After some food, water, and soda, I almost feel like a person again. Today’s run was 24 miles in the hot, humid heat. If that fence in the photo wasn’t there, I might have jumped into the water. The idea was that having the fence partially in the photo would be cool, but the effect is not quite what I thought it would be. I took another photo where I placed the focus on the fence itself, but that worked even less. Who cares, honestly.
I am not in the mood that the previous paragraph might suggest I am in. I am happy and feeling good because I finished that run. There was not a moment where I felt frustrated, or like I didn’t want to be doing what I was doing. Finishing was a given and I finished strong after slowing down significantly around mile 17-18. At that point I knew if I kept moving forward and running a little bit, I would come in around 5 miles an hour. So it would have been easy to just coast. And really, at this point it doesn’t matter if I’m running dead-on 12 minute miles. I can go slower and that’s fine. But I kept running when it didn’t feel good to run and that’s just good practice.
Today, I had the pleasure of meeting Dana at the halfway point, or thereabouts (we had a little confusion about where the halfway point actually was). She gave me what I think I’m going to start calling the potion. It’s Gatorade plus Gatorlytes, which is an electrolyte powder made by Gatorade. You can’t put this stuff in water because it would taste like the Gulf of Mexico. You have to put in some type of sports drink. All I can say is, for days like this, when cramps are inevitable, the potion is unstoppable. After 5 minutes, any cramps just disappear. It works. I think it’s just a whole lot of B-Vitamins and salt, so kind of like S-Caps but with more stuff, and Gatorade.
Dana came with me and was my pacer for a mile, then she turned back. It was lovely to be with her in my alternate reality. By far the best part of my run today.
Nearing the end of the run, I did a kind of self-inventory. How did my legs feel? Where was my heart rate? What was my head saying? Did I have any pain? Basically, could I keep going? These are important questions because 24 miles is not even one-quarter of 100 miles. And I wanted to be completely honest with myself when I answered. Everything felt good at the end of the run – my legs were kinda trashed but they’re the most resilient part of my body, my heart rate was at a steady 125-145 bpm between running and walking, my head was just saying, “More water,” and no, I wasn’t in any pain. All good answers. So it’s hard to know exactly what would happen if indeed I was to continue, but I think with the right resupply of fluids and nutrition, I would be okay going at least to 50k in this type of heat. Probably to 50 miles. My will to block out everything that tells me stop is getting stronger.
This is a good look.
runjournal 