Anyone that participates in sports or even watches sports has heard a coach or tv analyst comment on how an athlete is “peaking at the right time,” or perhaps has “peaked too early.” Basically, they are speaking to the entire goal of any training program; to be in the best situation to run your perfect race or play your best game when it really matters. In the NCAA tournament, you do not want your team to have its’ best game in the Final Four (ummm, hello UofI) you want it to be in the championship. Our marathon training plan also follows this traditional formula with the goal of getting to the starting line with the best opportunity to finish.
For D, Kris and me, this means that right now we should pretty much be running ourselves into a deep Grand Canyon like valley so that when we taper off our mileage 3 weeks before the marathon we will be hitting the highest peak possible. Have no fear my fellow blog readers; by no means did I peak too early. I was basically swimming upstream in the Colorado River for the last 2 miles of our 18 mile run on Saturday. That means I'm right on track to dig myself out of a ditch by our 20 miler...Can't wait!
Our Saturday run was just under 3 ½ hours and, in retrospect, it went ok (by ok, I mean, I didn't sieze up and stagger to an awkward finish). We had some crazy fog roll in which got us on a very common reference of Harry Potter (all three of us are Harry Potter geeks). When anything kind of creepy happens, we chalk it up to a Harry Potter event. We were running north on the path by Foster Beach and it was gorgeous! We came back south 10 minutes later and you couldn't’t even see the water which was about 25 yards from the path. It was rolling in so quickly we could feel the cool mist. Our only explanation, “Dementors!”
Perhaps the Dementors sucked the energy right out of me because right around this 14 mile marker is where I felt tired. I used my secret weapon, 10 pretzel sticks, and this gave me an extra two mile push but I was left with some cement legs for 2 more miles. D asked me if I wanted to walk and I replied with, “heck no, after all this time, I’m gonna run this 18 mile _ _ _ _ _ (runs with witch).” I have no idea who heard me, but I think it was loud. I finished with a little half mile kick out of pure self motivation to end that run. I was pretty useless the rest of the holiday weekend. I didn't have a “my feet and legs are tired feeling,” it’s an overall exhaustion; like sleep deprivation. Or, like a battle with the Dementors!
No comments:
Post a Comment