Bad Habits

Two things didn't go right on this run:

1.  IT WAS A LONG TIME SINCE MY LAST RUN.  That has to stop.
2.  Asthma.  I was not prepared, and it got the best of me.

Aside from the weather being a balmy 57 degrees with no wind to speak of, I had an asthma attack right at the beginning of the run.  This resulted in Erin and my run starting on a very steep downhill pitch for a quarter mile, and then having to turn around to go back up to her parents house to get my inhaler (which I forgot to bring with me).  Along with that, it was my "emergency inhaler", the one I use when I don't have my "good" one handy.  Yeah, it's bad stuff.  Even having used it, it felt like I was running at 80-85% of actual lung capacity. That's tough on a long run.  I will not make that mistake again... yuck.

That said, this was our first go at the "Irish Run", and we did it in reverse.

The "Irish Run" - with the name given because it reminds us of the hills of Wales.  The "Welsh Run" is not as catchy.  It really does feel like a whole other country down by the river.  The bluffs are huge and unforgiving.

There are hills, HILLS I tell you!  If the run is completed straight through, there's really only 1 MONSTER Hill to speak of, but since we had to double back for my inhaler, we got to tackle another soul crusher.  If you look at our elevation profile for the run, you'll see where the hill is:

This grading is in the context of a 6.7 mile run.  You can obviously see where the big hill is at.  Worth noting, the first hill is lost in the shuffle due to it being a short stretch that we had to double back on.

If you map only the "steep" part of the run, you get a better idea of just how intense it is.  I've mapped that stretch over and over again, only to conclude that there may be a bit of elevation data that skews the steepest part of the climb (showing a 20% grade!), but rest assured, it's very steep by any scale.  The ground was wet, and our feet were slipping through the toughest part!  As mentioned earlier, we were running this route in the "reverse direction" this time.  Of course, this is normally to prevent having to run up this beast of a climb.  However, I think we might have to incorporate this into more runs as it probably will help the most. 

I've been reading some more in my marathon training book about how best to develop your running/training schedule and what to prioritize/work on.  Hill climbing was big on the list, and I hope to lay out some thoughts before the big schedule comes out here in a few weeks.  

Runs have been hard to come by lately.  While we did get a good run in on Sunday, Monday was met with a bout of food poisoning.  Today involved a family dinner in Lawrence.  I fully intend on running tomorrow night (a decent one) to get back on track.  I've got a lot of planning/sorting out to do in only a short amount of time to commit to this endeavor.  I am well off my mileage goal for the month.  :(

With that - bed time.   - D

Running Total:
January: 37.32
2012:  37.32