Caught a Skunk Ape - Now What?

[pshaw_raven]

That marathon sucked. LOL.

I mean, marathons aren't easy obviously. But between coming off a cold, dealing with cold, windy and rainy weather, and getting seriously dehydrated, it sucked a lot for me. I still finished, though! I probably should have tapped out and just accepted a DNF, but I can be very stubborn sometimes, and in this case, I was stubbornly determined to finish on a course that felt like it was against me from the beginning.

My inability to get consistent training this year, coupled with what is probably ongoing, chronic dehydration, really took its toll, but now two days out, I feel pretty good again. The cold weather, being sick and needing decongestants, and a few other things contributed to my dehydration - it's easy to not get the signal to drink when it's cold out. I've set myself reminders on my Garmin to go drink some damn water, and I have an electrolyte powder I can supplement with to get things back to a healthy level. But it should tell you something that I peed the morning of the race, at the hotel, but then didn't go again until after we got home, after the race, almost ten hours later.

Being kind of dumb, I'm considering going for a short run this afternoon - like, two miles, maybe three. I ran around the house a bit this morning and felt okay. Fox did the same and his calf muscle immediately told him "no more of this shit."

I'm honestly wondering if ongoing dehydration might not be a big part of the problems I've been having for the last couple of months. But I'm still heading over to UF in January to get a running analysis done at their medical college's sports clinic. They'll stick some sensors on me, have me do a treadmill run and film it with a high-speed camera, and do a few other tests. They can then recommend ways to correct any imbalances, tell me my VO2max, and some other interesting points of data. I can then take my results to a local shoe store and they'll use it to recommend running shoes. Plus, I'll be in Gainesville so I can go eat lunch at Red Robin (yummm).

In three weeks, we have our first ultra, a 50k held in Middleburg on trails in Jennings State Forest. I've already emphasized to Fox that we should run this one, not race it, and I expect to go out slow and take my time with it. Jennings has much more technical trail than Belmore, which while it's very shitty road if you're driving over it, it's pretty smooth trail if you're running. It's almost entirely old WPA roads that were built when they were converting the area from pine farming (turpentine manufacturing) into a state park. The roads are kinda sorta kept up by the state, when they get around to it, when there's funding, and someone to actually do it.

In completely unrelated news, Fox bought me another coffee advent calendar, so I'm about to have a very merry Christmas, LOL. Ho ho high caffeine!

Comments

[cdayzee]

I know you're well aware, but be careful with the dehydration ;) That's nothing to mess around with, especially going that long without peeing.

I have an electrolyte powder I can supplement with to get things back to a healthy level.
I was going to suggest that lol :P Two different kinds were recently recommended to my husband with glowing reviews.

Be well <3

[pshaw_raven]

I didn't even think about the urination thing until Fox mentioned it at home, because he did the same. Out of curiosity he weighed himself, but not having a pre-race weight to go by, he had to guess he was down about three pounds. Then I realized I'd done the same thing and was like "oh no..."
In my experience it's easy to get dehydrated in cooler weather, because I don't get those signals from my brain to drink the way I do when it's hot. I used to use part of Garmin's app to track my fluid intake, but ditched it thinking it was a habit now and didn't require tracking. This is just going to be one of the things I can't leave to habit.
Is one of the powders Hydrolyte? Because I have the unflavored variety and it seems to work really well. You can still taste the minerals, but it doesn't have a strong fruit flavor or anything, so if you want it in a smoothie or mixed into tea or something, you don't notice it.

[cdayzee]

I agree; it is easier to get dehydrated in cooler temps because you're not getting the usual cues.

The powders recommended to my husband were Drip Drop & Liquid IV. I mentioned the unflavored variety to him & said that he could mix it with other things & not necessarily plain water. Getting him to the point of trying something new is difficult though. He views it as an inconvenience vs something that would help him since he has some mental block against hydrating himself [grr].

[pshaw_raven]

Liquid IV is really good, but some people dislike the taste. I enjoy it, but Fox complains that it tastes like salty lemons. It does, but I like salted lemons, so I'm happy. The tangerine flavor is pretty good, too, I picked up some of that on sale. It's a bit pricey, but it seems to work, and if you're just drinking one a day it's not that bad. For long runs I sometimes pour two sticks into a 1.5 liter pouch.

Fox is a fan of regular old Gatorade. I find that the lemon-lime flavor is like a time machine directly back to high school band camp, LOL.

[cdayzee]

Yeah, my husband dislikes the salty taste but it's to be expected. Usually, he's a Gatorade & Powerade guy but he was told that these other products give him more of a boost :shrug: