Thursday, June 26, 2008

Final run, not to good.

So yesterday I did my last training run before my 25k and let’s just say it didn’t go very well at all at least the last .25 mile anyway. I ran at Terrace Oaks cross county ski trail which is very hilly. It is a 3.2 mile loop which I thought would be perfect because my plan was to go 15.5 miles. I started out great, did the first loop in 32 minutes, 10 minute miles. Perfect, well within my goal time of 14 minute mile pace for the race. 2nd lap 36 minutes, also happy with that time. 6.4 miles in I feel good and I am also almost half done. Third lap got about half way in and I took a nice walking break, I had my camelback on with 32oz of water, so I was drinking water regularly. It was hot yesterday, humid, and it caught up with me really fast. I started the 4th lap and got about .25 mile in and hit the wall and I am talking major hit it. I really thought I was going to die. My legs stopped working; the lactic acid took over and said yup you’re done. I was dizzy and I thought I was going vomit. I sipped on some water and turned around and head for my car. I walked the whole way back very slow and deliberately taking my time and trying to make sure to stay focused. My god it was the worse feeling ever. I made it back to the car, finished my water and turned on the AC full power to cool off. Started to drive, which I am sure wasn’t the smartest thing in the world but I was only about 4 miles from home and I just wanted to get there. But I stopped at SA to get some Gatorade and tried to drink that, got a few chugs in and I could not continue because I thought for sure we were going to see 32oz of water and lime Gatorade all over my car. I finally got home and got in the bath tub in luke warm water. Trying to cool off and get my legs back again. They hurt so bad I could hardly move. Then I started to shiver, big FUN. That stopped and I lay in the tub and reflected on my night, what did I do wrong! Things were going good better then good, broderline great. I felt good; I didn’t feel like I was pushing myself. I had water and was drinking it. I was taking it easy on the hills… The heat wasn’t bothering me because there was a light breeze so I never really felt hot at all. I think it was the fact that I had depleted all of my electrolytes and when I crashed I crashed hard. Let’s just say it SUCKED and I learned a lot. The thing that made me so mad was I was doing so well and on pace to finish in under 3 hours. I was so mad at myself, but on the positive side I learned a valuable lesson and I will not let it happen again. I am still looking forward to my race but I will admit that after yesterday I am scared and a little more nervous about it. I did manage almost 11 miles yesterday before all of this crap happened so I was happy with the day. The next few days I will be relaxing and doing a lot of road bike riding just to keep my heart rate up and my legs moving. This training scheme for me seems to be working I think. I am not sure if it is 100% correct, but my longer runs though challenging have been good and I feel really good on the runs in the 4-8 mile range. I just want to survive the race…

Monday, June 23, 2008

Another fun weekend.

So it was an amazing weekend. Melissa and I had so much fun. Saturday we played in the 2nd Annual Surly Disc Golf Open. The weather was perfect and the event was really fun. The course was at Hyland Hills, which is a small ski hill in Bloomington, it made for a challenging course. For the entry fee we got lunch, a golf disc, and free Surly’s out on the course, and prizes afterward which we didn’t win anything, I was bummed about that. We played pretty well. But it was just for fun, so scores didn’t matter or anything. It lasted all day long; we got there at 11am and got home around 730 or so. We were both just beat afterward. So we threw in a frozen pizza and watched a movie.

Sunday turned out to be another outstanding day. I scheduled a group mountain bike ride down at Murphy Trail. My turn out was really good, lots of people showed up to ride and BBQ. Again the weather was perfect. About half of the people did the short loop for the first lap, so we could get back and fire up the grills. Melissa, Dan, Shelly, Berry and I all head backed and made lunch. We made a lot of food for just the few of us, but the burgers, brats and dogs all turned out pretty good. After we were just about done eating the rest of the group got back so we fired up the grills again and made lunch round 2. We all sat around and chatted and had some laughs. Right in the middle of lunch round 2 there was about a 10 minute down pour that turned out to be pretty fun. People either went and sat in their cars or threw on the rain gear and continued eat and grilling. After the rain stopped and the sun came back out, a few people had to leave but there were 5 of us left that went for lap 2. It was a great afternoon in the sun at Murphy.

After riding Melissa and I went home and made pizzas on the grill on flat bread. Man they turned out really good. They were just simple pizzas, sauce, cheese, green pepper and onion. But cooking them on the grill was the secret; the “crust” got so crispy it was really awesome. I really should start taking more picture of stuff like that.

