Going Long

It's happening. I'm starting to get into that territory where I am running more miles per week than I actually drive. Seriously. Considering I live 3.2 miles from where I work - and where I work also happens to be where I work out - I do very little driving each day. But when you count in trips to the grocery store, trips to the firehouse, trips to various other errand-places, the weekly mileage adds up. But after my long run today, I started thinking that I probably drive less miles each week than I run. That's scary.

This past Sunday's race (which I know I have still not written a report, but will get to eventually - I swear) was the last race on my triathlon calendar, so from here on out - it's strictly running. Well, I say that, but as long as the weather is nice I will probably throw in a few bike rides here and there and I might actually get back into the pool at some point, especially considering the beating my legs have been taking over the past few weeks.

I gave myself an off-day on Monday and spent the afternoon on the golf course, albeit NOT golfing. Instead, I had the pleasure of enjoying a gorgeous Monday not stuck in the office watching exceptionally bad golfers hack their way through a par 3. It really was awful. A majority of them had either A) never actually golfed, B) were too drunk to swing correctly, or C) a combination of the two. Considering they spent roughly $600 (which, considering this was a charity event, I'm sure was tax deductible), I wanted to advise them that next time, their $600 would be better spent on golf lessons, rather than an actual round. But nonetheless,

That's Tammy - my PIC (partner in crime). We bonded over balls and greens.

I could have been in worse places. Lucky for me, I didn't have to go to the cocktail hour - which seems odd because who has ever heard those words come out of my mouth? But I found out that by "volunteering" at the cocktail hour, you were also not allowed to have said cocktails - which is just ridiculous. Instead, I spent the evening getting my a**hole ripped through at a five and under meeting at the firehouse. I love getting yelled at for other people's mistakes - it's, like, totally my fave (sarcasm font on).

Tuesday I was back at it with a nine miler around Greenlawn. Nothing too strenuous - nice steady pace to get the legs going. Greenlawn is a good loop because the elevation rarely changes so you can keep it nice and easy (this is called foreshadowing). Wednesday I had an early client, which got me up and out of the house for the day - and also forced me to get my workout done early. On tap was a short, easy five miles around Huntington Bay. It's a normal loop that I do from work but it's got these two short, steep hills that are a pain in the ass to get up. It's not that they are long and steady - oh no. They are short and pretty much straight uphill, which makes them even worse. I'll take a long steady climb over those two bad boys any day of the week.

Today I opted to do my long run in the morning before work. I knew that if it didn't get done today, it wouldn't get done and the marathon is only 6 weeks away so I'm starting to run out of days to actually do my long runs. And I have also run out of excuses about upcoming triathlons and events - damn. So it looks like from here on out, I will actually have to run long when my training plan tells me to run long. Ugh. This marathon thing is so much work!

Anyway, so I did my longest training run so far - 20 oh-so-painful miles. I opted, for some reason unbeknownst to me as I sit here now, to run down to Crab Meadow beach and then through Northport and back to Huntington. That was a mistake. I don't know why I thought that this route wasn't that hilly. For some ungodly reason, in my head this route was relatively painless and easy. In reality, this was not the case. This route when straight downhill, which only meant that I had to, at some point on this trek, make my way back uphill. That occurred somewhere around the ten mile mark - and the roughly :45 seconds that I fell off pace can attest to that.

There's a picture for all you sadists out there who would like a detailed vision on my pain.

When I got done, I seriously thought about collapsing. There was a very big part of me that wanted to lay down on my front lawn and take a nap. Lucky for my neighbors, I made it downstairs before collapsing in a heap right inside my doorway. (Actually, this is much more dramatic sounding than it actually was. I believe I did slowly lower myself to a sitting position on the floor before making it all the way down into a laying position. My floor is basically concrete so collapsing would have hurt - and I was already hurting enough.) I finally got up after about three minutes and stumbled to the kitchen where I retrieved these three items:

Chocolate/vanilla protein shake. Coke. Gatorade. (The bottle of Jack was, unfortunately, not consumed. Shame though, because I really could have used it.) With my liquids assembled, I grabbed the one I needed most - the Jack Coke - and stumbled to the shower. Having a can of Coke in the shower is not really as fun as having a beer in the shower, but it would have to do. I decided that standing in the shower would take way too much effort so I opted to sit in the shower and proceeded to wash my hair and body from this seated position. At some point I realized that there was a strong possibility that I might not be able to get myself up and out of the tub. I felt a little bit like this woman probably felt:

Only I was in the shower and my Life Alert was no where to be found. So I had to make a decision - either sit here in the shower and probably fall asleep and drown (and then have a Lifetime movie made about how ironic it is that I am a triathlete and swimmer and I drowned in my bathtub while taking a SHOWER. Pink would play me. What? It's my blog, I can cast it however I want.) or figure out a way to get out of the shower without ripping down the shower curtain and/or hurting myself.

I managed to get myself up and dressed before collapsing in a heap on the couch to watch mindless television and take an epic nap before going to work. The moral of this story kids: don't do your long runs in the middle of the week, when no one is home and the possibility of drowning in your shower is present. Also, no one (and by "no one" I mean SJ) was home to make me a sandwich or cure my running-induced hunger, so I had to make my own food, which sucked. Oh, and when you run during the week you also cannot have an adult beverage as they are frowned upon before work.

I'm sticking to the weekends from now on.