14 Miles To A Meltdown

• Posted: August 19, 2008
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• Author: Shéamus
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• Filed under: Observations, Workouts
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• Tags: No tags set for this entry.

As I’ve said on here before, I’m looking to up my mileage for my return to England where I want to be doing 50 miles per week. I wanted to do this in stages - 35 miles last week and 42.5 this. However, because of falling ill on Sunday, I’ve left myself a little short in my planned mileage, logging only a little over 9 miles through the first two days of this week. I’d hoped to do 14.

So, today and Thursday I wanted to make some up that up. I wanted to do 14 miles today. I had two problems - the heat, and fuel. I have a Fuel Belt that was meant to carry 32oz of water, but that must be British ounces because I’ve measured it here (using a cool - pun intended - feature on the refrigerator at my house) and each bottle only carries 6oz. So that’s a pretty paltry 24oz in total - nowhere enough for what I assumed would be a run of approximately two hours.

Moreover, in this heat and humidity running with that belt has given me some gastronomical problems that I’d like to avoid, especially given the problems I’ve had in that area the past couple of days.

So, I figured the smartest thing to do was break it up - run an opening block of seven miles, then come home, refuel, grab the Fuel Belt and then get the next seven done. Seemed like it made sense.

I didn’t have any time goals - as above, around two hours seemed about right, which mean a per mile average of about 8:30. It was unknown territory for me and in this weather I didn’t really know how my body was going to behave beyond a given point.

The first seven miles went pretty well. I started my run just before 9:30am and the weather was a reasonable 80, despite every forecast I could find promising as high as 98 today. As a result, though, it was very humid. That seems to be the payoff for a lower temperature (which obviously makes sense when you think about it).

I got back home at 10:25, drank about 12oz of water, 8oz of Gatorade and 6oz of Coke. I felt pretty good, all things considering. I took a moment to wash the sweat out of my hair and off of my face, changed my shirt (my other one was totally soaked to the point where I’d been ringing the water out of it as I was running) and set off again about ten minutes later.

Miles 8 and 9 were fine. A reasonable pace, and I thought to myself, wow - this is going to be a piece of cake.

By mile 11, I found myself in the middle of a bit of a body meltdown. It started off fairly innocently - my legs got a bit heavy all of a sudden, and my sweat level increased. At 10.69 miles, I stopped thinking I had to urinate, but nothing wanted to come out. At the end of mile 12, I started to really suffer - I was dehydrating really, really bad. My Fuel Belt bottles were empty and right about then I realised I simply had not taken down either enough fluids or not done it consistently enough right from the start. I suddenly felt really, really ill. The heat had risen many degrees and the sweat was pouring off of my body. I had no fluids, and it was a real hands-on-knees moment.

I needed water, and I needed it bad. Problem is, by now I was in the middle of nowhere. I would have had to run back to a Kroger to replenish my Fuel bottles and it sounded better to just keep going.
Which I did, for another three-quarters of a mile. By now, I knew I was dehydrating as my head was beginning to hurt. I waited a few minutes again, telling myself that, hey, it’s only 1.32 miles to go, piece of cake, you can do this in your sleep, etc, etc, blah blah blah.

At 13.50 miles I had to stop at the side of the road to puke.

At 14 miles, I was done. All-told, with the various breaks and pauses, I was out there for just under two hours and twenty minutes. My actual run time was about 2:01 - I paused my Garmin on each break, as I don’t like the idea of counting walking mileage. It’s run or bust for me.

A very long and messy split:

Upside? It’s a solid day’s work. The first seven miles were solid. Some of the next seven was. I got it done. My cardiovascular system felt fine throughout. It’s a good total for one day, however it was accomplished.

Downside? It could have been a hell of a lot prettier. My legs were toast after about 11 miles. I totally cooked out there… again. I dehydrated badly. As good as I felt going out, I suspect I may not be 100 per cent well. My last three miles were a bit of a nightmare.

Thing is, writing this now many hours later, I look back and think: Geez, you wuss, how could you have let that happen? But it’s amazing how quickly the body and mind forgets pain and suffering when it’s over. I mean, it’s all relative, of course - I wasn’t being tortured or anything. But it was a very difficult last 3-4 miles, and it hurt. It also hurt to have to stop and start, but I know I’m not the sort of person who feels the need to do that unless things are seriously going wrong.

However, it does make me wonder how it’s going to be when I move up to much longer runs, like 20+ miles. I read several ultrarunner’s blogs and it seems many of them take a far more casual approach to their distance running than maybe I do, throwing in a mixture of run/walking and routinely stopping at water fountains, stores, etc, to refuel and even to eat. I think that’s the way it has to be, because self-support, anything beyond 15 miles seems like a potential nightmare. I mean, it’s all well and good if you start to break down a little while away from your home, but if you’re out in the middle of nowhere that’s a world of hurt. Sure, many things can go wrong (but hopefully won’t), but taking care of your fluids seems to be something that’s essential on these long days.

I think one of the mistakes I made was assuming I’d be okay for 7 miles and could then start to think about fluids. That would have been fine if I’d then been stopping after 7 miles, but in this heat and humidity I think you need to be getting the fluids in earlier than the halfway mark - I mean, in a half-marathon, you wouldn’t wait until mile 8 before you had some water, would you? It sounded good this morning but it mostly sounded convenient, which isn’t the same thing at all.

I think, as I’ve said on here in the past, I need to start thinking about some kind of Camelback system (or similar). They’re pretty cheap and while I’m not sure how it feels to run with a couple of litres strapped to your back, these things are made specifically for that purpose so I don’t think it can be the worst thing in the world. The weather won’t be as much of an issue in the UK but the time will always be a factor. I also like the way that these modern hydration packs have pockets for everything you could possibly need - mobile phones, food, etc.

I also need to track down some gel shots - you’d think in America that would be easy, but nobody sells them, even my local GNC. I’ve never seen anything like it - in England the GNCs are about a quarter of the size and they have about ten different kinds. I guess this isn’t an area that caters to a lot of runners.

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I burned 1927 calories on my run. After I’d showered and cooled down for a bit, my wife and I went to Olive Garden for lunch. I’ve never been there before, but she always spoke highly of it, which clashed somewhat with the general perception of the chain on one or two TV shows I’ve seen. Turns out she was right and they were wrong - the food and service was superb. And at $45 with wine, and tip, unbelievably good value. And I was stuffed afterwards, so I think I got most of my calories back!

Tomorrow, incidentally, is the last day of the competition. Who will win? Join me then and find out!

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