That is Going to Hurt

One thing that I am going to put in the “one thing I learned today folder” for later use is that when you sweat a lot over a long period of time, any friction taking place involving your body is going to hurt. This includes your legs, nipples, and any seem on your clothing that rubs against your body. I am going to experiment with some different ways to deal with this but I am definitely open to suggestions….let’s move on.
I think one of the most underrated parts of a running or triathlon training program is the big mileage days. On most programs you will see a weekend day where you have a long run or ride, or both. The idea behind these workouts is to get your body used to being active for an extended period of time. I think most people that have ever completed a marathon will tell you that the hardest part of the race was the pounding on your legs. I know that this is true for me. I ran the Chicago Marathon in 2002. Actually ran/walked the Chicago marathon to be more accurate, and I took a beating. I had run sporadically over the summer leading up to the October race and once fall rolled around that stopped. I took a couple of evening classes at Drake University and that combined with my full-time job, my training was pushed to the backburner and by the time the marathon had started, I hadn’t ran a single step for almost 6 weeks. I cruised right along through 16 miles before my feet started to hurt. By the time I finished the race I swore that I had a stress fracture and that I might be risking permanent damage by continuing and I had walked most of the last 4 miles! I continued anyway. It was a miserable experience that could have been avoided had I gotten in some long runs leading up to the race. So when I had my 2 hour bike ride on Saturday I told myself that I needed to stay consistent and keep pushing and that the mileage covered at this point didn’t matter. Same thing with my 90 minute run yesterday. I certainly wasn’t surging at any point during the run. I tried to keep the same pace all of the way through. I am a little worn down today but not too bad. I just completed my swim of 1700 meters at a nearby YMCA and I am drinking as much water as I can so that I don’t become dehydrated. So far everything seems to be progressing well. Less than 4 weeks to the Pigman Sprint Triathlon, less than 5 weeks to the Liberty Half-Ironman Triathlon, and less that 6 weeks until the HyVee Triathlon. I have a lot of work to do still but I feel pretty good.