I feel like crap today. Hay fever symptoms plus body aches and a low fever. I believe that it is directly related to over exerting myself Monday night. One of my goals early on is to baseline my current ability to see how much I need to improve to be able to reach my goal of running the Bandera 50k in six hours. I also read a quote from
Dean Karnazes
Dean Karnazes that recommended to forgo sleep in exchange for exercise. I went up to the South Austin Life Time Fitness club at 10:00pm on Monday night. I wanted to try to run for three hours. I brought two Larabars and a KIND bar. I started really slowly as I was nowhere near fresh after a couple of runs over the weekend. I went just over 4 miles in 48 minutes, then stopped to use the bathroom, eat a couple of food bars and refill my water bottles. I was pooped. I started up the second hour with a slow warmup, but I found that I was feeling a little bit stronger. Towards the end of the second hour it became somewhat difficult to keep up a 6 MPH pace. I had gone 4.5 miltes in 45 minutes, stopped to eat my last food bar and refill water. I definitely thought about quitting. My feet hurt, so I took off my shoes. I was wearing the Injinji socks with the individual toes. I ran in my socks another half hour. I definitely land more softly when I run without shoes. I bought a pair of Vibram FiveFingers shoes (the ones with individual toes, and no padding) about a month ago. The going has been slow. A three to four mile run leads to large blisters on the main pad of my foot behind my big toe.
I typically go with a no pain, NO PAIN approach. Or as Chrissy’s (my wife) chiropractor puts it, “shoot for exhilaration, and not exhaustion”. But as I said I wanted to baseline for the race, and also see what my body and mind do when I keep running past exhaustion.
Today, I can say that my body loudly disapproves. I definitely link exercise to hay fever symptoms. Austin is known for its airborne allergens, but I went for a year of walking my dog for a hour each day without having any problems. Once I started cardiovascular exercise last October I immediately started having trouble. I felt like I always had a cold. I would rest, it would get slightly better, I’d run again, it would come back. After having a cold for over a month that was getting worse, I went and saw the doctor. Actually I had to find a doctor first and then go see him. The doctor told me I had pneumonia. He said that I should get over it on my own, but put me on antibiotics anyway. It cleared up quickly and he gave me an antihistamine nose spray, Astelin, for continued use. That nose spray worked magic and I no longer had problems through the rest of the winter and spring. I peaked by running 10 miles around my neighborhood in two hours. Then I signed up for the Capitol 10k and ran it at a 9 minute/mile pace. I set a goal to run it at a 7 minute pace next year, so once I recover from the Bandera 50k, I’ll concentrate on increasing my speed for the 10k.
I don’t like taking medicine everyday, and I have a real problem with taking it based on gauging my symptoms. I feel like I end up taking it when I am just imagining faint symptoms, or I get to a point where I don’t take it at all until I am very sick, which is where I’m at today.
