The elusive 20 OR

The height of stupidity OR
Warm/Hot weather running OR
What beginning runners should absolutely not do OR
The day we died!!!

Any of the above could be a post heading.

Sat. is the day I usually do my LSD , one, to get it out of the way, and secondly if perchance I miss it, I can still make it up on Sunday.

This saturday was very busy with 2 soccer games and the mega-event of the 13yo turning into a 14yo. So, no thoughts of LSD.

Sunday AM:
Gb and I had decided to start at 3 AM so as to finish by 8-9 AM, before it got too hot. Very sensible idea one day before. Not so sensible at 2 AM when the alarm woke me up. Pushed the snooze button, closed eyes for a minute, next opened them at 530 AM. Called GB, yelled at her for missing the LSD, decided it was too late now, and made the highly idiotic plan(with 20/20 hindsight) of running in the evening from 6PM to 11 PM - it would be sunny for only 2 hours, and we could run on the main roads which are busy till 11 pm.

Started at 557pm. The sun was burning hot. The first mile took us over 2 major hills so the at the end of the second, GB showed all signs of heat distress and I could barely hear her complaints because felt so faint.

Any other intelligent person would have turned back , called it a day and tried again in a week. Did I say I belong to that group of people?

Thankfully we reached a shaded portion of the road, and had access to a water fountain, which was like manna from the heavens. After which GB got very activated and decided to run again, even tho I ,like the big sister I am , kept telling her to slow down. She kept on, we came to a downhill and ran a good portion of it, and I think that was the only portion we ran, the rest was walking at a fast pace.

There is nothing else to say. Night fell, we kept walking, I tried to sing to pass the time, throat got dry, made GB sing, and she started wailing. Took a short 5 min break at her apartment, after which the stupidity continued for another 5 miles. WHy, you ask? because GB did not want to do this distance again. Our logic! How can one have done 20 miles if the distance covered was only 10?? We could have finished 10 miles then and done 20 miles next weekend!

We were dead by the time we finished at 1030pm. Reached her apartment and were treated like the big babies we were feeling by our parents -cold water, cold towels, toast and eggs , even tho we were feeling nauseous.

I went home, took a tylenol( motrin was in the car, that might have done more good for me)drank some water, put on the ice pack. Couldnt sleep for 2 hours and when I did , it was uncomfortable.

No pain anywhere the next day, just generalised soreness and fatigue.

But when I look back - we were so silly, stupid!!
GB tells me its written in J.G's book'Marathon' that if the temps are above 85 degrees to forget about running. And we - we ran in 100 degrees. I had read it too, but I saw so many runners in the afternoon that I thought we would be ok too. Did not factor in the lack of running experience and the excessive heat insulation(fat)we carry.

On a better note , we did do some hills and GB has found after extensive research, that those are almost equivalent to the hills we will face in SF on Oct 19th. I just hope the temps are better.

So :
Men learn from their own mistakes,
The wise learn from the mistakes made by others,
And fools never learn.

So, be wise, never run in higher than 80 degree weather, even if it is a LSD scheduled for a marathon training goal.

Taking 2 days off. 10 miles this weekend.
So we are still there. Longest LSD is 15-18 miles. Not good. Have to cover atleast 24miles atleast once before the marathon. Getting panicky now.