A Bit of Wine Should Do It

I made plans yesterday. I wanted to make up the Tempo Run after the strength class last night. I had the extra set of clothes, and I was fully ready to go. The thing is, I knew that the body didn’t want to, and the body knew that I knew that it didn’t want to. I still hadn’t recovered from that Monday night 9 miler, but I ignored the internal dialogue, and fully intended to execute my plans.

The toughest instructor teaches the class on Wednesday nights. She always adds something extra to the program and took away a couple of the intended breaks in between the sets of bicep curls. Last week, she added an extra five minutes of continuous clean and presses at the end of the class. Last night, there weren’t that many people in her class. The majority of them were new to Power entirely, which was a good thing because it made her go a bit easier on us. Just a bit.

After the session, I just knew that my legs, lungs and heart would not cooperate with me on the treadmill.
Four miles at a minimum of 6.8 MPH? There isn’t enough creotine in the world that can make it happen baby.
So I submitted, and headed home. That was when I noticed that I was hungry. No, hungry does not precisely describe the feeling. It was more like a starvation type of hunger, and my normal salad with a Boca burger and an egg white wasn’t going to cut it. So I called up H to see if he would be interested in eating out, and we decided to hit up something downtown. As it turned out, Harvest Moon was our final destination. The vegetarian chili was excellent, and the Harvest Burger with yam fries was also pretty good. Oh, and I can’t forget to mention the chocolate molten cake. Now that was super tasty.

The food was great, but what really did it for me was the Merlot. I’m not really a wine drinker, and when I do, I normally prefer white wine just for the dry and chilled factor. I find it refreshing at times, but last night, for some odd reason, I was interested in red meat and tepid red wine. Something in the line from Les Miserables was on my mind, “There is wine here to revive you,” and I doubt the Bishop was referring to the white stuff. So I blindly picked the Powers Merlot, and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. Mid way through my glass, it was as though I was drinking some type of liquid berry and floral potpourri, and I liked it … a lot.

Of course, after the meal, we walked home and I was a bit more than tipsy. I went off to dream land, and this morning, I woke up feeling fully revived. It was probably a combination of the fat and carbs, but I believe the Merlot had something to do with it.

A Monday That's Actually Wednesday

Because of the short week, I'm not feeling too guilty about my brain-dead-ness. My Sunday long run was just a mess, and it felt like I stumbled my way through the whole 3 hour exercise - started 2:04-ish and ended at 5-ish. The only good this is that I kept my heart rate between 65 and 75% during the entire affair.

I think the reason as to why it was a bad run is because I didn't eat well. Saturday night dinner comprised of Aunt Annie's organic macaroni and cheese, when it should have been a large plate of whole wheat spaghetti with meatballs. Sunday breakfast was PJ's omlette from PJ's Pancake House - yum ... which is a place that I have been going to ... probably even before I was born. It's a 5 minute walk from my parent's former restaurant named North China Restaurant now turned Karen's Corner, or something like that. In any case, I digress. I had the omlette at 9 AM, and didn't have anything else prior to my 2 PM run. As I started, I knew the food thing was going to be a problem, but I casually shoved it aside.

In addition to the food issues, it was and has been very cloudy, so Patrick (my Garmin Forerunner) was having problems picking up the GPS signal. It kicked in between 2 and 3 miles after I started, and it lost the signal 7 miles after it had picked up. Then it got dark and cold, really quickly. At 3:30ish I wasn't feeling too good by the way things were panning out, so I turned around hoping that I would get my goal distance (between 18 and 20 miles) in by running home. I was about 9 miles away from where I started.

Then it got REALLY dark and REALLY cold, and I started to feel the lactic acid circulating from my mid back all the way down to the back of my heals. I started to get scared, so I think I may have done a couple of intervals back to my start on the tow path ... which was four miles away.

I finally get there, and I decided to call it quits. Running home was really not an option, so I walked over to Au Bon Pain, and asked the cashier if I could use their phone.

Unfortunately, I was so cold that I did not have full control of my tongue and speaking clearly was a bit of a challenge. I think it was apparent that I was in a bit of trouble, so the manager lent me his cell phone, I called H (now turned Knight in my shiny Corolla), rescued me with an order of a banana and a Pumpkin Harvest Soup in a bread bowl, and drove us home.

First he reprimanded for sending him into a panic, then he admired me for my "toughness" (which I'm so not, it's really more of stubborness and being fixated on my training schedule), and he ended the evening by whining and threatened to tell on me ... to my Spin Girls.

Ugh, the only good part about the whole thing was the soup in a bread bowl. I know I cleared at least 16 miles if not 17, but I'm not sure if I got up to 18 ... though it wouldn't surprise if I did. Whatever, given the conditions, I think I will definitely be able to finish the marathon ... maybe with a slow recovery job / bouncy walk here and there.