Surprised

This weekend brought a couple of surprises my way. The first was how few people actually voted for my punishment. Is it because you really don’t want me to go through with anything? Or was it just that I was asking for a donation? Just curious that’s all. I’ve decided to keep the poll open for a few more days. Maybe a few more votes will come in by the end of the day Tuesday. That will be it though, so if you want to have a say you have a couple more days. Thank you to everyone who did vote. I do really appreciate the support and you are helping out a great cause. woot woot (Plus who doesn’t want to see me in a skirt…oh wait I don’t)

The second and worse surprise was how crappy my body felt this weekend. Saturday morning started off with our group run. We ended up doing a bit over seven miles with some hill repeats. It was a tough workout and I knew I’d be a little stiff and sore today, but I had no idea how much. Today my body was in very bad shape. It didn’t want to move or function. Its ideal day would have been to lie on the couch all day long. This of course was not in the cards. I did some stretching to try and loosen things up before I headed out on my bike this afternoon. It was a gorgeous day with the temp right at 70. It was a perfect day to be riding and I had high hopes even with the body aches. I was soon to learn that it was not going to be a gorgeous ride and I struggled throughout the entire ride. Only a couple miles into my ride my left calf started to cramp and it was all downhill from there. Stiff legs, back, and neck felt great over every bump. I tried to think about my technique and position on the bike but my body was screaming. I finished off a lousy 17 mile ride and was wondering where the nearest hot tub was.

After the ride I stretched and debated with myself about going out for a little 3 mile run. I figured I need to start doing bricks and running has always been my fallback. I knew my legs were tight but they usually loosen up after a mile or so. Just a nice easy run to shake away the crappy ride was all I was looking for. Well fitting with the theme of the day the run was miserable as well. My legs left like rocks and I was barely getting them off the ground. My energy started to give next and I had one hell of a fight on my hands. I tried all the tricks; focus on a song, person, good thoughts, anything to keep my mind occupied. I tried and I tried but my mind wasn’t strong enough and I eventually started walking. Ladies and gentleman we have now hit bottom. I can’t remember the last time that I actually stopped to walk during a run. Now I know these sort of things happen, but it is always a shock to the system. I walked/ran the rest until I was finally home again. I stretched again and got some fluids before just standing under the shower for awhile to rinse all the crap away. Afterwards I did hit the couch for awhile just being dead to the world.

I guess the good thing about hitting the bottom is that there is only one direction to go. This week I’m going to pay more attention to the small things like what I’m eating, drinking, and how much stretching I’m getting in. I don’t think I was that bad last week, but I really can’t afford to have repeat weekends like this. Things will get better, but sometimes it’s not easy to shrug off the bad days. This is the game we play as endurance athletes and you have to take the good and the bad. Tomorrow is another day and we’ll try again