Today's Workout: The Eagleman Half-Ironman Run

Up at 3 AM today. Yes, this is ridiculous.

Drove to Cambridge MD. RF, who made me sign up for Lake Placid with a promise to train with me, was competing in the Eagleman today. He had to drop out of LP because he is injured and cannot run. So rather then have a DNF in today's race, I told him I would run for him. Of course, I made this promise when I was healthy--not since the plantar fascitis flareup.

I'm not a fan of the relay. It made me feel like I did when I ran the Baltimore Half-Marathon, kind of like a cheater. I'm running 13.1 miles and the rest of the folks swam, biked and ran 70.3. Still, why not run a fully supported 13 miles.

The great thing was that I was able to see all of the swim and a lot of the bike. I saw the pros finish. Would I compete in the entire race next year, I doubt it. I saw people come out of the water with black soot around their nose and mouth. Really, how clean is the Chesapeake Bay. I imagined how hot the run could be if the sun were out--that was not a problem today. Would I relay again, no. Talk about cut throats. While I was waiting for my swim and bike to come in other relay teams were aggressively trying to psyche out the runners. Total losers.

As for our combined performance, RF had a very fast swim and great bike. When I left for the run our total time was about 4 hours. I decided that I would run as hard as I could and if I were close to finishing under 6 hours I would die trying. In the first 3 miles my foot was killing me and I had severe calf cramps in my right leg. The run was a huge battle and if I were running for myself I may well have just quit--it was that bad. I did not want to risk injury, but I also did not want to let down RF. I just tried to answer everything my body was throwing at me--salt tablets, gatorade, move my foot in a different way. It was awful but I was moving. We did finish in under 6 hours and I think I had one of my best runs at that distance but my watch malfunctioned so I will have to wait until the results are posted to see the final numbers.

As for tonight, I was supposed to be flying to MN but due to two major automobile accidents (not involving us but backing up traffic) I missed my flight. A 90 minute car ride took 4.5 hours. So tomorrow morning, I will be up at 3:30 AM on my off day to try to fly standby on a flight that gets me to my meeting late.