Dress Rehearsal for the BRR

Happy Labor Day!

This blog post comes to you from my bed and was written while watching silly series on TV. Yes, I know the weather is beautiful and such, but you know what.... I have the house to myself today and I will just take it easy. Besides, the weather is beautiful for around five months now... At one point, one just needs to curl up in bed.

Oh and yes, I already ran 9 miles today, so I think I am alright.

I used the long weekend to do my usual relay dress rehearsal. The Blue Ridge Relay is in two weeks, so this was my last chance anyways! ;-) My sequence in legs is 5.2, 2.3 and 9 miles and that's also what I was planning on running for the rehearsal.

For the last couple of months, the only thing I did was long slow distances with a couple of intervals sprinkled in and a race here and there. So my goal for all of these rehearsal runs, was just to run them... Not paying attention to heart rate and just get them done.

The five miler was done Sunday morning around the neighborhood. It is going to be the hilliest out of my three legs and our neighborhood is hilly.... Perfect. Thanks to the cool temps, this run felt great and it was faster than anything I have done since... I don't know how long. Success.

After the run, I failed to hydrate properly which resulted in a nasty dehydration headache that I just wasn't able to shake for the rest of the day... No matter how much water I had after the headache already started.

Due to that headache, I bagged my second run for the day. Especially since it was just a two miler and I didn't think it was worth the hassle. But I took the dog for a longer walk, doing that two mile loop that I was planning on running. This way, I at least spend that distance on my feet and got a good upper body workout in, since Miss Karma is just incapable of walking civilized on the leash and kept dragging me along.

I spent a good chunk out of my Labor Day morning just being lazy and of course got a late start on my 9 miler. Actually, such a late start, that the swim after the run wasn't going to happen, because the Y closes at 1PM on holidays. I still drove to the Y and ran from there for a little change in scenery and it was totally worth it. Even though the trail sometimes was very crowded with all the people out... But this way, things never got boring, because there were always things to look at. 9 miler done and done and at a decent pace too, even with the day already warming up again.

Well, I guess I am ready for the relay now. ;-)