For today’s run, I started out with a bit of shock. WeatherBug said it was 87 degrees in Central Park! Fortunately, though, it was a cool 87. More like 86, going down to 84 as I passed the CNN Tower twice. Humidity was only around 30%. How did it feel? Like 72 degrees.
I set out to do 22 miles, but I ended up running out of gas at 18.35 miles. I did the new path of running from my home to Central Park. I was going to do two loops of CP plus one lower loop; I adjusted that in my head to two loops plus running up to E. 90th, then down to the finish for tomorrow’s Continental Airlines 5th Avenue Mile; I ended up actually turning at the north part of the museum and stopping just across the street from the finish line. When I looked down, my shorts were streaked with salt. I only lost about 3 lbs. in this run, but exhaustion is apparent. Oh, and I did this starting after 4pm. Here are the deets:
I worked somewhere around 65 hours this week. Despite that, I got in some running but I had trouble getting it in later in the week given how late we were going. Because of a predicted wrap time of 2:30am yesterday, I chose to go the energy drink route and had a Rock Star Zero Carb in the morning before my calltime. Then, at lunchtime around 7pm, I had a Red Bull Sugar-Free. When I wrapped at 3:30am after over 15 hours at work, I was still pretty awake but also feeling a little bit of a sore throat (from the caffeine? not sure) so I had an antihistamine to get me to sleep. I work around noon, had some eggs and a bagel, then tried to sleep until 3pm.
I had two PowerGels and a nice amount of water over the run. The energy drinks notably dehydrated me and I was left with cottonmouth for much of the run. I ran a pretty slow pace of 8:19s, sometimes hitting paces above 9:00s, but it was warm and it was a long run so I wasn’t too worried. I was a bit sad I didn’t make it back home, choosing to subway instead. But I reason I need some energy for my 1-mile race tomorrow.
When I got home, I bathed in ice water, had a Gatorade Recovery drink, and ate some pieces of chicken. I believe I’m having pasta a little later to restore glycogen. I still feel a bit under the weather and really tired. I think some of the drain may be from the caffeine and antihistamines, not just the run.