I did survive my 25 mile weekend with no injury or major pain, although the 17 miler on Saturday did cause me some grief. I didn’t get out on the road as early as I would have liked to, and I think by mile 9, I was overhydrated and very hot. I was feeling very sick to the stomach the entire time and my legs were like jelly. I managed to complete the second lap, plus the trek up carpenter road hill in mile 16 without stopping, but it was rough, I didn’t even feel good after that.

I think moving forward, I have to watch how much I hydrate, including using those performance gels. I felt fine until I stuffed myself with that and a ton of gatorade after lap 1, I think that did it. I guess this is how you learn these things though, i’d rather have the distress during a training run than on the actual marathon run.

I did hit two milestones this weekend, I have lost my first toe-nail (it went black on me). The good foot doctor Pete checked it for me and cut it off, and advised me to keep my toenails short while running. Its cool to have a podiatrist who is a runner, he gave me some good tips to keep my feet in shape. The second milestone is that upon running 17 miles, that is now my furthest distance run. I can tell that my aerobic and fitness level has increased because although i was sore after the 17 miles, within 2 hours, I was feeling fine (no pain). Same thing for the 8 miler on Sunday, I ran the triathlon course, plus some, just to work my strategy for next week. I felt great afterward. This is a good sign.

I head into my 3rd stepback in mileage this week, with my long run being only 12 miles, and of course the triathlon on Sunday, which will be a good workout since I will run faster than I usually do.

One last distressing thing to note as I head into this week. I was at my doctor this week, and i’m now monitoring my blood pressue for two weeks … taking it 3 times a day. It appears it is high again. I did tell him that I am a runner and that any medication he decides to give me needs to not hinder my performance or training or else I just won’t take it, I’m just like that. He agreed he would keep that in mind … so far, it seems slightly high (not as bad as when I was in his office), but I don’t think its anything to worry about.

Anyway, a HOT week is ahead (temps in the 90’s-100), so we’ll run in the morning most days this week, that kind of sucks because I have to get up early, and I don’t get that mid-day stress relief, but I guess its better than stressing my body in the blazing heat.