Pre-Race dealings

My training has had two focuses. Get ready for the heat and stay free of injury. I have been fighting an IT Band/something weird with my knee since beginning of May. Nothing that stopped me in my tracks, but don’t touch the knee, straighten completely, or bend all the way or I would get shot with a stabbing pain. No big deal I could run on it just fine as long as I was running at least a 9:15 pace. I even ran sections in the Keys relay on my bunk knee. Then one day after a self massage when I was attempting to self diagnosed something popped. That was good bye to knee pain. Whew. Except now that it was gone I was going to baby it and keep it happy. In other words reduce my mileage. This meant about 3 or 4 days off, then back to training. Except the timing of the days off was about two weeks before a 50 mile race. The fear of 50 was non-existent in my head, so no big deal.

Heat training for Badwater was going really well. I knew how much water and electrolyte pills I needed to take. The Everglades in the middle of the day could not be better training for the heat. I would take four pills every hour. I would drink 70 oz every hour and half and two 10oz Hammer Gel/water mix. I drank 90 oz plus my Hammer Gel once and I didn’t know you could puke that much water out. Beats stomach acid puke. Okay so 90oz is too much and 70oz is just right for an hour and half period. I went out one day in the afternoon and the guy that mans the airboat rides gave me a long lecture that I shouldn’t be running out there today because the temps where going to be above 92 degrees without any cloud cover and that ground temps will get above 120. I told him not to worry I was dumb enough to do this every day. Out of curiosity I took his ground temperature thing. Tested the ground and it was a nice cool 88 degrees and my head was 90. About an hour into running the ground temps went up to 126 degrees. I thought that was pretty cool. They stayed around this during the course of my run. My head got up to 94 degrees. I started feeling a decrease in energy right about 93. Too bad they don’t have ice chests in the middle of the everglades. I got home and bought myself the same cool heat thing. My other runs the temps routinely got to around 136F, and I could still run a 9:15 pace. Heat training has been a success.

Biggest deal breaker for training. Nothing to do with running, but can destroy your running. I encountered a personal issue with bladder malfunctions. I got a UTI. I am all about curing something naturally, which I attempted for a good three weeks. I finally caved a week before my race and went to the doctors for a urinalysis. He put me on Sulfameth/Trimethoprim 180/160, which is also known as Bactrim (antibiotics). I was to take them for 10 days. This was five days before my race. I checked with the doctor and the pharmacy chick. They both said it was okay to run while taking them. However, they said be extra careful and wear more sunscreen as I would be more sensitive to the sun. They also warned me that I would feel muscle fatigue and would not be able to run very well. I went on three different runs and agreed with the muscle fatigue. A 45 minute run at a 9:15 pace hurt. I guess I won’t be running Fort Clinch as fast. The thought never crossed my mind that it could cause kidney issues.

In summary, my injury was gone and I was ready for the heat, but I may have to run a little slower. The slower would be for two reasons. My daily trail running has the difficultly of none. I have even run it several times with my eyes closed when the training requires a bit of pushing. There is nothing to trip on and nothing to navigate. If you want to make it a little harder you can run in the sand areas on the edge, except be aware of startling a snake on the edges.