The Journey to a Barefoot 50-mile Endurance Run: Week 5 of 18

The week started out very promising.  After two weeks of holiday run-around, I had high hopes of completing the training mileage for this week.  Things were going great all week . . . until early this morning when I woke up sick with a cold.  On a more positive note - I bit the bullet last night and officially entered the American River 50-mile Endurance Run!  It gave me a feeling of real excitement mixed in with the fear of "what the hell did I just do?"

As I mentioned in last week's post, I ran my longest, nighttime barefoot run of 14 miles on Monday as a "make-up" run of sorts.  It was a great run and really gave me high hopes for a good high-mileage week.  The week continued to be promising with me hitting all three of my mid-week runs of 4 miles, 4 miles and 6 miles (T/W/TH).

On Saturday, the goal was 16 miles.  After a breakfast of oatmeal with chia seeds, I headed out to Shima Tract, which is a farming island on the San Joaquin Delta.  There are several ways to run the island - a 4 mile loop or an 8 mile loop if you do the whole island (there are various paths to criss-cross the island, but basically the mileage is the same).  The road is a gravel levee road, so I wore my Sockwa G2s to take a bit of the edge off the gravel.  The first couple of miles were uneventful.  Then when I reached the western edge of the island, the road turned north and I was blasted with a full-on headwind.  My pace dropped quickly from a steady 9-minute mile into the 10s.  I thought that the wind wouldn't hold up once I reached the northern end of the island and turned to the east.  Wrong.  By the time I reached the northern end of the island the wind had grown stronger.  My pace was fluctuating between 10 and 12-minute miles.  Even when the path turned out of the direction of the wind, I had to fight to stay on a straight track.

I managed to get back to the starting point at 8 miles.  I was feeling a bit of nausea, so I popped a couple of Hammer Electrolyte pills and sucked down some water from my hydration pack.  I nearly heaved as the first pill went down.  I think it was more that I was feeling bloated or something and my body wanted to exhale when I tried to swallow.  I managed to compose myself and take a relaxing breath and swallowed the second pill and headed off down the road again.

As I rounded the first turn toward the west, the wind had picked up even more.  On the first loop, the wind had not even been an issue at this point (approx. 1-mile into the loop).  I passed a dog-walker who commented, "You're in for a workout today!" Little did she know that I had already been through this once already.

At this point, I noticed my legs were tingling a bit.  I had no idea why.  I watched as a 5-foot diameter tumble weed rocketed across the farm and disappeared into an irrigation ditch.  A few moments later, it shot out of the ditch, up the levee, across my path and into the water.  At about 9 miles, I finally realized why my legs were tingling.  They were being stung by tiny bits of dirt being blown across the farm.

By now, I had turned north again, directly into the wind.  I was being pushed back.  My "running" pace dropped to nearly a 15-minute mile.  I felt as if I were running uphill.  When I reached a cross-island road at mile 10, I decided that I'd had enough of being pelted by small rocks, twigs, leaves and other junk.  I called it a day and headed back across the island.  Even dropping down 10 feet below the top of the levee didn't protect from the wind.  I could hear it actually howling across the island.  Amazing!

I made it back to my truck at about the 12 mile mark - 4 miles short of the goal.  No worries, I thought.  I'll just make it up tomorrow.

Little did I know that the cold my family had been subdued with all week and I had been fighting to not succumb to was about to hit.  Five o'clock this morning, my alarm buzzed for my run.  My throat was on fire.  Damn!  I hit the snooze and went back to sleep.  When I awoke a couple hours later, I was completely congested.

After my shower, I felt dizzy (a symptom my wife had with her cold and ear infection).  I held out for a possible night run.  By this evening I had crashed out on my couch while my kiddos played.  I kept napping in 20 minute increments hoping that I'd feel the energy to go out and run.  No dice.

So, for the week not counting Monday:  Total miles - 26.  Actual miles for the week 40.

Plan for this week:  4/6/6 (T/W/TH) and 18/10 (Sat/Sun).

Here's hoping for a short-lived cold.  I start training some co-workers for an April half-marathon this week, so I hope I get lots of time on my feet to compliment my training schedule.