Today started out with massive amounts of food being prepared, while I sat in front of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I love the parade every year. We had a huge feast around noon, and I think I ate more than I have ever eaten in a single setting. I've been working out for a year, just so I could do this, and I enjoyed it immensely.
Since I generally try to track what I eat pre-run, I will do my best to give a rundown of the food I ate. There's no point in typing out the amount of each - just assume it was a cubic buttload. Here goes: Tofurky with stuffing and gravy, stuffing (not out of the tofurky), mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes and applesauce, corn, rolls, deviled eggs, homemade noodles, black olives, Dew, and a lot of water. My parents like that cranberry stuff in the shape of a can, which has always horrified me, but I've realized I really, really like cranberries in recent years, so I also had one small bite of the can-berry sauce. Nasty. (You'll note an embarrassing lack of pumpkin pie on the list - I just didn't have room at this point.)
After my parents left, I was still pretty stuffed and wasn't ready to workout. Plus it was frakking freezing outside. I figured yoga may be my best bet for today - stretch out that belly a bit. From the warmth of the inside of my house. At any rate, I sat down at the computer and read a blog post I had saved from Runner's World from a few days ago, on puke. I fear puking from a run - frankly, I don't ever want to push myself so hard that I puke. That's so not what this is about for me. However, I understand that it could happen just because I accidentally drank too much water or something, so the topic needs to be looked into if I plan to prevent it. Given the massive amount of food I ingested today, I definitely thought this could be my day. Turns out the post was kinda just a joke; it didn't have any real information in it, other than that you will face puke in your running career, whether it's yours or not. However, the comments, while entertaining, also explained the general understanding of why people puke post-workout. Apparently, when you are digesting food, blood pools around your stomach and small intestine. When you workout, the blood has to flow to the muscles to support their activity. This causes havoc on your digestive process, basically preventing digestion and causing an emergency evacuation in the other direction. So...this caused me to start googling to determine how long the digestive process takes. Of course, that is based on what you eat, etc, etc, no clear answers. All I knew was that I felt like a bloated horse, and feared if I tried to run, I would tip over on my big fattened belly.
However, I was quickly losing daylight. If I was going to go, I had about half an hour until dark. I didn't figure I'd be able to run much at all before an emergency evacuation sent me home. It was really cold, so I wore the long pants, long sleeved under armor, long sleeved tee, stocking cap, and wrist warmers. I debated sunglasses, but thought the sun had set far enough that it wouldn't be an issue. I also debated a scarf, but didn't think people usually ran with scarves, so dropped that idea quickly.
I set out into the bitter cold, armed with my poem and phone. This is the first time that I've been able to see my breath while running. As if hearing my panting wasn't annoying enough.. My fingers were so cold, that I wiggled my hands, with poem and phone down into my wrist warmers. And my face was freezing - what do people use?! A face mask? Oh, as if I didn't already get enough strange looks running this evening. There wasn't much traffic tonight, but obviously a lot of the cars I did see were pulling up for dinner, or just getting home from lunch. I also enjoyed the random kids I saw, solo kids just kinda standing in a yard with a stick. That's a sure sign of a siblingless kid at the grandparents house.
I knew we had ice on our back steps, so I was on the lookout for ice patches while running, and there were several. I also had a black cat cross my path within a couple of blocks of the house. This run seemed ridiculous at best. But, since I didn't tip over immediately, or hurl, I figured I could go at least 20 minutes (my fitness group goal)...Or, since I had set out on my 5K route, maybe I would just finish one loop, and go home at the mid-point. But, as I came to the mid-point, I was feeling pretty good, and hadn't even used my poem or any other type of trick to keep going.
However, I did decide to do as I did on my last run, and go straight to the main road. Once I got there, I decided to go ahead and cross and run downtown, further distancing my route from the house. I've often thought I would like to make my route go this way, but I have often waited several minutes to cross the main street here, so I made my route cross at the stop sign. Since there was nearly no traffic tonight, I went for it. Once across, I was running past the library, which is where I ran on my very, very first run (and I don't believe I have run past since).
I turned toward the post office and was feeling quite good. It was getting darker faster than I expected, though. As I headed down the long side street, I was thinking about the hill at the end and how there's no sidewalk there, and it was dark. When I took Mom on the mini blog tour, she pointed out the obvious fact that there is sidewalk on the other side of the street there. However, during the day, there is a lot of traffic through here, and it would result in me crossing the road at two awkward 3-way intersections. Generally, it just seems safer to tackle the hill in the street.
