Disgusting

I set out for a 7 mile run today with 5 miles in the middle at tempo pace, which I decided was going to be 7:45. It is cloudless and beautiful out so I ventured out with high hopes. Tons of people out smiling and thinking that spring is right around the corner. (I am almost sure that it is not.)

The first mile I took it easy, but it still turned out fast as usual (downhill). I felt pretty good and ready to start going once I hit mile one. At some point here I realized I was ahead of my Garmin by .3 miles. So my warm up ended up being 1.3 instead of 1.0. Whatever, right!? (As I write this paragraph I realize how OCD I sound.)

Mile 2 hit and I started going, wanting to hit a 7:45 mile. I totally forgot how this felt and anticipated it would feel harder than it did a month ago since I'm sure I have lost some fitness. It did feel hard! I finished it in 7:38 (HR avg 175). Mile 3 just kept trucking on the trail (and took off my top layer -which is awesome!) and did it in 7:37. Still feeling hard, but not too bad; avg HR at 176 for this mile. In the middle of mile 4 I did my turn around and hit the wind...more than I had anticipated. About halfway through this mile my stomach started to feel, well, uncomfortable. I knew this feeling and just prayed it would go away. It did not. It got so bad that I had to stop about 3/4 through this mile. Sweet, I'm miles away from home on a path away from any bathroom. I felt great otherwise, just the stomach thing. I walked for a while and picked it back up again to finish my mile in a decent enough pace (7:50/177 bpm). After this I slowed down again and kind of did a walk/run combo (I didn't let the Garmin run during my walking portions, which is why this mile pace seems okay @ 7:57/174 bpm). The last .85 mile that I could muster I did in 9:19/161 bpm. Honestly I was doing all I could to get to a bano as quickly as possible. I found one at the last possible minute before I literally would have crapped all over Portland.

Sweet!

Anyway, sorry, for the level of detail on my *shitty run* but it was bad. After the potty break I walked the rest of the way home and still felt queasy and bad when I got home. Luckily it has subsided since but damn people...not fun. Ironically I had read Denise's report just hours before my unfortunate event. I feel your pain man!

Final stats on the run:

1 = 7:51/147 bpm
2 = 7:38/174 bpm
3 = 7:37/175 bpm
4 = 7:50/177 bpm
5 = 7:57/174 bpm
5.85 = 9:1 pace/161 bpm

TOTAL MILES = 5.85 (plus 0.3 miles @ unknown pace)
AVG PACE = 8:00
AVG HR = 167 bpm

Trying to understand what happened to me - I could attribute this malaise to the two bottles of wine I shared last night, or my breakfast of blueberry eggos and Funyuns. What do you think?

Now that I'm back into doing real training runs I am happy and despite the outcome of today's run it did feel okay for quite some time. I'm ready to get back into it. I talked with Shawn again today who is helping me out by writing a training plan for the next 5 months. Its going to incorporate all the little races, then capping things off with my first Olympic triathlon in July! I am pumped. More to come on race plan details, but I can say that I have registered for that one. First order of business this week is to complete a time trial in the pool - how fast can I do 1000 meters? Stay tuned...

We're very close to securing our wedding venue, but I am so excited I wanted to share the location with you fine comrades: www.gorgecrest.com.

That's all I got - happy Sunday!