Cold & Stupid Cold

87 Days

Last week had quite a few events that made it post worthy. It was rest and recovery week so the distances that I would normally post are pretty inconsequential so I won't bother you with them since they are well below the normal weeks workouts and for other reasons that you will read about below. This is probably going to be a long post so grab some milk and cookies.

It all started on Tuesday when I was supposed to wake up early and get a run done before work. Right after getting up I knew that something wasn't right so I went back to bed thinking that I could get my swim in during lunch and the run done after work. So I slept in a bit. Even after a little extra sleep I wasn't feeling any better but pressed madly on with my morning routine and tried to head into work. Instead I headed right into the back end of a '94 Chevy 1500 truck and crushed the front end of my car.

This was a fantastic way to start my day and give my stomach a little extra jostling that it really didn't need on this particular morning. I finally made it to work and made no one any guarantees as to my ability to work or the duration at which I would be staying. My decision was made for me when I made a run for the bathroom and didn't know whether to sit or kneel. That's a decision that you don't want to leave to a coin flip. At this point I decided that it was time to go home for the day.

About 11 o'clock is when I started making runs to the bathroom and threw up every 1.5 hours for the rest of the afternoon. Normally being sick sucks but add on top of that the fact that my back was really starting to kill me from the accident and everything just compounded. I had to get to the chiropractor but the last thing that I needed was him twisting my gut in my current condition. I waited as long as I could and finally went in at about 3 o'clock and warned them that I might have to make a "run for the border" without notice or explanation - which I think was explanation enough. Luckily I only had a few false alarms during my visit but nothing productive. I spent the rest of the day on the couch and managed to eat 4 crackers in the afternoon and 2 pieces of toast later that night. Oddly enough though I felt nearly good as new the next morning. Go figure.

Saturday was the other very eventful day.

We've only had two really cold days this winter that just so happen to fall on a Saturday. One was right after Christmas and the other was last Saturday. The one that was after Christmas Kati and I used a Get Out of Jail Free card with our coach and stayed inside for our ride and then headed out for short runs in the afternoon. I always felt guilty about that day and felt as though we were unjustifiably copping out of a workout. So when this Saturday came and it was 25 degrees with a 16mph wind from the north that made the temperature in the mid teens I felt like this was something that we needed to do, that it until I went to let the dog out that morning. After I went outside for the first time I was constantly checking my email to see if our coach had emailed me to say that it was too cold to go out and gave us an alternate workout for the day. Alas it was in vain, no email. Then I was waiting on Kati to catch a draft of the temperature and say that she thought it best for us to stay in. This was for naught as well, that chick's a rock.

We headed out at about 9:30 and it was frigid. Heading south was no problem but once you turned north and into the wind it got a little tough. Overall I felt fairly well bundled for the day and was only really hurting in my hands, feet and face.
I learned early on not to let any water from my water bottles drip down my chin because it froze almost instantaneously. Taking in water became more of a difficulty as the day progressed. I had four bottles with me, two were in cages attached to my bike frame and two were in cages attached to my seat post. The two that were up front started to turn to slush at about 1:30 but were still of some use. I tried to start using the bottles in the back at about 2 hours and the nozzles were frozen shut and completely unusable. Eventually the bottles up front were completely slush and so I had to transfer water from the bottles in the back by breaking the ice up that was on the inside to get to the water that hadn't frozen yet and pouring it into the only properly functioning water bottle that I had left.

Nutrition was also a problem. It was so cold that the thought that controlled my mind was how much farther I had left and how cold it was instead of thinking when I needed to eat next and what I needed to eat. I still had a 5.5 mile run after this 60 mile ride and would need some kind of fuel in my system if I was going to have a good run. The other thing that was on my mind was how I was going to run on frozen feet.

I finally finished my 3.5 hour ride and couldn't feel my hands or feet and the colony of icicles on my beard was starting to get pretty ridiculous. My initial plan was to go inside for a little bit and put my feet under some warm water to get feeling back into them before I headed out on the run but I changed my mind at the last minute and knew that if I got warm then my chances of getting back out the door got less and less. So I slapped my shoes on, grabbed the dog and was gone. I don't know if any of you have run with really cold feet before but it's like slapping the bottom of your feet with 2x4's with every step. Eventually when you do get feeling back your feet start to feel unevenly swollen like you have marbles in your shoes. This took about two miles to get rid of. The problem now was that I was running on an empty stomach which generally leads to GI issues for me. I was surprised at how fast the run went by though, I was expecting it to feel like an eternity but once I started getting blood flow to my extremities with the higher HR things actually started to get mildly comfortable.

The entire workout was about 4.5 hours and by the end the temperature had risen to 30 degree but with the wind chill it was still in the low 20's.

There were two reasons that I never turned around and went home during this ride. First is I knew that Kati was out there also and she was slated to do 80 miles in those horrible conditions so what did I really have to complain about. Second was that I knew I could use this day in the future for mental strength. On the next hard training day when I'm doubting my ability to finish the day or the Ironman I knew I could look back on this ride and tell myself that if I can make it through that hard day I can make it through this one as well.

Initially after the ride I thought that Kati and I were pretty tough for making it through the day but as the day went on I realized that we were just really stupid. It was way too cold to be out there for that long (I believe Kati's ride was about 6 hours that day) and I will never go out in those brittle temperatures again. It is now Wednesday and I wish I was exaggerating but I still don't have all the feeling back in my fingertips. I'm starting to wonder if I got some minor frostbite and hope that it will eventually go away and isn't permanent.