Running hot...

This morning started like every other morning with my old man shuffle. Normally it takes 30 minutes until my legs warm up, lately it's been getting worse and taking longer.

In the last 24 hours I caught up on all my lost sleep. In total, I slept 13 hours. This morning I was up at 10 am, felt great, and was looking forward to my long run.

The only problem was my legs. After 90 minutes I was still shuffling. Alyssa even asked, "Why are your walking so funny".

I can hardly wait until this season is over, with all the training and not taking any significant breaks in 18 months, I can feel my body needs to rest and rebuild.

Today being Fathers day, the kids bought me some gifts. Or I should say Alice bought me some gifts from the kids. The good thing about having distinct interests is it makes it easy for the family to buy presents for me. This year they got me a beer related fathers day card, chocolate cigars, a chocolate beer, a Dairy Queen frozen cake with a beer on it and the video series "Bullshit" with Penn and Tellier.

All my favourite interests were covered today; chocolate, politically incorrect viewpoints and humour, ice cream, a hot sunny day, an afternoon nap, the love of my family and a long run.

Before I knew it, Reid already started eating the cigars, but the chocolate beer is too cool to eat. I told Reid in the most non-loving fatherly voice, "He's dead if he eats it". It's going behind the bar. I'm sure it will get eaten one day. It will be the night that I run out of beer and munchies.

I can see myself sitting sadly at the bar and "viola", I haphazardly zero in on the chocolate beer and say, "Your day has come my friend". Then (In fat bastard voice) I say "GET IN MY BELLY!!!" as I aggressively bite of it's neck.

Today was a warm and sunny day, almost not a cloud in the sky. I left the house for my run at 1pm and it was 29 C. When I finished it was 32 C. It was the toughest long training run I've ever done in my life. Near the end, it felt like I was in an Ironman race. It was a great race day simulation training run.

My pre-run strategy was to run 10 minutes and walk for 30 seconds and repeat for the entire run. I also chose a very hilly route. By the 1:50 mark my heart rate started to elevate to the point where I had to start walking often to keep it in the zone. Eventually it turned out to a run 2-3 minutes and walk 20-30 seconds in order to keep my heart rate under 143 bpm.

I was smart enough to bring my water belt and I ran by three golf courses without stopping. When I left the house, I was determined to do the run without stopping for a beer. With 40 minutes left in my run, I was slightly tempted to stop, but didn't. I was committed to having an Epic training session.

With 10 km's to go, it became a grind to finish. Thoughts went through my mind at the 3 hour point to have Alice pick me up, as 3 hours was all I was scheduled to do and technically it wouldn't be quitting. It wasn't a serious urge and passed quickly. I was determined to finish, even if I had to walk. I then set a goal for myself, "to get to the convenience store 1.5 km from my house and treat myself to a Slurpee".

I also focused on this run as a prelude to training for ultra endurance events. I'm debating to do one next year. I was more concerned with keeping my legs fresh than going for speed. The heat was getting to me. The last 10 km was virtually shadeless.

Between the heat and the mental game playing, I got a whole new level of respect for ultra-endurance athletes. Guys like Bill Bradley are doing 6 hour training runs and 6 hour swims on weekends. Today, I internalized that I'm going to have to get comfortable with weekend 6 hour runs and 10 hour bike rides if I want to do a double or triple Ironman.

I finally reached the store near my house and got my Slurpee. What a mistake! After one sip I got the BIGGEST Slurpee headache I've ever had. It was beyond believe. I had such a strong "brain freeze" I dropped to my ass and almost fell over in the fetal position on the sidewalk in front of store doors. I was in pain. If anyone was watching, they probably thought I was having a brain aneurysm.

I learnt an important lesson, take very small sips. After I drank about half of the Slurpee, I started running again, albeit very slow for a few hundred meters. My legs needed to loosen up. I ran the remaining distance to my house sipping on my Slurpee, it was the perfect form of cooling hydration.

When I got home, the weirdest feeling came over me. The only way I could describe it was heat exhaustion. I downed lemonade, apple juice, orange juice and water. I wanted to get some sugar in me to combat any potential bonk. I tried to stretch my calf's but started feeling sick. I ended up taking my sweaty clothes off and jumping into bed wearing my non-compression underwear.

Initially, lying down on my bed didn't help much. I knew I needed to sleep it off. I was right. Ninety minutes of sleeping worked, it brought me back to functionality.

With that said, I wouldn't trade my day for anything. It was a great Fathers day. There was the love of my family, combined with beautifully hot weather, a tough, memorable run and a DQ ice cream cake for desert after a nice juicy steak dinner. To me, it was "priceless".

Long Run - 3:24:35 / 35.0 km / 5:49 pace / 141 avg hr