Hopefully this week will go fast, I like having days off instead of working.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

New Horse in the stable.


Well I am back on the running track. I took last week off from running. I wasn’t in the mood to run, which I know is bad especially with my race coming up and also I wasn't feeling that great for most of the week. So instead of running I did ride my bike a lot, hard and often. I rode about 50 miles last week, all off road. I know you hard cores don’t think that is a lot of miles but the trails I ride aren’t the easiest things in the world, so it is a good workout for me and they are a ton of fun. Anyway yesterday before trail work I went out and got in 6 miles of trail running at the Lebanon Hills horse trail. It was a great run. I felt good and did pretty well even with the break last week. It felt good to get back into it and I am planning on hitting it fairly hard the next 2 weeks. 2 very nice long runs hopefully will be included in there…

In other news Melissa has come to the dark side, she bought a single speed mountain bike. She got an On One Inbred. It is a sweet bike. I am kind of jealous. After she got it we went for a ride over at Lebanon Hills and she did great. She rode my Surly 1x1 over there a few weeks ago and really liked it, then after riding the Surly again at Murphy I think she was hooked and decided that she wanted a single speed of her own. We found the Inbred really cheap so we picked it up. The best part is she is riding it so far fully rigid. Old school! I am not sure if she will want to go to a suspension fork or not but right now she gets to feel all of the bumps…

I kind of have a dilemma for tonight; I am not sure what I want to do. Go ride a couple laps at Lebanon, Go ride at Murphy, or go for a road ride. I will be riding alone so I am not sure what to do. I am guessing there would be more people riding at Lebanon tonight and I might be able to find someone to tag along with but, riding alone might be cool as well. I don’t think I have had many solo rides this year. Murphy might be good. 11 miles of single track… hmmmm decisions decisions. I will probably end up on the couch with a movie and frozen pizza.

This Saturday Melissa and I are playing in the 2nd Annual Surly Disc Golf Tournament. I can’t wait. It should be a lot of fun. The entrance fee includes a golf disc, lunch and prizes…I wanted to play in it last year but I found out about it to late and it was full. I signed us up right away this year. So I am really looking forward to it. Melissa is a lot of fun to play disc golf with, once and a while she holds on to the disc a little to long and it ends up going backwards. But we have fun and that is all that matters.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Recap


So I have been away for a bit. I have been under the weather the last couple days, but am feeling better today. So let’s recap:

Last Saturday I did a long run of 12.27 miles. I didn’t do as well as I had hoped it would. It was really hot outside, very humid. Averaged about 13:53 minute miles which is still within my goal for the 25k but just barely. So that was a little discouraging. But I am hoping it was just an off day. I had to walk quite a bit and even though I carried a 32oz camelback I drained it, so I think I got a little dehydrated and my iPod died at 8.3 miles. Which completely sucked. I really enjoy running to music and have a hard time running without music. I am thinking that if it ever stops raining I am going to do a “test” 25k. Go out at 0730 which is the start time of my race and try to run 15 miles and see how it goes in the morning before it gets hot outside. I really do not like the heat and I am praying to whom will listen to make July 5th a very cool day, even a light rain is fine with me.

After my run Melissa and I met a couple friends of hers out at Lake Nokomis for a BBQ and to watch some of their friends competing in the 24 hour race around the lake. I have run at Nokomis a lot, I did 4 laps around that lake on one run and I thought I was going to kill someone. I cannot imagine running around the same patch of 2.5 mile trail for 24 hours. But the BBQ was a lot of fun and it was cool to see the runners. When we got there they had already been racing for about 11 hours and some of the leaders were already in the 30 lap range… Crazy talk!

Other then that it has been raining on and off for a few days. Melissa and I did get a nice road ride in on Monday. We just did a quick 14 miles that was really fun. Melissa is getting ready for her 22 mile bike race in September so she is trying to ride faster and learn how to use her gears to her advantage. I have a single speed road bike and feel like I am a fairly fast rider but I was chasing her for most of the ride. I think we topped out at about 25 miles an hour on flat ground which I thought was pretty good for being on a fairly busy trail and having to pick our “fast” sprints carefully to make sure not to kill ourselves or anyone else. She is getting very fast and I know that the biking portion of this run and bike race she is doing is going to make up for any problems she might have on the running portion.

