Weekend 8/15-8/16/15

As far as running goes, this weekend was very BLAH. No races, so that meant I was stuck with three choices: treadmill, neighborhood loops or Heavenly Hill. Those getting-old-fast runs, coupled with the heat and humidity left me very unmotivated on Saturday. I normally get my weekend runs done in the mornings, but I just couldn't get myself to do it on Saturday morning, so John and I had a somewhat lazy morning before driving over to Foss Mt. I was finally getting John up there for the first time and hoped there would be blueberries left.

It had only been a few weeks since I last drove up there, but after all of the rain we had, my car barely made it up this time. I was in 1st gear as I neared the top of the steep hill that had huge mounds in it that it didn't have before. I just kept rolling at a much faster speed than I should have over those bumps in order to make it over. The "Four Wheeled Drive Only" sign actually meant it this time. I made it up with a huge sigh of relief. We walked the short .3 up to the top. John was pretty pleased with the view but more excited about finding blueberries. It wasn't looking so promising at first, but we just kept walking way past the summit before we finally found a ton of blueberries. It was really hot and humid at this point, but we didn't care and spent about 45 minutes picking berries. We walked back up to the summit where we could see North Conway getting hammered by rain. It was pretty cool. We then made our way back down to the car and started the drive down. Just below that insane part of the road, we passed two women walking, one carrying a baby. As soon as they saw me, they started laughing and then waved and laughed as I passed them by. At the bottom of the hill, I saw why. Their Kia Soul hadn't made it up the road. Ha ha ha. Now the laughter made sense. I laughed as I passed it and continued on.

John walking up Foss Mt

Phoenix lying in a puddle to cool off

Picking blueberries

Selfie- of course

The pouring rain in North Conway

Phoenix eating blueberries

We were pretty hot and decided to drive over to Madison to take a swim. Since we were right in Eaton, I decided to drive Glines Hill Rd over to 113. Ha ha ha. Another 4x4 only road. I totally took my Kia Soul through the ringer on Saturday. Glines Hill wasn't as bad, but I really had to gun it for momentum to get over the top of the road. I was laughing the whole time. We drove to Silver Lake Railroad to park for the Head of the Lake Beach. No one else was there, as the skies were starting to turn dark, but we had a little time to take a swim before a thunderstorm rolled in. I realized 5 minutes after we got there while looking at the rules sign that I had broken two already. What's new, though. Ha ha. I brought the dog and dived off of the dock. Rebel. :)

Head of the Lake- Silver Lake

He didn't break the rules. Only I did. 

Once home, I waited out the thunderstorm then FINALLY went for a run with all 3 dogs up Heavenly Hill once and then ran around the neighborhood. It was probably the absolute worst run I've had in a long time. The humidity was killing me. I struggled through the entire 5.7 miles and couldn't even average under 8:01/mi. Terrible. I was happy to still get 7 miles in for the day, but it almost wasn't worth the effort. I felt so drained after that.

Post-run. Feeling awful. Had to take one last selfie before I went into cardiac arrest. 

 Saturday night, John and I went to my friend, Jen's, house for a party. I hadn't been to a party in so long; I don't even remember the last time. Since she loves up in Bartlett there was no way I was driving us home, so I packed up our tent and sleeping bags for the night. John hung out inside most of the evening with the other kids, while I stayed out by the fire pit with the adults. The night started like this:

Jen and me, only half a beer in

Then this:

Beer and half a bottle of wine in

To this:

I think I was making some attempt at dancing.

And this:

Finished off the bottle of wine. Working on a vodka drink.

So, yeah, I thought I was 20 and in college again. I don't know what I was thinking, but obviously, I wasn't. The sad part is that I was fully functioning and remember almost everything. I even set up the tent in this state and carried John from the house, down the stairs, across the yard and placed him right in the tent, all while he stayed sound asleep. I remember having a really good time. Dancing. Laughing, Talking really LOUDLY and NONSTOP. And I made it into my sleeping bag by 1:30am. Not too bad. ha ha. Wide awake the next morning at 6:33am. I guess the light woke me up. I was SO thirsty. No idea why. ;) No headache, per se, but I felt a little dizzy when I first got up. We had to head home right away since the dogs needed to be taken out, so I woke up John, packed up the tent and then went home.

The weather was supposed to be just as bad as Saturday with the heat and humidity so I decided that after I took the dogs out, I needed to get my run in. The thought of doing another neighborhood run made me want to vomit... or was that the night before? I had to do it, though. So out I went, but I changed it up this time to 10 out-and-backs instead of loops. I had hydrated well on the way home for Bartlett, but I was still surprised by how good I felt. The temperature was already warm, but the humidity wasn't too bad yet. It was definitely there, but nothing like the night before. So 10x got me 10.4 miles at 7:52/mi pace with 796ft of elevation gain. I felt so much better than the day before. How this is possible, I don't know, but it might just mean I'm a functioning alcoholic. ;) I think the first step to recovery is that I admitted on my blog post exactly how much I drank. Or else it means that I just don't care. Not sure which.

"Everything is Awesome!"- Leslie, post-binge drinking the night before and post-10.4 mile run. Scary.
Functioning Alcoholic Runners ON THE LEVEL. I think I'm going to make a new team to join for others like me TEAM FAR. Is there a maximum for the number of running teams I can join?

John and I took all 3 dogs to the Albany Town Forest for a short walk and to cool off in the Swift River before John and I went to Conway Lake for 4 hours. I couldn't even pull him out of the water when it was time to go. Perfect way to spend our day.

Conway Lake Beach

Wonder if I'll get another nasty gram from the head of Conway Rec for this one like I did last year. His chiding for illegally bridge jumping obviously didn't work. This is literally one of the safest places to bridge jump. And everyone else is doing it. ;)

John loves Conway Lake. It almost looks like I photoshopped him in. I didn't since I don't know how to photoshop.

Capped off the week with a less than stellar running report. Only 53.9 miles, which was mainly due to the zero I had to take on Monday due to the swollen ankle. I think I would have been in the mid-60s otherwise. Still got in over 7000ft of elevation gain, too. So not really bad considering I thought I would be running ZERO miles all week. I was lucky to have no pain in the ankle while running except on Tuesday's run. I also tried something new to treat it that I studied up on back in the winter. RICE is going out the window with more of a focus on minimal use of ice and less rest. Sounds crazy, but it makes sense. I only iced immediately after the injury and twice the following day. I took Ibuprofen only twice, once the day of the injury and again after Tuesday's run. I rested it and elevated it on Monday, but there is more of a focus on "optimal loading" as opposed to complete rest. Using the injured area as much as possible without reinjuring yourself. Ice duration is still up in the air, but I chose to experiment with it. My ankle has healed much more quickly than the last time. Here's an editorial about it in BMJ if anyone is interested: PRICE.