i'm a brick house!

is it cheating if you break up your 12 mile long run with an hour spin class in the middle??

if you're asking why in the world i would even do such a thing, let me explain. tomorrow morning, my normal day off, i have to work. tomorrow night i leave on a red eye for d.c. thursday is my normal long run day, and tuesday is my normal spin day. a 12 mile run after a red eye seemed less plausible than a 12 mile run interrupted by a spin class. and if you're asking why in the hell would i bother with spin if i was already going to do 12 miles, let me explain. i am on crack.

spin has become kind of a drug. i have come to look forward to punishing my body on that bike. i can tell it's making me faster. i can tell it's making me tougher. it's just an hour a week, but that one hour a week is like training gold. so i didn't want to miss it.

and i couldn't miss my long run either. i'm going on vacay for a week and i know that a long weekend at the beach and a few days in the city catching up up with old pals will mean lots of food, lots of libations, and few opportunities to get my sweat on (besides dancin' my ass off). hence my pre-vacay exercise-fest!

the first 6 miles were pretty uneventful. i kept a nice, slow, easy pace. you could even call it fun! splits: 13:12, 11:56, 12:02, 12:16, 11:57, 11:59, .25 walk cool down.

then i downed a powergel and set up my bike. i thought for sure i would totally tank in class, but it's amazing what your body can do fueled by powergel with caffeine! we split into 3 teams to do anaerobic intervals, then we did a hill climb, then we finished with two sprint intervals. i didn't really start to feel it until we hopped off the bike to stretch. i was like, uh oh, these 6 miles are gonna su-uck!

and they pretty much did. i took half a powergel (no caffeine this time) and half a gatorade. from the waist up i was totally fine. from the hips down i was like lead. or more like tight, tight rubberbands. which i hear is a very common feeling for a brick workout. my splits are pretty abysmal but hey what do you want from me? my legs had been moving for over 2 hours at this point! splits: 13:43, 12:23, 12:22, 14:17, 12:54, 11:30, .25 walk cooldown. the only way i got through it was to just take it mile by mile. once i finished a mile, i walked to drink and at mile 9 i took the other half of my powergel. i considered bagging it at 10 miles, which would have been a valiant effort but i said to myself, fuck it you can pull 2 more miles out of your ass. and i did. i even managed to pull a 11:30 for the last mile. that last mile i just imagined myself on marathon day, climbing up the hills of san francsico, feeling super buff, super strong. the power of positive thoughts is a strong force my friends.

on the way home, i made two stops. the first was to in-n-out burger. i'm serious. i ordered a double-double animal style, protein style, fries, and a milk. for those of you who don't speak in-n-out, that's 2 burger patties with sauteed onions (animal style), pickles, tomatoes, 1000 dressing wrapped in huge lettuce leaves instead of a bun (protein style). i scarfed that sucker down like no one's business. and those french fries? sweet, sweet heaven. i didn't eat them all though. as hungry as i was, i just couldn't stomach all of them.

my second stop was to safeway to buy ice for my bath. they had 20 pound bags of cubed ice and 10 pound ice blocks. i thought 40 pounds of ice would be overkill, so i bought one of each. except that when i grabbed the 10 pound ice block, another 10 pound ice block fell out of the freezer and onto my left foot!!!!!

mother bitch! i was like freakin' steve carell in 40 year old virgin when he gets his chest waxed. so of course the clerks turn their heads to stare as i curse and hobble and hobble and curse. but does anyone come over to see what the hell just happened? no! fuckers!

so then i hobble to the checkout and i'm practically in tears at this point and does anyone offer to help the injured hobbling girl carry her 30 pounds of ice to her car? no! fuckers! i worked at that store one summer and i know for a fact that it is a rule to offer help out to any customer with 2 or more bags!!! you can bet i am writing an email to the manager of the store and ratting those lazy fuckers out.

so it's kind of ironic that the ice i bought to help ease my pain ended up causing me the most pain! and i know some marathoners end up with black toes and missing toenails, but i don't think this is how it happens to most.

so i bathed, both icy and warm. the toe is still throbbing like a mo'fo' and i'm icing it again. i hope i can sleep despite the pain 'cause i got a long day ahead of me tomorrow. but by this time tomorrow, i will officially be on vacay!!