I took my first “kind” of bad fall on my mountain bike on Tuesday night. I was riding Lebanon Hills; I fell in a nasty rock garden called Tedman’s Curve. I ended up wedging my front tire between a couple rocks and tipping over and falling down a hill. I got pretty scratched and bruised up. But I was with some real caring friends, I got up and the first thing they said was, “Is your bike OK!” I was riding my Yeti and apparently it is more important then I am. My bike by the way is ok. I am too. It was an interesting ride. Everyone in our group of 5 except 1 person had a pretty bad fall that night. So for that ride the trail won the battle. Good news though I have been able to nail the drops in the XX loop the last few rides, so I am very happy with that.

I am hoping the rain stops for a while and the sun comes out, I really want and need to get some trail running in and the trail is going to way to muddy to run on. And of course with all of the rain the mountain bike trails are all closed. So I guess for now it is road rides and runs.

More later.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Rainy and crappy

With my help the puppy in this picture could be a champion.

Hmmmm

So last night my trail run went really good. I had tickets for the Twins game last night so I had to do a really quick 5 mile run after work. Once again me and my virtual training partner did a run at Lebanon Hills, ran 5.33 miles and just a shade over 57 minutes. I was very happy with that time. If I can keep that up it will put me in the middle of the finishing pack for my 25K race coming in July, which is now 30 days away. I felt great after the run so training I think is going good. I am hoping to get a 10 - 12 mile run in this weekend.

The Twins game turned out be a really good game. It was looking a little grim when Perkins gave up back to back taters in the first, but they boys came around and ended up winning it 7-5.

Tonight I was suppose to do a group ride at Murphy, which is a really fun single track trail but it looks like it is going to get cancelled due to the weather so there is a bridge building night instead so I think I am going to go and do that. The group that I do trail work with on Tuesday is getting together to build some bridges for the new trail at Lebanon so that will be fun I think.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Results

Well the official results are out and I am a little bummed that they are not breaking them down by overall, gender and age group, they are just doing an overall but here they are:

Eric - 82 out of 436 - 28:47 - 9:16 per mile pace.

Melissa - 205 out of 436 - 32:55 - 10:36 per mile pace

I think we both did great...

I am going running right after work tonight, planning on a quick 5 mile trail run.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Still Waiting

I am still waiting for the official results to be posted on the official results web page... Ugh, it is really frustrating waiting. Took the night off from running last night to give myself an extra day to recover after the race, my right calf muscle is a little sore, but it is feeling better today. Tonight after work I have to pick up my bike. It is down at Erik's bike shop having it's yearly check up. I think all is well on it but I just want to make sure. Also tonight is trailwork night. I look forward to trail work, it is a chance to get outside and volunteer. I love working on the mountain bike trail at Lebanon Hills, there is a good group that usually shows up so it should be really fun.

More later I hope.

Monday, June 2, 2008

Personal Best

So yesterday Sunday June 1st I ran my best 5k to date. It was great, I am waiting for the official results to be posted online but I did look at the results after the race and I came in 82nd out of 400+ runners, I can’t remember the exact number of racers right now. I finished in 28:47 with a pace of 9:16, I was VERY happy with those results. My goal was to finish under 30 minutes and I did that and then some so it was all good. The course was really nice; it started on the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis and then ran down along the river and then turned, came back over the bridge and wrapped its way by the Mill City museum and then finished a block from the old depot. It was a nice course, one huge hill that sucked but otherwise it was great. After the race they had a band that was playing so that was fun. Melissa did well on her race as well; she hurt her knee again so she wasn’t very happy about that side of things but hopefully we can get everything worked out with that deal and she will be back on track. My friend Berry also ran the 5k yesterday, he did really well, finished 24th overall, I can’t remember his time but obviously it was really a good time. Overall the race was really fun. There was also a 5k9 so it was fun to see all of the dogs out there as well.

I am hoping to do some biking this week, the weather has been kind of crappy the past week, and with the rain the trails have been closed. So if nothing else I will have to get my road bike out and do so riding.

I am now 1 month away from my 25K… Yikes! Training will be kicking into high gear this month.

May totals:
Running: 54.83 miles
Biking: 136.76 miles

I am hoping to post the official results from yesterdays race soon.