too painful to apply any real pressure. I ran until the last hill back up to Wellesley, when Sarad came back down to get me. (Amazingly enough, I still wasn't last!) Sarad said that my leg pain probably had a lot to do with my dehydration and my tight muscles--I believed him at the time, but it does still hurt, so I'm starting to get nervous.
I took my first ice bath of the season when I got home--I locked myself in the bathroom with a sweatshirt, a burrito, and a 10-pound bag of ice, and forced myself to sit in the bathtub for 10 minutes, until my burrito was done and my feet had turned a disturbing shade of purple. My legs did feel much better after, though.
I felt well enough on Sunday to head out for a 4-mile recovery run--the 40-something degree temperatures helped significantly.
I'm taking the day off today, and I'm only going to run 5 miles tomorrow, so we'll have to see how the calf does. I'm taking plenty of "Vitamin I" (what my dad calls Advil), and doing lots of stretching and icing, but the muscle is still too sensitive for a real massage. I'm going to try to book a massage appointment for Thursday night, so hopefully by then it can take the pressure. In the meantime, send it lots of good thoughts!

A new number

Yesterday, for the first time since October of 2007, I ran longer than I'd ever run before. It was a bright, chilly day with a fair amount of wind, but I was feeling good. I'd run a total of eleven great miles during the week--not enough, but not a bad showing either. No clinics yesterday, so we did our dedication and headed out on the road for our first of two fourteen-mile runs.
Our back-of-the-pack group was me, Nicole, Emily, and Cindy (who I ran with last week). The two-mile warmup through Wellesley was fine, although I always dislike that part of the run--too many cars, pedestrians, and other obstacles. You can't really run on the street, and you can't really run on the sidewalk either. Once we hit Wellesley college and the hills, I started to relax. Passing Wellesley, the hills calm down and I really hit my stride as we entered Natick. I felt great (if frozen) at the 4.5 mile water stop, and the Gu I took there really helped me for the next couple of miles. We were farther away than I would have liked to have been from the turnaround point when our fastest teammates started passing us on the way back, but I felt happy and energized when we hit seven miles. My legs were tight from the running and the cold, but I was feeling good. The Boston marathon course still has some painted mile markers on the street, and I noticed that we turned around at the mile 8 marker, and we had just run 7 miles. In other words, we were fairly close to how we'd feel on the course running the next seven miles. I kind of distanced myself from the group on the way back--I was at that point in a run where you just need to be going at your own pace. Nicole was first, then me, then Cindy and Emily a little ways back. I felt much better than I thought I'd feel on the way back up the hill to Wellesley College, but those last two miles were brutal. My left knee started hurting in the last one (never felt that before!) and I ended up walking the last couple of blocks. I was frustrated because I walked into the community center hurting, when I actually had the best thirteen miles ever--just the crappiest fourteenth. I iced when I got home, and stretched a lot, but my calves are still talking to me.
The weather is supposed to be beautiful tomorrow, so I'm going to see if I can get up ultra-early and get a few miles in before work (I can't run there, because I didn't leave anything!)
All in all, a good showing, I thought, but my plan is to be fairly cautious this week, while still trying to build up my leg strength.