Nearly 1000 and to the Chinook run course

Another hot one today, so I headed out for my long run fairly early today. There was a nice breeze blowing, and it didn't seem too hot at the start. I decided that shade would be nice so I headed past the Safeway and down into Fish Creek Park. From there I headed east along the main path, and made it to MacLeod Trail in 51 minutes.

Almost right after that I was on the Chinook half IM run course, the scene of some terribly slow running and great emotional stress by and for me. But I wasn't thinking of that part. I was thinking that was exactly where I met Kelly R the first time, during my very first triathlon. I was on the second loop of the run and beginning to struggle. I'd been forced to start walking well before an aid station that I wanted to run to. I knew I'd be walking the rest of the race, about 8 K at that point. It was effing hot, I thought my head was going to explode, my feet hurt, and I was ready to be done. At that point I wasn't sure if I was going to make the cut off, and was beginning to not care.

Kelly caught up with me just as I reached the aid station. We said hi, took our time with water, ice, snacks and just plain not moving, and headed out. I expected her to start running, but she was walking. She said she needed someone to talk to, and I was it. We walked the rest of the way, at probably a brisker pace that I would have alone. Chatting the whole way. At some point fairly soon we realized we were going to make the cut off, and things got much better. We were near the back of the pack and I can't remember if anyone passed us or not, but I didn't care, we were in our own happy world. We "ran" across the finish line together. Here's the photo.

Today I was running easy and relaxed, trying to maintain a good turnover, and not breathing too hard. In fact, if I started breathing too hard other than going up a hill, I slowed down a little. I only ran on the Chinook run course a few minutes before turning around at 55 minutes. I was figuring to max out at 2 hours today, and thought it reasonable I'd be 5 to 10 minutes slower going back given the uphill nature of that direction, and the slowly increasing heat.

Turnaround was a little over 7.5 K. I started getting a bit tired, and it became more difficult to maintain my turnover. Going up out of Fish Creek wasn't bad, but I certainly wasn't bounding up the hill. From about Safeway to home, I started getting these mild pains up and down my calves that I've never really felt before. It was sort of like a mild version of the TENS machine they hook up to you in physio to give you those electric shocks to help relax muscles. At that point I figured I'd stop when I got home and walk to cool down. Home again 1:53:30, for a 15 to 15.5 K run. This is a little slower than last week, but I was working considerably harder last week. Almost all of this run was at a chat pace, overall between 7:15 and 7:30 per K.

I can feel it most in my hip flexors and calves. At one point during my post-run walk I dropped the water bottle I was carrying. I had to stop and think about out to pick it up; my legs were really quite stiff at that point.

Some of you, (I can hear you, you know) are saying, "enough of that run shit, what's with that evocative reference to 1000? Is that total training run K, since you're such a geek you'd probably know that?"

As some of you know I've been doing this blogging thing for a while. Fairly soon I will publish post number 1000. Soon. Hold your horses. Don't get your knickers in a twist. As a special treat for my readers, I will take suggestions for what that post should contain. Feel free to comment, or send me an email.

When I started, I never thought of getting this far. Some of the people that were active bloggers now don't anymore or haven't for months. Susi, Missy, Loose Moose, Tisha, The Blonde, Jenna, Copia, Leana (blogging on different topics and might get back to tri stuff now that the big distraction is out of the way), Spanky, Amber, Dano, Amy and others are all much missed in the blogging world, at least by me. Some are on other social media, but for me it's not quite the same.

So I think making to post 1000 is a big deal, and I'm thinking of little ways to celebrate. Any ideas are much welcome.