Oxygen Deprived

In continuing to blog well after the fact, here's how last week turned out. I ran (and walked) for a total of 30.32 miles in roughly 5 and 1/2 hours.

Monday: 4.29 miles at an easy pace. Decent run, legs felt good though I was a little low on energy (just tired). Kept it a bit short so as to not push to hard in anticipation of my long run later in the week.

Tuesday: Slept in and wasn't able to fit a run in later in the day. Plan was to just run a little longer on my other easy runs to make up for it. After all, some days you just need to rest.

Wednesday: 4.32 miles with intervals. Didn't get much sleep and tried to make up for it by sleeping in a little. This only left enough time for my shortest workout of the week. Being so tired I had a hard time hitting and keeping some of my paces but overall it was still a pretty good run.

1 mile easy + 3 x 1000m (.57mi) @ 8:42/mi pace with 3-mins of rest between + 1 mile easy

Thursday: 6.67 miles followed with 6 strides. Good afternoon run. Some pain in my left shin again but once I got going it was completely manageable. Struggling to hit my pace a little bit, I've been hitting faster paces lately even when I focus on going slower. I think it's from the speed work (probably a good thing) so today I focused again on my stride rate which helped get me back into the correct zone.

Friday: Another bad morning for getting a run in and again, I wasn't able to make up for it later in the day. I had originally planned to pick up the mileage slightly again today, like yesterday, so I could get my weekly mileage in without running on Sunday (since I didn't run on Tuesday).

Saturday: 15 mile LSD. I had originally planned to do 13 but then thought, since I missed Friday that maybe I would run a little longer (which I need anyway) and only have a short run on Sunday or possibly even still take Sunday off.

It was really hot (95 F) and I was getting a much later start than originally planned. I set out from a new location at around 10:30 in the morning and headed north on an urban trail (the same one that cuts all the way through town) up across the USAFA. I started the run completely hydrated, with a full 36oz of water in my fuel belt and more fluid in the fridge at my work which was only a block or so away. The first 3 miles went great; I was feeling good, enjoying the new scenery and holding a good pace. I was planning to do an out and back where I would turn around at 7.5 miles and with the way I was feeling I was thinking about trying to throw some marathon pace into the mix on the way back.

But shortly after hitting mile 3 something happened, I found it getting harder to keep my pace and without even thinking about it I had taken a couple of walking breaks by the time I hit mile 5 – one at about mile 4 and at mile 5. I found this a little strange as I don't normally walk, at all. I don't have anything against walking, I just don't do it. If I'm having a hard time running then I might end up moving pretty slow but I've always really tried to keep running. At mile 5 I found myself standing under a tree and not feeling very well. I took a couple minutes, drank one of my 6oz bottles of water, gued and decided to take off my shirt (another first while running) to see if I could cool off a little bit.

I really didn't even realize what was happening. I did think about turning back for a moment which would have still put me in at 10 miles for the run. And if I was feeling well I could have extended that even further once back by where I started. But I felt like I was just having a couple tough miles and that I would just snap out of it. And I seemed to be right, for a mile or so anyway things went pretty well. This trail has lots of hills and I felt like the overall elevation gain was also pretty decent.

At mile 6 the walking started up again with increasing frequency and duration but I continued on literally out into the middle of nowhere. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew the further I went the further it was to get back out but I just kept going. Was I just so determined to get my weekly mileage in or did my long run have to be 15 miles? Was my mind even working at this point? I don't know.

By the time I got to 7.5 miles and turned around I wasn't feeling good at all, I was walking more than I was running and to be honest, some of my thoughts where pretty crazy. Occasionally, I would see a biker ride by and I recall having the growing urge to say something, to ask for help. But what would they do, put me on the back of their bike and give me a ride? Call for help? It just didn't seem sensible at the time. Once or twice I felt like someone might have noticed that I was doing that well by the way the looked at me but I'm not totally sure.

As I was starting my journey back I was just a few hundred yards away from the interstate that runs through town. Do I try to hitchhike back? At this point I still felt like I was going to get a second wind. That though it was up hill and down on the way out that over all I would be losing a lot of elevation which would have to make things easier.

WRONG!!!

Without going into all the details of everything that happened over the next couple of hours I could best describe what took place as a death march. I was able to run less and less until finally I couldn't run at all. My heart rate was sky high, even when just walking and way too high when trying to run. I was having chest pains and cramping in my legs. My stomach was upset and several times I thought I was going to be sick.

I did try to ration my water, I ate some energy beans I had with me and I tried to take advantage of any shade I could find along the way. I even thought about lying down to take a nap here and there but I didn't do it. I kept myself moving, even in the shade I continued to pace in circles feeling as though if I stopped walking I wouldn't be able to start again. I tried numerous attempts to run again as the thought of walking all the way back out seemed horrible. Each time I was only able to continue for a minute or so, if even that long. I ended up running out of water several miles from the end. So much for rationing. All I could really do was just keep going. I did think a lot about the water and Gatorade that awaited me back at my work, sitting cold in the fridge, just a block or two from my jeep.

During my last couple miles there was an older man walking just a few hundred yards ahead of me at one point and I thought for sure I'd catch up to him. He came into view occasionally and he appeared to be walking with a pretty bad limp. But I was never able to catch him and he just continued to get further and further ahead.

I have my garmin set to pause if I slow down below a certain pace, I believe its 3.5 mph, assuming that if I'm going below this speed than I'm obviously stopped, or at least not running. Fortunately, because of this my mileage reading on the way back wasn't completely accurate. It ended up being a mile off due to all the pausing caused by my slow pace. So it only showed 14 miles when I made it back instead of 15. This was great because I really didn't know how I was going to make it another mile. The bad part was the time it showed was also wrong and I had been out there even longer than I thought.

What was planned to be a 2 to 2.5 hour run turned into a 3.5 hour painful ordeal. Finally, I made it back and headed over to my office where I was able to take on some additional fluids. I ended up nearly fainting a couple times though and ended up calling home for a ride. My family is awesome! They took care of me, got me home safely and feeling better in a matter of hours. Mostly with rest, a lot of fluids but I do recall something about a wet towel on my head and a cold bath.

From reading online my wife Julie thinks I had heat exhaustion. I'm just surprised how fast something like this can come on and how dangerous it can turn out to be. I should have turned around at mile 5 but I thought I would get over how I was feeling, I mean I run 5 miles all the time and never feel like that. But that should have been the sign I listened to and in the future I'm going to be a lot more aware of what my body is trying to tell me, even if it means erring on the side of caution and not getting all of my mileage in.

Lessons Learned:
1. Always listen to your body and try to make good decisions based on how you feel, even if you need to err on the side of caution.
2. Always carry a cell phone on these longer runs.
3. Don't underestimate the heat.
4. Don't underestimate the importance of being properly hydrated, and fueled for that matter.
And from last week's misadventure…
5. Always let your loved ones know where you are going and how long you'll be gone.

Sunday: Some much needed rest.