August 17th: Hold On To Your Lunch
It had now been about two weeks since my last hard run, I don't even count the treadmill because is not comparable. When I left for my trip we were doing hills in our Tuesday night GTS and I had completed 10 miles on our long run like a champ! But oh how quickly the body forgets and spirals into mush.
Much to my surprise we were still doing hills in our Tuesday GTS. Except we had moved from a friendly hill to this beastly hill on the other side of the park. This hill had a serious attitude! I think it flipped me the bird when I got there. But hey I'm a New Yorker, I don't get phased by attitudes. I once had a bum curse me out in Penn Station because I wouldn't give him money. It was actually pretty funny, but I digress.
Anyway I pushed the hill's attitude to the side because I was pumped to get back on the wagon and was looking forward to good workout. As usual this plan immediately went downhill (no pun intended). We were doing repeats again, running a hard effort up the hill and recovering down the hill. After two times up the hill I started to feel sick to my stomach, the feeling you get right before you throw up. I've seen this happen to people before, where they are pushing themselves so hard that they throw up. I personally don't see anything wrong with this. Obviously if you feel like you need to throw up your body is telling you to get rid of something that's not right. I decided to tell my coach Jim how I was feeling.
"Not to sound gross, but I feel like I have to throw up. Should I just step to the side and do it? I think I'll feel better."
"No, don't do that just chill out for a little while and it will pass." Clearly Jim did not understand the seriousness of the situation, so I thought I'd reiterate how I was feeling.
"Um, I don't think it's going to pass, I REALLY think I should go throw up and I will feel better."
"Just sit down take a few sips of your Gatorade and you'll feel better." I hate getting into back and forths with authority figures so I just took his word for it, sat down and tried to hold it in. A few minutes passed and Jim asked how I was feeling.
"It still hasn't passed! I still feel horrible! What does this mean!?! Am I done? Can I not run hills anymore? Is my body refusing to work with me because I took a week off?" Jim looked at me like I was losing my mind. I knew I had taken the dramatics over the top so I just stopped talking and he asked me a series of questions.
"When was the last time you ran?"
"About two weeks ago."
"Ok, was it this hot out during your last run?"
"No." come to think of it when I did my last hard run it was nice and cool out. This particular day it was 90+ and humid.
"Ok, what did you drink today?"
Shamefully I answered, "coffee and iced tea."
"Alright, it sounds like you got a little out of shape while you were on vacation and your body needs to adjust. You're dehydrated and trying to push yourself in really hot weather. So just take it easy." I gave Jim a blank look and said "thank you." He had diagnosed me in less than a minute and sure enough a few moments later the nausea passed and I was on my way back up the hill! Everything he said made sense, why didn't I think of that? I'm so determined to progress in my training I didn't realize that knowing when to take it east is progression!
What Did I Learn About Running That Day?
1) Pushing yourself is not always the best thing to do when you're just getting back into a training routine
2) sometimes you have to take a step backward to move forward
3) Throwing up is not always the answer to your problems
August 22nd: Lack of Muscle Memory
On Sunday the team ran in a 10 mile race at Prospect Park instead of doing a long run in the streets. This meant that we would run the outer loop of Prospect Park three times, which meant I'd have to run up that beastly hill three times! I wasn't too nervous because like I said earlier I was running 10 miles like a champ pre vacation. When I got to Prospect Park it was raining, this was my first time running in the rain. After the first lap I realized that this was 100 times harder than I remembered. But on the bright side it had stopped raining.
I was doing ok on the second lap until I hit that hill, the one with the stank attitude (which is about the half way point for each lap). I had to dig deep to get to the top. Quietly, when I got to the top of the hill I wanted to just keep running out of the park to the Grand Army Plaza 2/3 stop, go home and get in my bed. But I found my "eye if the tiger" and kept going.
By the time I hit the third lap Murphy's Law was in effect. It was full on raining, I was tired and my body was breaking down. My body was talking to me. As a matter of fact I was having a full on conversation with my body, it went a little like this:
My legs started first with, "WTF are you serious with this nonsense right now!?!"
"Come on legs, cut me a break I need you the most. I promise I'll give you some Icy/Hot later."
Then my butt chimed in, "look here girl I'm not built for all this. My job is to sit up and look cute. I'm the muscle that doesn't like to do a lot of heavy lifting."
I immediately snapped back "listen you, you've been doing nothing but expanding since
my 25th birthday! You need this more than any other part of my body." Before I could continue to scold my butt my abs interrupted.
"Excuse me, I really feel like I've been doing my part today can we please take a break?" My abs were so polite about the situation I started to feel bad. Then came the final straw...my hands. My hands were so swollen, this is because I was dehydrated and releasing too much salt through my sweat without replenishing. My hands didn't even have to say anything I could already see that they were suffering.
At this point I had about 1/4 mile left, every part of my body was screaming for me to stop....except my mind! My mind shut all that noise down. "Would you fools stop complaining, we have a goal to complete. Marlena don't listen to these idiots you're fine look the finish line is right there!" Sure enough the finish line was about 100 yards away and all of my teammates ( who were finished) were cheering me on. A few seconds later I had crossed the finish line!
I have never been in more pain in my life! This was such a humbling experience on how quickly you can get out of shape. I walked away (well really limped away) from the race half proud and half scared. If I was in this much pain after 10 miles, what will happen after 26.2?
What Did I Learn About Running That Day?
1) If you don't use it you really do lose it
2) ok a real lesson: you're body will swell if you lose too much salt and don't hydrate (which is what happened with my hands)
3) Listen to your mind not you body because sometime you're body is ready to throw in the towel at the first sign of trouble
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