W/E August 12 - Tortuous Rez Tour

Good week. Probably my best week in a while. I had aimed to do 2x4x Powerline hills but mentally and physically I shut down on the 7th one. I have more or less decided that if I slow by more than 10% of the first rep then its time to call the session. Overall the hill session was a success however.  After that I headed to Vernon for a few days to get some school stuff sorted out and got to do a couple of gorgeous runs along Kalamalka Lake and around a park there. Coming back on friday I tried to load up on some carbs because it was time to get in a long run since I hadn't done one in a couple weeks.

So I picked a 40mile loop that I thought would be reasonably quick being that I am hoping to do this 100km race in September and I wanted to get it done at a decent clip. The route was from my place in Cache Creek, out to our reserve where the main village is, then south up a hill/mountain 1700ft to McLean's Lake another small reserve of ours, then down the far side of the hill to Upper Hat Creek, following the dirt road to highway 99, through our Upper and Lower Hat Creek reserves, and back along highway 97 through the village and back home.  As I said I hoped it would be a pretty quick route; heading up a steep hill then a long gradual net downhill for 30miles. Not so.  I guess between the 1hr uphill climb, and down the other side, my legs took more of a beating than I thought because by the time I hit the second half, which was all on pavement my legs were already hurting. My hip-flexors and adductors the most. Starting to "feel it" at 20miles into a 40mile run is NOT good! To add to this situation it was starting to get pretty warm, about 20 degrees and I had not realized how much I was drinking. Generally speaking I have a hard time drinking enough water when I use my water bladder, but on this run it wasn't the case and I ran out of water with 10miles to go and the temperature steadily rising.  I had brought a 500ml waterbottle and 2L water bladder and burned through it in 30 miles. At probably ~25 degrees, hurting like hell and out of water I was a bit concerned about my ability to finish the run and considering calling for a ride but I really wanted to get through it. So I ground it out for another 6km and stopped where the highway crosses the Bonaparte river. I'm not sure what the water quality is like but at that point I didn't care and downed two bottles off water, filled up and was on my way. I felt marginally better but knew it was still going to be a tough grind back home. I finally dug my ipod out, cranked up the volume to drown out the traffic and started grinding. Agonizing. I'm really not certain why this run was so difficult. Yes it was longer than i've done in a while and yes a lot of it was on pavement but I just did not expect for it to be THAT hard. Over the last 10km I stopped probably a dozen times to walk a few steps then get jogging slowly again. I did eventually make it, but I felt worse than the first time I ran 50miles, and this was at a considerably slower pace.  I suppose I just need to accept that this is the kind of shape I am in. Fortunately when you do a run that is this agonizing you know the training effect from it is going to be awesome! Lets just hope I recover enough in the next 7 days so I can have a good one in Edmonton next Sunday.

Mon - 70mins Back Valley Hill + core wkt
Tues - 7 x P-line hills (88, 87, 87, 85, 88, 90, 97)
Wed - 80mins Kalamalka Park
Thurs - off
Fri - 55mins Kalamalka Park
Sat - 40mi in 5:38. Brutal
Sun - 20mins jog

From August 12, 2012