The July one is the Minneapolis Triathlon. It is at Lake Nokomis. I love Lake Nokomis. When I moved to Minneapolis, my apartment was blocks from here and I would swim in the lake all the time. Even when I moved to the ‘burbs, I still dragged Eric to Lake Nokomis to swim. I have since found other acceptable beaches by us but Lake Nokomis has a special place in my heart.
The August one is just north of Phoenix. I was looking for a running race to do while on vacation in New Mexico and Arizona. As you can imagine, there aren’t too many races during this time of year down there. It is kind of like trying to find a race here in January. But I found this reverse triathlon. You run, then bike and then swim. I think this sounds wonderful. Get the worst one done in the morning before it is 100 degrees. The bike shouldn’t be too horrible in the heat and finally after all that hot sweaty stuff, jump into a pool. Oh I forgot to mention the swim is an outdoor pool swim. It sounds heavenly.
The September race is close to home in Hopkins. It claims that it is a race for us slow, fat triathletes. There are even special prizes for us fatties and we get to start the swim first. I think that is all around a win. With all the marathon training, Eric isn’t a fatty anymore (at least not by their standards). Haha.
So back to the topic at hand. I begrudgingly went out for a 4 mile run yesterday. And the entire time the only thing I could think about was I’d rather be swimming (it was hot and humid) or on my bike (even though I just biked 10 miles as support for Eric’s run 2 hours ago). I was M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E. I even contemplated quitting but I remembered that in order to do triathlons, I still had to run. My hatred of running came screaming back to me yesterday. I seriously think the triathlon crushed my dwindling running spirit. I used to always think of the next big running race. Now all I want to do is triathlons. Running sucks.
Speaking of the run…
So I was running my usual route and struggled to maintain a pace above a walk. It truly was horrible. And at one point I think I spaced out. I knew where I had to turn around and I forgot. Actually I don’t even remember running past that point. I seriously think I temporary blacked out. But how can that be? I had to run through a stop sign! I’m assuming I looked. Scary stuff. I also felt like I had to puke. I don’t puke. There are times I wish I could, but I just don’t. The fact that I was feeling like I was going to means I was majorly dehydrated. Oops. I was so concerned about making sure that Eric kept hydrated on his 10 mile run that I forgot to drink water on the bike ride and then I went for my run and didn’t drink much water either. So lesson learned.
Even though my time was terrible. I had a couple things factoring against me that I realized this morning. Of course there was the dehydration. There was the hot and humid weather and my body isn’t ready to run in that yet. And the biggest thing I forgot is I biked 10 miles before hand. Granted it wasn’t fast but nonetheless I biked it. My legs felt like lead because I just did a brick workout. Duh!
I’m still not in love with running. But I can’t give up. As a moral boast, I looked back at my very first runs on this journey and I was slow…S-L-O-W. My first attempt at 6.2 miles was 1:37. I can do that in 1:15 in a race setting. I can’t stop now because eventually, I will want to run again and I don’t want to start over. So here is to bad runs!
On a side note, we are leaving today for Las Vegas/Pahrump for our niece, Allista’s graduation. Of course we need to get some long runs in while we are out there. And of course it will be hot…EEEK! Hopefully I won’t struggle as much as I did yesterday.
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