As I drove home from the store, every time I looked in the rear view mirror I would get a glimpse of face, all red and teary eyed. I thought, “Greeeat, just another way to lose more salt.”
Why was I sort of crying? Well, just a few minutes prior I was completely overwhelmed by just how hard I had pushed myself. When all was said and done, I completed 17K.
Seventeen. Kilometres.
If you recall, last week I did 14K and was feeling rather good after the fact. So, when some of my peers suggested that they wanted to try doing 17, I thought that it might be interesting to try. Ooh, but hell, today was rough! I’ve never felt this kind of fatigue during a run before. There’s frequent talk of “hitting the wall“ with regards to distance running. It’s supposed to happen typically after glycogen stores are wiped out. I don’t know if I actually did that, but if extreme fatigue is a characteristic then yeah, I completely bonked out.
It happened to me at around 2 hours into it. At that point, as much as I wanted to run, my legs just didn’t want to cooperate. It’s not that they were aching or in pain–I just didn’t have the juice to move them. God, how I wish I could describe how that felt. It was a struggle to just move forward. I have to admit, I was freaked out. I still had a few kilometres to go, and I wasn’t feeling in great spirits. The thought of me just collapsing in the middle of the sidewalk crossed my mind. In the end, I just took longer and longer walk breaks. I’d try to start up again, but those renewed bursts didn’t last long at all. It didn’t help that I bonked out during a long uphill stretch. Euuuugh. Seriously, I was feeling gross.
When I made it back, I noticed that the people who’d originally suggested 17K were on their way out. I lucked out and caught them just before they got into their cars. There were already quite finished stretching out and seemed relaxed. They came up to me and congratulated me for completing it. I think that’s when I just lost it. Yes, I was feeling happy. I was also kind of angry at not ending strongly–I came in with a whimper. I was frustrated at my limitations. Even with all of this though, the dominant feeling was definitely euphoria.
So, being completely tapped out, as soon as I got home I ended up sleeping for 3 hours. I’ve been dizzy and light headed for a long while now. I feel like I’m slowly returning back to normal as time passes by. I’ve been attempting to replenish my stores just so that my body doesn’t rebel. It’s been rough.
Well, to be honest, it seems like next time I do a long run I’ll be wanting to cut back to something more manageable like 10-14K. I don’t have the knowledge yet to deal with “the wall” and that will really only come with the half-marathon clinic coming up. Hoo boy. So much to learn!
Life is good, you know? I feel blessed that I found out that I have the capability to do such things. I’ve made so much progress in just one year! I mean, I really only started running last May. Given all of this, this year to come should be fun.
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