I’ve gotten behind on my training log/blog so I’m going to cover the last two weeks leading up to the Palo Duro Trail Run (that wasn’t). None of it was very eventful after that Cameron Park run on Oct 10.
Thur, Oct 12 was supposed to have been another 10-mile training run on the hilly trails of Steiner Ranch. I did get 10 miles done, but I had to split them over two consecutive days.
As I detailed in my Palo Duro race report, I wasn’t really able to eat much those two weeks prior to race day. I met Gigi at 6:00 am Thursday, Oct 12. I was on time for once! As we got started, headlamps required, I made sure to mention to her that I hadn’t eaten in a couple of days. I wanted her to be prepared because I expected to have some issues and needed to keep to a walking pace.
I truly, hadn’t eaten much of anything in two days. I think the day before, I’d eaten a cup of cottage cheese with a fruit cup. Maybe the equivalent the day before. That morning, I’d taken an english muffin out of the freezer to toast, but was nauseous enough I turned the oven back off before it had time to heat up. Even after we’d finished and I’d had time to rest, food still wasn’t enticing. Not even Rudy’s breakfast burritos, which I love.
Was doing mostly okay, but started flagging at mile 3. Nausea was increasing. I decided 6 miles was enough of the planned 10 miles for the morning. On the way back, we agreed to meet the next morning, same time, same place and complete the last 4 to get my 10. (I added the two runs together and, as far as Run w/Hal knows, I finished the workout on Thursday as planned. LOL)
After crashing for several hours once home again, I finally decided to find something to eat. Not because I was hungry or free of nausea, but because I had to eat. Prior to crashing, I’d done a little research on how to feed yourself when you didn’t want to eat. That helped me pick soup and rice, for the best option to get me what I needed nutrient-wise (or at least started on it) and what I’d most likely be able to stomach. Wellll…I chose Chinese take-out. 😛 Note the best choice, but the most convenient and most likely to entice me to eat–hot & sour soup and fried rice with shrimp as the protein. I managed two modest servings of each twice that evening.
I had a bit of a hard time getting myself out of bed and headed to Gigi’s the next morning. I soooo wanted to text and cancel. I found it hilarious that Gigi admitted her immediate reaction when she received my “Here” text that Friday morning was “She showed up!” My friends know me too well. 😀
The 4+ miles that morning went about the same, although I don’t think I had to stop at all that morning. I’d actually been happy the previous morning when I’d only had to stop once. (Forgot to restart my tracker after, denoted by the straight blue line on my course map. <sigh>)
I stayed in Austin one more night, getting up early the next morning, Oct 14, to drive back to Teague. Determined to stick to my week 6 training plan, I completed the 7 mile run (all in one go, thank you), on the county roads that evening. Very manageable on the mostly flat and paved roads, as shown by my sub 17:00/mi average pace. Then came Sunday and the planned 8 miles.
I don’t know what wack-a-doodle crap Run w/Hal spit out as an “updated” training plan (it recalculates week to week based on the completed training during the previous 7-days), but it had the 7 miles on Sat, 8 on Sun then 3 contiguous days starting Tues for 4, 5, and 4 with only one rest day before the 15.5 miles in Palo Duro. Of course, Hal was only counting it as 13.1 miles since he doesn’t offer at 25K option (or the ability to name a custom distance for a race). Still, I felt like it was too much the week before a challenging race. It wasn’t hard to convince myself to pretty much blow off week 7’s training plan. I expected to complete 15.5 miles on Saturday, Oct 21. Then 7 days later when I couldn’t run those miles, I really had screwed up my training for the week, ending with a paltry 19% or mileage completed. Hard fail!
No pics to show for week 7. The two runs I did do, completing my total of 5 miles for the week, I did on the treadmill at Lott Fitness Center in Fairfield. Nothing to take pictures of. On to week 8!
Bonus pics from the Annular Eclipse on Oct 14, 2023.
