Great White North….I mean South

It seems like only days ago I was bitching and complaining about how hot it was around here.  I can remember vividly stumbling up the driveway seconds away from a heat stroke with my shoes soaking wet from sweat.  Ahhhh……those were the days.  Actually, I could have used some more of the days in between then and now.

I awoke Saturday morning to a 19 degree temperature with a wind chill of 12.  With the events of the weekend, I had no other options than to suck it up and go run.  I put on my running tights with some running pants over that.  A long sleeve under armor shirt with a sleeveless under armor shirt on top of that.  Followed by a long sleeve technical shirt and my running jacket.  I grabbed the stocking cap and running gloves, and I was finally set.  Oh.  I also spread Vaseline all over my face.

If the Vaseline helped, I could not tell.  My face stung for a good while.  My feet were numb.  My hands were frozen.  And every time I headed into the wind, I wanted to go back to the house and make some hot chocolate.  To make matters worse, when the wind was at my back, my glasses fogged up and I was running blind.  It was such a delight.

The goal for the day was 18 to 20 miles.  I haven’t run further than 15 miles since the marathon in December, so I felt I needed to start pushing further.  The first couple of miles were uneventful because I could not feel my body.  When it did wake up, I noticed a weird pain/tightness in my right leg.  By the way, my left leg is the one with all the problems!  After about 4.5 miles, I stopped for a few minutes and stretched it out.  That seemed to do the trick.

I kept running along until about 11.3 miles when I went by the house to refill my bottles.  I also swapped stocking hats (the first one was soaked) and I saw that my friends, Clara-Leigh, Sandra, and Dayna, had finished the Disney Half Marathon!  I left my warm home again and hit the road.  The second shock to my face was brutal!  And on top of that, I did not change gloves, so my now wet gloves froze my fingers.

It took about a mile or two to warm up, and then things were back to the way they were: uncomfortable but tolerable.  I was holding a pretty steady 8:30 pace for the first 15 miles and then I started to feel some of the effects of the cold and the distance.

At one point, a quick cramp like pain shot through my leg and then vanished instantly!  Imagine you are in a dark room and some one flips on the light for a half second.  You are stunned, blinded, but shortly afterwards you don’t know what in the hell happened.  That is what it was like……except for more painful.

I realized afterwards that it was a warning that more cramps were on their way.  It wasn’t until close to 17 miles that my calves started cramping a bit.  It was also at that time that I settled on this workout being 18 miles.  Coincidentally, if I ran straight back to my house it would be 18 miles.  Amazing how that works.

I crawled up the driveway after about 2 hours and 36 minutes or so.  And my calves ached to the bone.  I haven’t had them hurt that bad in a while.  I stripped off all the wet clothes, put on some dry shorts and went and lay on the floor of my bathroom with my feet straight in the air.  I don’t know if it helped any, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.  I can walk today, so that is a plus.

I am thinking that my lower and inconsistent mileage since the marathon is not helping much.  I have 7 weeks to go, and I need to get some good miles under my belt.  We will see.

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