First outdoor long run of the school year #Wheredidyouruntoday #Running

The Run that Just About Killed Me

...was in July. The Ragnar Trail Relay in Tahoe. We have an 8 member team. The race is 3 legs and each person runs all 3 legs, which are roughly 3, 6.5 and 7 miles. For a total of 16ish miles, for those of you counting.

I ran 6 miles once all last school year. And about 10 shorter-than-that runs the rest of the year.

This is the condition in which I arrived in Tahoe to "travel" my 3 legs.

Leg 1. I asked for the hardest one first. See how I am still alive? Smiling, even?

Do not be deceived. I am hurting. It is like 85 degrees and dry and I have not run at all and I am barely hanging on.

Our camp.

The gray tent is where I spent about 3 hours after leg 1 trying not to die. At the suggestion of a teammate I drank water with electrolytes in it but felt nauseous and overwhelmingly icky.  I contemplated not running my next leg. The only consolation was that the hardest run in the hottest part of the day was over. Let 2 would be in the middle of the night.

The exchange.

I don't have any pictures of the night run or not dying on my 3rd and final 3-mile leg, but I made it. I felt sick and could not believe I actually covered 16 miles. I walked a ton and felt like crap, but I vowed not to let myself get into that state again.

Waiting for our anchor to finish leg 241 

There she is! The most amazing athlete and nicest person I know! Go LT!

Back to Abu Dhabi 

I have been running consistently since Ragnar. Never again do I want to feel that horrible feeling of starting a race that I know I cannot complete well. It's like sitting down for a test that I didn't study for and muddling my way through it for 2 hours--except that I also thought my body would give out.

I started by running every day I could after the race in July. Then I added in a few long runs before I came back to the UAE at the end of August. 

The heat over here had me concerned. Would I keep up running, even if I didn't do it outside? I notoriously hate running on a treadmill. 

But I surprised myself! I have apparently hit bottom at the Ragnar with sufficient force to motivate me to really stay on track. I have only skipped 2 weeks of long runs since I got back, and all on the treadmill (until today)!  

I discovered a system for the treadmill situation. It goes like this: a movie downloaded to my ipad, a big bottle of water, some headphones and a treadmill in the gym of my building. On a Saturday afternoon or maybe a Sunday off, I put in my 9 or ten miles. It takes one movie. You can see below that I finished the entire movie in one run! Sometimes I take a break from the movie and catch up on my WhatsApp voice messages. 

Today I finally made the move to running outside! I've been dreading it because I've become dependent on the movies. And the easy water. And the set speed.

I did it, though! 10 miles with water and an audiobook. The weather here is amazing now, reaching the high 80s during the day. Running outside is not to be missed, so I went down to the Corniche and ran the entire length of it. 

I'm back in action!!

Abu Dhabi

I just missed a picture of about 6 jets flying in formation. Here's the remnants.