5k

Saturday, June 9^th, 2012.  14 mile training run.

This is a recovery week, so I have gone fewer miles at a slower pace than I normally would.  I’m learning that rest and “easy days” are every bit as important as tough, muscle building workouts.  Despite the slower pace, I start the feel the now familiar sting of glycogen depletion.  I glace down at my GPS watch and see that I just passed ten and a half miles.  “Figures,” I mutter to myself.  It’s usually around ten miles that I start to ask myself if I really enjoy distance running.

Then, a crazy thought enters my head.  It is a combination of a memory and an obsession.

October 29^th 2011.  The Chosen Marathon.  New Braunfelds, Texas.

I just finished climbing the big hill of the The Chosen Marathon (a VERY cool run for anyone interested!) and, as distance runners say, I hit the wall.  For those of you who haven’t had the privilege of hitting the wall, meeting the beast or running with the devil, it is similar to being woken up in the middle of a very deep sleep – and being forced to run.  You’re head is fuzzy, muscles are uncoordinated and unresponsive, sudden and often uncontrollable urges to vomit ransack your body, and you feel pretty much like poop.

The reality of the situation is that your body has burned up all of the glycogen stored in the muscles.  Glycogen is basically the gas that your body runs on.  When you hit the wall, you’re out of gas.  Unlike an automobile, however, you’re body has a backup system and can continue to go even without fuel – it just hurts like the dickens.

I continued jogging at what I felt was a steady pace.  Twenty miles.  Twenty-one miles.  Twenty two?  Where the heck was twenty-two.  I should have passed it by now…I checked my watch as saw that only 5 minutes had elapsed since mile twenty-one – ouch.

Being my first marathon, my objective was simply to finish the race.

Then, something magical happened.  Over the crest on the next hill I saw a mile marker that read “23”.  My heart leaped. “Twenty-three miles,” my fuzzy brain reasoned.  “That means I only have a 5k left.  A short 3 miles to the finish line.” 

My Personal Record for the 5k was just over twenty minutes. 

“Soooooo,” my increasingly fuzzy brain continued, “if we go hard, we’ll be done in just over twenty minutes!”  (You can see hear how the brain grows delirious after excessive running).

I kicked it into high gear.  “Twenty minutes to go,” my brain sang happily, “just keep up this pace…we can do it!”

That lasted 20 yards.

“System overload! Warning, Alert!! STOP!!!! We don’t have the resources for this!!! Whose crazy idea was this anyways?” my brain shouted.

Those who have run marathons and half marathons share in a unique knowledge that the last 3 miles of these races are among the longest 3 miles ever covered on foot.

June 9^th, 2012 10.9 miles into a 14 mile training run.

I hit the lap button on my watch (that will keep the total miles and time while giving new time and milage from this point on).  3.1 miles to the end of my training run.  Just a 5k to go.

My brain fires off the message to pick up the pace.  Legs respond slowly…but surely and I feel myself accelerating to a sub 8 minute/mile pace.  (We’ve already established that I’m not a super-fast-Olympic-elite runner.  Anything sub 8 is fast for me.)

I rounded the corner and headed up the street through town.  Somewhere in the back of my mind (which was slowly slipping into the fuzzy state) it registered that most of the next 3.1 miles were uphill – not steep, but consistently uphill.

One mile. 

“Isn’t this supposed to be a recovery week,” I ask myself. 

“Shut up and run,” My Self responds.

1.5 miles.  “I can’t do this,” I gasp.  The all knowing, all powerful watch says that I am nearing 7.30 – mile. 

Just go to the highway.  Just make the highway.

I reach the highway.  The gas station is only a few yards down the road.  Run to the gas station.

I pass the gas station and find another marker to run to, and another and another.  My pace drops to almost 7 flat for time but despite my best efforts, I feel my legs turn to lead and see that I am close to 8 min. miles again.  I wish it was faster but know that I am giving it all I have at this point and there is nothing I can do to make it any better – and that is good enough for me.

2 miles come and go.  One more mile.  I pump my arms hard to keep leaden legs moving. 

2.3 miles…2.65.

Just don’t give up.  You’re almost there.  There is semblance of joy now, because I know I can do, and will do it.  And I will do it after having run 11 miles, and that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy – or is that dehydration?

3.1 miles in 23.08.

I slow to a trot and coast the rest of the way home.  Not a PR for the 5k but I feel good about the workout.