But since no one was out tonight, I crossed over to the sidewalk. I felt stupid good, even running up the hill. I decided to go all the way to the top of the hill (another block), then cross over, and run the block back to the main road. So I did that and as I was running up the main road, in the full-on dark, paying extra attention when crossing the streets, I knew I couldn't just run home. I loved that I was out doing this, and that I was burning off that lunch. I loved the clear example of calories turning to energy. I loved that I was conquering the initial fear of running in the dark and the frigid cold. I really loved that my stomach felt fine. I had worked through several cramps (throughout the run), but they were all very light compared to the ones I often get. I was pretty warm, too - my hands were hot all closed up inside my mitts, but I refused to take them out. It was mostly just my face that I worried about getting wind burnt out there.
Anyway, I was trying to think of where I could continue my run (preferably without getting TOO close to the house), on sidewalks. I crossed over on a street that is named the same as one of my favorite Christmas movie towns, headed for the dreaded hills. I crossed the 5K point right after turning onto this street, but I had no idea, so I didn't check the time.
Lo and behold, a second black cat crossed my path. This led me to seriously reconsider going after the hills, but on I went. There was ice on the hills, which I managed to avoid. I had to go uphill no matter what at this point, but I think the hills that go back towards the main street aren't so steep. They also don't have sidewalks, but there's never traffic, and they're well lit and wide. In the end, I decided to stay on the main hill and trudge up it.
I made it without batting an eye.
I can't believe how well I handled the hills tonight. The one that I turn onto at the end of the main road is a 30 foot elevation change over .15 mi, and this one is 37 feet over the same distance.
So now I am on the street at the end of the main road (the opposite end from where I come onto this street during the normal 5K route). I covered the couple of blocks back to where I had ran up the hill earlier and started retracing my steps. I was pretty sure I had topped my next goal of 4 miles, or would before I was done, but I wasn't ready to stop. I was getting close to running a full hour, and was sure I could achieve that, if I could just keep finding sidewalks. About 2 blocks after I turned back onto the main street, I crossed the 6K mark.
I didn't want to just circle around the same route, so I stayed on the main street all the way to my street. There was a whole herd of people out in the front yard and on the sidewalk near my street. I wasn't looking forward to running past them, and it was really dark there, so I just kinda held my breath and went for it. A few of them stepped out of my way as I got close, but one girl didn't see me until I was right there and she was completely confounded as to why everyone was stepping off the sidewalk. (Because what maniac would be out running!?)
Situation averted, I was on my street debating what to do next. After having very little traffic or commotion tonight, I was on my street where I rarely ever have commotion. My neighbors were leaving in multiple cars though, and I did get stalled for a few seconds while I made sure they saw me in the dark.
I headed to the end of my street and was once again going to be put into hills. I decided to turn onto the same street that the bigger hills are on, and head back towards them. I ran past the creepy angel statue, past some people who had their smoker really smokin', and up the hill to the Christmas Movie Town Street. When I got there, there was traffic approaching from both directions. I was trying to decide if I wanted to cross (which would have me back on the bigger hills), or turn back. I was trying to time this out to where I would get home in one hour, so I ran up to the intersection, where I think everyone was waiting for me, and turned around. "Sorry." I crossed the 7K mark a block later.
I headed back home, making it in one hour and one minute. I may have been able to run farther, but I thought enough was most certainly enough. I never did use my poem, or other tricks. However, I did have to keep a more active eye on traffic, ice patches, black cats, strange kids standing around, and just had to keep occupied thinking about where I was going to run next. I wish I didn't get sooo bored while running just a regular route!
When I got home, I recovered quickly, but my face, ears (even under a hat), and legs (I wore long yoga pants - they aren't thick or warm) were frozen solid...Which leads us to a new feature here on the blog: The Wind Chill Factor.
Weather: 29, Dusk/Dark, 13 mph, 50% Humidity, Feels Like 18 (WC)
Time: 4:30 pm; Run 1:01 - A one hour run comes on Day 40 of my 49 day 5K to 10K plan, although I hoped to be running about 5.5 mi in that time.
Distance: 7.24K (4.5 mi) - I blew that 4 mile goal out of the water, on the first attempt at it! And I started out hoping to run 20 minutes!
Elevation: +193.1/-194.6/net -1.5 ft
5K/10K: 40:54/1:26:28 - Just another average time. I'm ok with it tonight, though, because I was, after all, trying not to puke out my lunch.
And when I got home...I had a piece of pumpkin pie that was about a third of the pie, topped with nearly half a container of cool whip.
I love Thanksgiving, but I don't think I can eat this much every day to train.
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