A Long Weekend

What did you do this weekend?!  

Anything fun and exciting?  I feel I need to live through your adventures at times just to make my day-to-day workouts seem less monopolizing.  This might be a cry for help; ya never know!  Haha

Saturday
Long Run

According to the BQ Marathon Training Schedule, this past weekend was 18 miles.  After my dismal experience with 15 miles (bad dehydration in the humid weather), I left the house with extra water and a route mapped out to give me ample stops for refills if needed.  In the end, I didn't need the stops for water at all, but the adventure turned into a Bathroom Crawl; 4 bathroom stops!  If the marathon turns out to be anything like my long runs, I'm going to need to run faster to make up porta-pottie time.

I had listened to two podcasts featuring Tim Noakes the day before and some of his talk about hydration (I still need to read Waterlogged!) got me to thinking about the whole 'Drink when you're thirsty' vs. 'If you get thirsty, you're already screwed' debate.  Tim recounted that he doesn't drink for two hour runs and I was shocked, but thinking back on the times before Gatorade, GU, and Fuel Belt were around, not only did science not have recommendations for athletes, but the athletes just did what they needed to.  For most of them, they taught their bodies to be much more efficient than athletes are today.

Anyways, I got well over an hour into my run before I started sipping the HEED from my handheld.  I made the whole run, 17.93 miles in 2.5 hours, on roughly 30 oz. of water/HEED and a single Clif gel.  Surprisingly, I felt pretty consistent throughout (purposefully taking it "slow") and felt good afterwards.

Sunday
Long Ride

Sunday was the 2013 Cardio Express MS Bike Tour.  Not 3 miles in, I knew it was going to be a tough day!!  Haha

We had a 7:30am start and I was happy to have a few other riders that wanted to go out with me.  Last year was a bit lonely at the front by myself.  And man did the guys push me this year!  There were four of us that stuck together through about 25 miles.  Three of us held out through mile 36.  And then finally Matt took off, leaving me behind around mile 55.  With the extra push, I maintained a 19 mph average for the first 48 miles, but then dropped to an overall average 17.7 mph by the finish (70.6 miles). I think it's safe to say that Saturday left my tank a little below full.  haha

After finishing, I got pictures with all of my crew!

And of course my ladies leave their men behind on course!

Such a proud finish for both of us!

And then the party got started.  Food, massages, beer, music, and my ladies pulled out their champagne!  We had a blast and as a team raised approximately $40,000 for the Connecticut Chapter of the National MS Society.  What a great cause and event!

MONDAY
Blood Tests

And then today, after fasting since 9pm Sunday night, I went and had blood tests done for my yearly physical which is next week.

What are the chances that I'll have to repeat a test due to my weekend "adventures"??  Haha.  With my schedule, there really is no "good time" to do bloodwork; there's only 'better' times and 'worse' times.  But my numbers I'm sure go all over the place depending on when you catch me.

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Questions
1.  What did you do this weekend?  Any training, racing, or fun adventures?

2.  Have you ever had to repeat bloodwork because your doctor thought your workouts affected the results?
Even if that's the case, if it's 'normal' for a patient to be working out so regularly, wouldn't the workout numbers be more 'normal' than what I'd consider "Lazy lab test" results?


DREAM.  BELIEVE.  ACHIEVE.