This morning, I met up with some old UltraTEAM alumni (Arkady, Carlos, Raul, and Tom) to run an unspecified distance at 10am. By the time we got there it was already in the 80 degree range. Oh boy, flashbacks of Leona heat!
I was prepared for 3 hours of running in my Nathan backpack/bladder, but because of the heat, I decided to do around 2 hours just to be safe. I missed this training run with the UltraTEAM last time because it was the same weekend as my first 50k, Ray Miller in Malibu. I was looking forward to it because I heard of the beautiful views. Unfortunately the best of the views were what is pictured above. Dry, dead grass. It was super hot and exposed, with birds chirping that sounded like the Smoke Monster from LOST. Not very motivating. You see, it’s supposed to look like this:
I had that picture in my head going into this run, then it wasn’t that. I guess you have your good days, and your bad ones, and this morning was the latter. You know it was a walkathon for me! The trail had some considerable rolling hills, so I practiced my downhill form and cadence. Tried to run faster on the flats, but for some reason it just wasn’t working for me. Ugh!
I turned around at the 1 hour mark, then at an hour and a half, I ran out of nutrition from my backpack! That’s supposed to last 3 hours! Well, I had a bottle of water in my front pocket (for splashing on my head), so I made do with that and Gu to hold me over til the end. So yeah, the heat definitely did me in this morning, only completing 7 miles in 1:45. Tough day, but another learning experience under my belt.
So, what do you think ?