I promised myself I would take my workouts out of the gym this week, and I hate letting myself down.
This morning, Cheese and I arose at 6AM to conquer our individual runs - he for 50 minutes, me for 2hours 45minutes. And since I have all but married the treadmill as of late, I decided the relationship wasn't totally meeting my needs, so I vowed to go on a date with the lakefront this morning.
We checked WGN News for the weather. It said 22 degrees, which, given winter in Chicago, didn't seem all that bad.
Ooops. We must have left the house before we saw the wind warning.
Holy Mother of All Things Wind Chill.
As we got out of the car at 7AM, it was cold, for sure. But the first 2.5 miles were south, so the wind was at our back.
We turned around at Oak Street Beach, literally running along the shore of Lake Michigan, and this is when the pain started.
Literally pain.
Like, wind cutting through your cheeks off the frozen lake and piercing through otherwise uber-warm running clothes.
It was so bad on the way back that Cheese ran in front of me to block the wind (and he wasn't even wearing a winter hat!). And it did help, for the most part, but the reality was that the wind was determined to have its way with us, regardless of who was in front.
I dropped him off at Diversey Harbor, and he waited for me in my car while I ran for two more hours. Yeah, he waited for two hours. I offered to let him to go home, take a shower and come back, but he waited - in case I needed some more water or gatorade.
So I completed two more 5-mile loops. At about 7.5, I had decided to quit. I stopped, drank from frozen gatorade, ate a GU, then slapped myself, got back in the game, and started running again.
Everything was cramped, frozen, stiff. ButI kept saying to myself over and over, "You won't quit race day, you won't quit today." So I didn't quit. I kept running.
In the end, I was about 10 minutes short (2:35, about 16 miles), but I was okay with that.
It took most of the day to recover from this one, mostly due to the cold. But I'll take that deep-bone cold shiver over a no-quit run any day.
8 comments:
Holy crap! You're officially my hero. Seriously. I'd high five you, but I worry your hand might fall off.
And Cheese gets bonus points for being supportive as hey. :)
Prin,
I'm the shit. It takes a lot to sit in the warm car, talking on the phone and surfing the Internet. I did drive home which was pretty kick ass.
Wow!!
I think you are already an Ironman, by race day you are going to be partying all the way in! Seriously!
I wish that I could be there to see the party! :) What a celebration it will be!
Take Care!
Laura
dang. that is hard core, meg! you are going to be way prepared for imaz. you won't get 22 degrees. maybe some wind, but it'll be mild and things won't freeze. :-)
Megan,
It is Laura, do not e-mail me. You can call but DO NOT e-mail me. I am going to have to shut everything down for a while.
It is bad.
Laura
Definitely street cred! Way to go! I'll channel my internal Megan this weekend when I do my long run:)
I hope go mom go is ok... That's a freaky comment... *blushes*
I hope you're ok too. Oh, I get it! You're not blogging because you're sitting on the sofa with your belly hanging out drinking milkshakes. I see... I won't judge (if you give me some).
So, why haven't you been posting as much.
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