Ike and Running

Well, I survived the hurricane. I’ve finally got everything other than cable back at my apartment. I’ve been living at James’s for the last several days, enjoying the hospitality and all the amenities that they still have there. With the mess that the hurricane has made of my schedule, I managed to only miss one run.

Wednesday night was track practice. I guess it went fairly well. We ran 200s – basically, we ran half the track at an “uncomfortable” pace, then walked half the track, then did a series of lunges, followed by a set of push-ups. I was hurting by the end of it, but I made it through at a fairly reasonable pace, so I was happy with that (my arms and legs would continue to hurt for days afterwards, though).

By Thursday morning, Hurricane Ike appeared to be headed in our direction (with landfall occurring very early Saturday morning), so I decided to skip my Thursday run in order to use Thursday as my pre long run rest day. That made Friday my long run day since Saturday was going to be far too much of a mess for running.

I headed out for my run Friday morning as soon as it got light enough for me to be out. I let a friend of mine know where I was headed since I would be out running alone and wanted to be sure someone knew where I was, and then I headed off. It was really eerily empty and quiet outside (hurricanes will do that, I guess).

I could feel the change in weather – it was cooler, and there was a nice breeze, but it was still pretty humid out. The temperature did help make the run more pleasant, but the humidity kept it from being nice.

This week’s long run was scheduled for 5 miles – the most I have ever done. It was really, really hard to do the run on my own. I missed running with the team and with Kelli. I managed to pull something off, though. I didn’t want to have to drive anywhere, so I decided to map a run from my apartment. One of the other runners recommended a site to me last week (http://www.mapmyrun.com/) that allows you to map out a run and tells you what the distance is. The run I ended up taking was basically the drive I take every Saturday morning to Memorial Park. For those of you who know Houston, I basically ran from my apartment, up W. Dallas to Waugh, down Waugh over to Memorial, up Memorial to the park entrance, and then back. The run mapped roughly 5.25 miles.

It was a pretty rough run, but I think I handled it pretty well. I had to carry a water bottle with me since there would be no TEAM water stations, and the extra weight wasn’t a lot of fun. I think I ended up carrying more water than I needed.

The run actually started off pretty well – I managed to make it to Detering (roughly 2 miles) before I needed to slow to a walk to work out a side cramp. I kept the walk to under a minute, and I made it the rest of the way to the turn-around point without too much trouble. I took another (very short) walk after turning around, and then I was off again.

When I reached the turn-around point, I had 2 conflicting emotions at once – I felt really proud to have made it to the halfway point, and I felt unnerved that I had to do it all over again. The run back actually started out better because I was heading closer to home instead of farther away. Running towards home is just a happier thing =)

Setting out on the second half of my run, I set my goal at making it back to Detering without walking. When I reached Detering, I was still feeling pretty good, so I kept going. I was back to Shepard before I had to stop for a short walk (I guess I was at 3.5 miles by that point). Once I reached Waugh, I was really suffering. The last mile or so was really tough – I alternated between walking and running, just hoping to get home as soon as I could. I got a last burst of energy when I turned onto my street and could see my apartment complex, and I managed to run that last little bit.

It was rough, but I made it through.

The hurricane hit Friday night. It was actually pretty bad. My area suffered a lot of damage. I had no power or water for a little over 4 days. It’s weird to drive down the street and see all of the big trees that are down and the long lines at the gas stations.

Since I was staying at James’s place, I decided to do my runs on Monday (20 minutes) and Tuesday (30 minutes) around a couple of blocks there. The weather was pretty nice due to a cold front that came through after the hurricane.

Monday’s run went pretty well. I did the 20 minutes fairly easy. Of course, I was on 2 days of hurricane rest, so that helps. It actually almost felt good.

Tuesday’s run was a little more difficult on me. The side cramp came back, so that made me need to stop for a short walk about halfway though. I can run through the cramp most of the time, but it is really uncomfortable. I really need to get that problem worked out. I did manage to do the run at a faster pace, though, so that was happy.

Tonight, I wasn’t sure if we were going to have a track practice or not, and the traffic was looking pretty yucky, so I decided not to try to drive out to Memorial. Instead, I did my own version of a track practice on the top floor of my complex’s parking garage. I did close to the same thing we did last week – I ran a length of the garage at an uncomfortable pace, walked a length, did a series of lunges, then did it again. I kept it up for 20 minutes. It was pretty tough, but I made it through. Lots of aches and pains.

Back on schedule…