Week 3 Recap of My Quest for a Smaller Chest and Hot Marines

It's been a frustrating week of training capped off by a great weekend with friends and a successful long run.  Oh, and the Olympics!

As you know, I was having a brutal time of it with severe leg and foot cramps.  It got to the point where just standing my running shoes right after I put them on would result in cramps.  I limped out four miles on Tuesday but hurt so much on Thursday that I had to cut that four miler short.  I had thought the problem was that my electrolytes were out of whack and while I'm pretty sure they in fact were out of whack, after drinking 96 ounces of Nuun on Friday and then more gatorade on top of that yet still having problems I knew it had to be something more.

It's the new insoles.

Sadly, I did not come to that conclusion definitively by Saturday's CATnip 5K.  I was really looking forward to this race.  It's a great cause (Cat Adoption Team is a no-kill cat shelter in Sherwood) with great course support, this year it was a completely new (for them) course, and given that for the past two years for this race it was in the mid to high 80s, Saturday evening's race temp of around 76 degrees felt positively chilly to me.  Plus I was doing the race with great friends.

But it was not to be. 

My legs actually felt okay right up until the moment I started running on them.  Then it was instant cramps of my entire shins and feet.  It felt like I was running barefoot on iron bars (ever done that as a kid, stand on top of iron monkey bars?) while my shins were being beaten with those same bars.  Ouch does not even begin to cover it.  I stopped to stretch.  I stopped to retie my shoes.  By the quarter mile I gave up and just decided to walk the damn thing.  It was still nearly as painful to walk as it was to run.  I managed to run some of the last mile but couldn't even muster up the energy to run across the finish line, even with the happiness of seeing my friends doing first the wave and then making a victory tunnel for me to go through at the finish.  Pretty sure this was my slowest 5K race ever:  0:54:10.

During the race (or perhaps that should be "race"), I had a nearly overwhelming urge to take off my shoes and walk barefoot.  I decided that was a sign that it was the new insoles causing all the problems.  Unfortunately I have yet to figure out where I packed the original shoe lines for my new Nikes, but I did know exactly where my old Nikes were and I laced those up for Sunday's long run.  The first couple of miles were pretty ragged, as my legs and feet were still feeling bruised from Saturday plus I'd limped through 3.10 miles barely twelve hours earlier.  But then, no cramps!  Yay!  I finally found a good pace as I headed into mile three.  And fuel was my friend, my legs were tired from all the abuse of the past week.  Heading into my turnaround point I was feeling so comparatively good that I decided to push my nine miler out to ten.  I was regretting that decision just a tad around mile 8.5 ("We could be almost done," screamed my legs.  "But NOOOO, you had to do TEN miles.") but still finished strong.

Total scheduled mileage for Week 3:  20.
Total mileage completed:  19.52.

In other news, the Fruit Fly and her Man Friend came to stay with my this weekend to race.  We had a great time watching a ton of Olympic coverage -- so happy to have friends who share my fondness for the Olympics -- and, of course, eating and shopping and playing with kitties.  Plus FF got a 5K PR, as did MF as this was his very first 5K and his second race ever.  To put the cherry on top of it all, Kim took second in her age group and since the woman who took first also was first overall so Kim got first place Masters!  How awesome is that?!?!  Her prize was a jar of homemade cookies that I hear are quite delicious.  I may have to bop on back over to Kim's house to snitch one.  If I don't get lost finding my way to the kitchen ;)

You know it's a good weekend when you need a nap afterwards.

On top for Week 4 of MCM training is 4,3,4, and 7.  After this past week of pain, I love the idea of scaling back my long run.  Plus this weekend will be the first time in weeks that I can have a day to sleep in.  With packing and moving and training, I've had a few nights where I was able to get to bed early but not any days where there wasn't somewhere I had to be or something I had to do the next morning.  But at least one day this weekend I should be able to sleep until I wake up.  Sounds delicious, doesn't it?

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl