This past weekend, Team Challenge had a run through Golden Gate Park. I thought, "Cool, it's like I'm running through my backyard since I live so close and usually frequent the many groves, lakes, ponds, and meadows in the park". However, sometimes I forgot how different driving, riding, and running are. Awkward.
I started out the run at a slower than normal pace to try and work on negative splits for the second half of the run, but that idea was quickly thrown to the side of the road like cow in a tornado as the competitive side of me (I call him Gamey McMustwin) started to take over. Please watch this video if you need more illustration. Any who, I push myself a little to hard out of the gate and I getting pretty gassed. My feet begin to drag and my shins begin to tighten up like wet leather in the sun as I slowly trudge up the "hill", if you can call it that. Thankfully, a few of the other runners caught up to me and took my mind off of the task by talking about the park.
After much discussion about the "Golden Gate Effect" pioneered by Mr. McLaren, (seriously look it up, interesting stuff) and a brief pass by the water station complete with cheerleaders, we hit the downhill. This is usually where I can shift myself into neutral and just let the hills carry me comfortably down the road. Unfortunately, soon after starting my decent, my left leg started going to sleep. Not exactly the thing I was expecting on the easiest part of an already unexpectedly hard run. Being the level headed and logic minded individual that I am, I decided that I could probably just jog it out and it would be fine in no time. After nearly a half a mile, my narcoleptic leg had fallen into a appendage coma. It pained me to stop, but it pained me even more to continue. I started by loosening my shoelace, then taking off my shin sleeve. While it did help, it didn't help as much as I would have liked and the rest of the run felt as if I had been shanghi'ed onto a ship, had my leg replaced with a small coffee table leg, and was running to catch the boat before it set sail.
Needless to say, I was glad when the run was over and I also learned a few things to continue my running education. One, carrying water or some other type of hydration on a warm day while running is never a horrible idea. Two, energy bites, bars, gels, gu's or any other performance/endurance booster could only help me get past my physical limits. Finally three, my shins had finally gotten strong enough to the point that if I left my shin sleeves it would only cut off the circulation to my legs, which from what I understand being a novice endurance runner is bad.
No comments:
Post a Comment