Last night we went to the movie "The Hangover". I loved it. I ordered a large bag of popcorn to carbo load on and it put lots of salt into my system. I've done this before and have never ever had muscle cramps during a race, I think it's from all the salt.
I actually had two bags of popcorn, the first one fell all over the floor beside my seat when I tried to save my soft drink from spilling. The young people beside me got quite a chuckle. Good thing they give free popcorn refills.
I ordered the book "Fit Soul Fit Body" from Amazon and it arrived yesterday. It is written by Mark Allen, the coaching program I follow, and Brant Secunda, a Huichol Shaman. Nine years ago August, I was fortunate enough to go to a couple of retreats they put on and spend time with them. The first was a 3 day retreat at Monterrey Bay and the second was a 10 day retreat in Alaska.
Alaska was the first time I experienced doing a "sweat lodge" and we did them every night. Essentially you sit in an igloo with hot, hot rocks that give off a tremendous amount of heat and the shaman keeps throwing water on them, it feels like your in a sauna. It was a small space and there was at least 30 of us in there. I remember it being so hot and all of us were shoulder to shoulder, two rows deep, and you couldn't move. Some people found it unbearable and had to leave. One time I had to fall to my side on the cool sand bottom because it was so hot.
The other thing we did was a "vision quest". I had no idea what it was or that we were going to do one until a day before we did it. Essentially you find your magic place in the woods where no one else is around. They give you a rattle that you shake when you arrive at your spot and if someone shakes their rattle back you move on to a new place until no one rattles back. Once you find your spot you sit there in the same direction for the entire night and you don't return until the next morning.
It was a little scary and I didn't sleep a wink. The retreat was in Juneau Alaska and it has the worlds largest population of Grizzly bears and I'm scared of bears. Lucky, none of the bears came across me that night, but the next morning on my long walk back to the retreat cabin, about 300 meters away one crossed the road in front of me and I had no choice but to walk past were the grizzly crossed the road. I was pretty paranoid. Then, only 200 meters from the cabin, a baby black bear crossed in front of me and it was only about 20 meters away. I was really freaked because I figured the mama bear isn't to far behind. Lucky I didn't run into her and made it back to the cabin in one piece.
Other than the sweat lodges and the vision quest, we also swam in the glacier waters. I shouldn't call it swimming. We really just jumped in and ran out. It was the coldest water I've ever been in. The glaciers are right in front of you and you see the blue ice at the base of them. Blue ice is apparently the coldest type of ice. It was quite an experience and Brant and Mark were very approachable and everyone got to know each other.
Taper Rest Day - No training
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