Hola

I´m in Mexico!

I got up early on Wednesday and arrived in Playa del Carmen by 4:30 local time. The weather is nice and I´m enjoying myself. A quick update on training:

Wednesday: off for travel

Thursday: 6 miles with 2 in the middle at tempo pace (7:30), just like last week. I was totally thrown off about where to run but figured I´d make do and figure it out. I ended up running out of town (the touristy part by the beach) and went West into the neighborhoods where the people live. I ran by so many construction workers, stray dogs, etc. I have never seen such polite construction workers! I didn´t take my ipod so I could ensure I wouldn´t get clocked by a speeding truck. All was quite well except for the heat. The first two miles were fine, then my 1st tempo mile was good, and I think I managed to hit it on target, however the next 3 miles sucked. I ran my 2nd tempo mile in 7:45 and could not go slow enough on my 2 cooldown miles. It is so damn hot here, but its not even really that hot - like 80 degrees at the most. I just couldn´t handle it. I couldn´t go slow enough to get my HR down, but I managed to get it done with many breaks.

In my next smart move I went to the beach and had an immediate post run margarita. NO BUENO! I took a long walk along the beach to stake out places for my upcoming swim, but by the time I got back to my chair I was done. I started feeling sick and icky all over. I went up to the room and lost everything. I had to lie down for several hours. I know it was a combo of a lot of things - lack of sleep, the travel, dehydration, sun, heat, tequila, etc. I ended up being able to hit dinner and got some food in me and felt better.

Friday: Today! I woke up after a full night of sleep and felt great. I decided to eat some breakfast this morning (which I didn´t do yesterday) as well as plenty of coffee and water. I went to the beach for a tiny bit, then went out for my run at 11 a.m. It was 6 miles easy with 5 30 second strides. I did a lot better on this run than the day before. I took an entire bottle of frozen water with me which helped a ton. Then after finishing I had a huge blended mango drink (SIN alcohol, fyi!) and that was awesome. I have been drinking tons of water since. Bummer is that I got burned on my shoulders during my run despite slathering on SPF. I have the sweatproof stuff but it still didn´t work.

Tomorrow is another work out that I can´t remember. I think we´re going to head to Chichen Itza to check out the ruins one of these days too. Other than that, just hanging out at the beach and lounging around. It is good. But I really miss my phone and having a computer and internet at my disposal. The cafe I´m typing from is not far away and it is cheap, but I can definitely sense that I´m addicted to the internet and email. I miss my peeps and actually miss Portland. I don´t know when I became such a homebody....!

Having fun though and wish you were all here!

Adios,
Emilia

PS - i will enter all my times and stats later, I don´t have my Garmin on me now...