exhaustion

Didn't run or nap Thursday.

Friday, we jogged just two miles then I worked out, and I actually napped for about 10-15 min after this.  By this point, I was so tired that my left eyelid was having involuntary spasms.   Why not both, I don't know, but when I miss too much sleep, one of my eyelids develops a twitch.  I can't remember if it's the same one each time.  I've been sleeping very soundly from about 1-1:30 am to about 7; I've given up late night snacking and will be trying to go to bed more quickly this week.  And I will definitely be trying to create a better nap environment.  My original biphasic sleep plan was 6 hours at night and 1.5 during the day, similar to what I've done before, but I've been missing most of those 1.5 hours this time.  However, I am intrigued: what will happen?  Will I relearn to nap, or will my schedule take a completely different turn?

Didn't run or nap Saturday, and didn't get to bed early enough, either.  I also didn't make it to the farmer's market that morning with my husband: we were going to wake up at 6:30 am but I was a corpse at that time.  It's very unusual that I'll sleep through an alarm or my husband getting out of bed or the dog jumping off the bed and yawning and clicking around (the dog is noisy).  My husband rightly decided that I needed to sleep.  I woke up to an eerily quiet house.

Today we both ran 13.1 miles and my husband ran them faster than me.  This was the local race, the Leavenworth Five Trails 1/2 marathon.  The five trails refer to historic settler routes; the race is actually on pavement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVzpfTGCWaE

Here is the elevation map: http://www.fivetrailshalfmarathon.com/images/elevation.png.  Smaller dips and rises are smoothed out.  This course is pretty much all hills.

I have no idea what the temperature was except that it felt coolish for a singlet and shorts, but once the sun came out, it felt warm.   I wasn't concerned about the temperature because it was just the final log on the fire.  Those hills!

My husband and I ran together and got over the big hill at mile 3 without too much discomfort, I think.  I was already a bit appalled at this point because the little hill just after the start got me breathing harder than I would like to be breathing before mile 8 of a 1/2 marathon, and there were a few smaller bumps after that so I couldn't quite get my breathing back down.  Nevertheless, the monster hill went very well!

Trouble was, there were still 10 miles to go, and many more hills, including a few that I hadn't anticipated.       However, that didn't really matter because the small hill after the large hill torched me and I was done.  I hung in until mile 5 and then started to feel queasy and hot.  I took off my singlet--I was wearing a running bra but I think at that point, I wouldn't have cared too much if I hadn't been!--and told my husband to go ahead.  He was feeling good and trying to pass people and I needed to slow down and try to let things settle.  He left me and I considered going home.  The route at this point passed within a few blocks of our house.  I did not consider then that I wasn't carrying a key--it didn't even cross my mind!

Fortunately, this part was mostly downhill; I didn't have much time to feel too apprehensive about a certain hill coming up (past another smaller one).  If I could make it up this hill, I'd be ok.

There were several hills after this which I'd forgotten about, some of them part of a nice series that gradually got higher and higher.  People were taking to the sidewalk to walk by the last hill but I decided that I was going to keep running.  I didn't care how slowly I went; I wasn't wearing a watch or GPS, I wasn't going for a PB, just a solid effort.  Small steps.  I'd gotten used to my fast breathing by this point, I think, but my legs were heavy and my shoulders and arms were getting tired.  But if I kept going, I was a winner! or at least, not a loser.  This was manageable.

For a while, I also had someone right behind me who sounded like they were coughing up alveoli.  This was incredibly draining and I considered stepping aside but I figured that this hoser was hanging on for dear life and if I stopped, he (or she?!!) would stop and I'd have to look at him/her and probably have a short a conversation with him/her, and I simply didn't have the energy for this.  It was easier to run up a hill and try to shake the vampire.

However, after a few more hills, I found some sort of comfort.  I felt like I was leaning toward the left side, but I also felt some sort of efficiency that made each step almost automatically fall into place prior to anticipation.  Very convenient!  Each new hill was appalling but I kept this form.

Bad math moment: at nine miles, I thought "oh, just three more to go!" And so Mile Ten was a crusher.  LOL.  It's amazing how stupid I get during races sometimes.

By this point, I was stopping to walk through the water stations, but I kept running otherwise.   Mile 11 was abstract.  This was on a hill or just after or before one--they were blending together by this point--and there were open fields to the right, real tilled fields and not just segmented future commercial building sites haphazardly mowed, and I have no idea what was to the left of the road or even on the road except that it was a wide road and there were no trees nor shade, and I wasn't thinking "where the heck am I?" or "how much longer?" but simply "11."   Actually, it was more of an observation than a thought: I stared at this thing as I approached it and it was just 11.  Not even a number.  It was a big orange and black sign on an otherwise featureless stretch of road (uphill?), sitting there off to the side, and at that moment there was no Mile 10 or Mile 12, nor any conceivable end to my discomfort, which had become a sort of equilibrium instead; I'd never felt better or worse, nor would I, and 11 signified absolutely nothing but it was also everything and passing it was disconcerting at first because there was nothing else.  And then my inner monologue kicked in again and I remember thinking that 11 was kind of constraining anyway, not that I could determine its demands, and I was much better off with nothing at all, or rather, endless limitless possibilities.  Sun and open fields, no barriers, just a collection of atomic bonds that are stronger than the surrounding others, spanning empty sunlit space.

This is the sort of thing that keeps me running.

The last mile was mostly downhill; I coasted down and felt the pull of the finish line amplified. And then a slight uphill, and then to the track and the finish line.  I was astonished to see the clock read 2:00:xx: I was thinking for sure I was doing 10-11 minute miles, and maybe I was going up the hills--I also felt like I was slacking on the downhills because I was trying to relax and rest, but gravity is indomitable!

I think my final time was 2:00:30ish.  This is a good kick in the pants.  Plus my husband beat me in a 1/2 marathon for the first time ever, by 8 minutes.  Another good kick in the pants.  This competitiveness is sort of distasteful to me--it's fun to joke about it and trash talk each other, but I also don't want my husband to be a rival, and I race against myself (and occasionally strangers ahead of me that get under my skin).  However, if I take it as a sign that I have gotten out of shape, rather than as a comparison to him, then maybe this will force me into my sneakers more often, and for longer.

My nap afterward was about....?  20 minutes?  My watch recently died so I have to check my phone for the time, but I didn't do this.

What next?  I have to gently coax naps first and foremost!