The Race that Wasn't and It's Been a While

I am a terrible blogger. :)

Oh well.

So, Friday I headed over to do the Race Around the Lake...a race I love to hate. I love it because I have done it twice before and placed both times. The first year I did it it was my very first ultra ever and the best year I have run it. Everything went well, and I came in first with 54 miles. I skipped a year, and went back last year and came in second with 48 miles. It was brutally humid last year with lots of drops and slow runs. I did not have the best race and wanted to drop mysef but a friend of mine came out and paced me to the finish, saving my race. This year I was actually kind of excited, as I had a few friends going and 3 of them were going for 24 hours. I had grandiose plans of hitting 100k...I am certinaly in shape for it...but...yeah, didn't happen.

I got there with plenty of time to relax, set up and have a snack. I ate a great lunch of *safe* foods, and I had my own aid food and drink of things I had successfully used in training. I was really all set. I took off easy, knowing it would take me a few laps to get into a groove as the marathon and ultras go off all at once and its sort of a clusterf*ck to get a place at that point. I was getting into my groove and I hit the first hour and my time to eat/take salt. I try to eat and do salt every hour so I remember and again, that is what I do in training and it works. Ran through and grabbed a bar and scaps and took off. Ate through the next loop and drank and then...something happened. Somewhere around mile 10 I got a WAVE of nausea and puked...and the nausea never left for the rest of the night. Sometimes it was worse than others but I was stuck. I knew this was going to suck royally and I knew, at mile 12 that if I could not eat, there was NO way I could do 100k on no food. I tried EVERYthing...I could chew but not swallow past my gag reflex. Not good. I switched to plain water, and could only drink that if it was mostly ice...as soon as the ice melted I couldn't drink it. At that point I figured I would just keep going until I ran out of fuel, which I figured would be somewhere around 30 miles.

I had to slow WAY down, probaby doing 12min/miles at best, with walk breaks when the nausea got too bad. My pacers showed up around 11pm and I explained what was going on. I was able to run a lap with them, and then I sent them to run on their own as they came to run and I wasn't doing more than a slog, lol. We ran again at some point during the night for a few but overall, they didn't get to do much pacing...I ran with my friend Bill too, or walked, and he actually walks SO fast it made me MORE nauseous! I had to ask him to slow down, lol. I started setting mini goals- first to get to 20 miles, then 30, then 40...when I hit what I thought was 35 though I had pretty much hit my limit though. I wasn't able to drink anything at that point and had walked the entire last lap so I knew I was out of fuel and I could feel it...I did not want to continue and do damage...been there done that, and I'm all set. I must have miscounted somewhere as I had done more laps than I thought and was actually at what I thought was 38m(turned out to be 39) and thought I should go out for one more lap to make it 40...and my stomach did a roll letting me know I was indeed, done. :)

I hung out and watched the rest of the 12 hr finish, chatted with some friends and got to see my pal Steve, which I do believe was the highlight of my night :) Snoozed for a bit and then packed it in and headed home. I was still struggling to eat/drink so I wanted to get home where I had more options and I REALLY wanted to sleep. I was finally able to eat some crackers and flat coke(not the best choice but I needed something to settle my stomach!) and then later on had a big fruit salad, OJ, and the best green smoothie ever :) Slept off and on all day and actually slept through the night and slept IN until 8:30 this morning!!! NEVER HAPPENS! I was so excited to SLEEP! I feel great today, and am heading out for a run a little later :)

So...I have no idea what happened. It was EXTREMELY humid, but I can't blame that as I have run training runs in humidity before and to be sick by 10m...I run 10m several times a week. I did nothing new, nothing wrong...it just wasn't my night. I *think* I know what is going on...

I tend to be a stubborn one and do not always make good choices. I think trying to run multiple long runs/races at this point in my training is just dumb. It wasn't that long ago that I had my relapse and what I seem to forget is though I crash hard and fast, the climb out of that pit is long and slow. I am not 100% and won't be for a bit longer. I still feel off, tired, and...well not 100% and I really need to honor that and give myself the time to get back, which I will. I look at my race this past Spring where I PR's at the 50k coming off a good winter of training where I had been healthy and feeling good. I *know* it is possible, I simply need to allow myself the time to get back to that place...and I will. I am dialing in my diet and feeling better with that- a mix of raw and vegan is working well as I am finding I do need *some* cooked grains in my diet. I am ramping up my miles and recovering well from that, getting ready to add some cross training...but I still need to remember that I have a chronic illness and I am not *like everyone else*...as much as I would LIKE to ignore the fact that I have a crappy immune system, I have a crappy immune system. Between the Lyme and the Hashi's...I hate excuses, and I hate using them but...the fact is these things DO affect my training and performance. Period. I simply have to do the best I can with what I have to deal with.

Plus, the way I look at it, everything I do from this point until the end of next Mat is prep for Peak. Running 30+miles wanting to puke the whole time is actually good mental training, lol. Running THAT much over 10 days you KNOW I am not going to feel like farting rainbows the whole time. So, I think of this as having been a training run for Peak. Plus, aside from a wee bit of soreness in my legs, I feel totally fine, which tells me if I could have eaten at the race I would have done well.  Oh, well. Still a good training run, and another ultra on the books.

I do think I need to start making better choices though. No more back-to-back weekend races, I am actually going to do some tapering before I go to CO to pace my pal KZ at Leadville...I need to treat that like a race. Even though we won't be going super fast when I hook up with him, the climbs and altitude WILL be an issue. I want to go into that well rested and prepared. :) After that, I am looking at one race a month. VT50 in September, Ghost Train in October(which might be 100k not 100m) then Stone Cat in November...which is a week after GT...eek! But by then I should be able to do that. After that I am only doing one race betw. Nov. and Peak at the end of May(unless I jump into the Spring TARC which I might) and just focus on my training for Peak. I can't afford to do a bunch of races and go into Peak tired. So, no racing for me in 2013 until AFTER Peak. As in MAYBE I will do Stone Cat...and then? I am looking ahead, down the road and knowing that Peak will be life changing I am thinking beyond that I may go back to just running to run...sticking to the low key club races. I am just about over the big races with all the people and hoopla...I want to just meet up with people and run to run...no pressure, no fanfare...just a few people going out and doing their thing. :)

For now...everything is for Peak. That is my main focus at this point and I am pretty excited about seeing what I can do. :) Speaking of which...its time for that run... :)