This was me a year ago, on my way to a HUGE PR somewhere around mile 29 at Sunmart, and in a picture that went on to grace the cover of Inside Texas Running. This year, I was elated to walk/run 4 whole miles (at a whopping 13:50 pace) in Huntsville State Park while cheering on a dozen or so of my friends racing. Crazy how things happen and how things can change, but I am ok with it. Of course this year was perfect weather compared to last year's record high temps, but I cannot do anything about that. This year I also got to spend time with some very special people in my life and I cherish the time we got to spend together. Sunmart is not going away, and I will be back for sure, not necessarily as a cover girl again, but for sure ready to take another huge chunk off my PR there.(I was bummed to find out last night when looking through the results that I was completely oblivious there was a celebrity amongst the crowd on Saturday...but that is probably the way it should have been, and actually probably best for her that it happened that way. I'm quite impressed with her efforts post-Lance, and say "good for her" for staying completely under the radar at her first trail race.)
Last year I woke up the day after Sunmart unable to move. This year, I woke up feeling great and able to move just fine! Funny how 4 miles on the road doesn't quite do to you what 31 miles on the trail does. Yesterday I even broke my bike out. Watch out. Yes, my poor bike has not been ridden in months. I rode it August 2nd at a half ironman in California and then one more time at the beginning of September for a whopping 8 miles at the park. That's it. Yesterday I rode 23 whole miles and you would have thought I went 100. My legs hurt. Yes, I will admit that. They hurt today too. I will blame it on the wind. My legs though are nothing like my butt. I am walking funny today and am wondering how in the world I ever sat on that darn seat more than 5 minutes without crying.
Saturday was the first running of any kind that I have done in a month (well, except the 9 minutes during my VO2 max testing) and it was interesting. Nothing hurt, which is good, but that could have something to do with the 'roids I was on from being sick! I'm trying to keep my heart rate in Z1 or Z2 (under 170 for me) for the next however long, and I'm setting that as my limit for running and biking. i.e. if I go over 170 (160 for biking), I need to slow down and let my HR recover, then head back at it. My Saturday "workout" was ok because there was a lot of walking and I was probably more playing around than anything, but I did walk each time I hit 170. Sunday...well...wasn't as pretty. My HR has never been so high on the bike. I'm equating half of it to my body's defense reaction to my butt hurting so much, and the other half to the wind. I was in the 160s/170s very often. I didn't have my HRM set to alert me when it was too high, so I wasn't very diligent about keeping it down, but I will be going forward, especially on trainer workouts where it is easier to watch and keep track of.
I'm going to try to brave traffic and not go postal tonight and make it to the park to do an hour run/walk...not sure if it will be more running or walking, but I'll do whatever keeps my HR at 170 or lower for an hour. I'm sure it will be very exciting - I'm guessing I will be averaging somewhere in the super fast 13:00-14:00 min/mile range.
A lot has happened over the past year, and while I am not anywhere near where I would like to be physically at this point, I'd never, ever want to go back to where I was a year ago, and I can only hope my years going forward are as good as things are right now. PRs are only worth so much and they can never fix what is going on on the inside.
Comments