Two Solid Efforts and a Day Off

So, this weekend the plan was to run for one hour 45 minutes Friday, three hours Saturday, and another hour 45 on Sunday, in total logging 42 miles.  Well I modified the plan a bit after I saw some red streaking when I took my post run pee.

First the runs workouts (given my recent problems with GI distress "workouts" is a better term, no problems with the gut this weekend):

Friday (link to Garmin Connect).  Went out and immediately noticed I was feeling good.  One of the tenets of many training philosophies is that the closer you get to your targeted race, the more racelike your training efforts need to be.  Considering my general sense of well being, I decided to work the run more like a race.  I pushed it harder than I normally go on the hills and tried to flow on the descents.  I ended up with a pacing PR on the Bella Vista course.

Friday I went 11.94 miles with 1650 feet of elevation gain in 1 hour 41 minutes, VFF.  

Saturday (link to Garmin Connect), I was feeling it in my quads a bit, but I still got out, albeit it a bit later than I would have wanted.  The road to Samaipata climbs steadily for 10 miles - initially it's quite gradual but eventually it gets pretty steep.  I wanted to keep my pace as high as possible on the way out so that I could coast on my return.

One key thing to note re:This Run, I didn't bring any food along.  I ate a peanut butter sandwich before I left, but nothing during the workout itself.  Additionally, I had my CamelBack strapped on and filled with water only.  I had zero calories during my run.  I think that shows up in the final 5 miles of the workout.

Anyway the steeper downhill sections I was able to coast pretty well, but once it flattened out, I started wanting resting breaks.  I took my first extended drink and walk break around mile 15.  Prior to that I stopped for a giant trailer hauling something for Natural Gas production (I think).  There was simply no way to share the road with that monster.  I have no idea how it managed to navigate some parts of the road between Cuevas and Samaipata without disaster, but there it was...

From the start of the run I was sweating profusely.  That's odd because I seem to have gotten used to running in the heat here and haven't really sweated alot on many of my runs recently.  This time however, I was simply soaked in sweat.  I had an awesome salt ring around my crotch and my shirt was so wet that when I took it off and hung it, it left a puddle of sweat on the floor 3 inches in diameter.

I did drink all of my water, but I would absolutely have been served to have some salt tablets along and some food.  That's fine and I ain't dead, so...

Saturday I went 20.05 miles in 3 hours and 15 mintues with 2050 feet of climbing, Minimus.

This brings me to my post run tinkle.  Pee streaked with red.  Given that I had not taken anything other than water, I couldn't blame this on my body rejecting food coloring.  In the past, I've had some fantastically dark colored pee during my runs, most notably last year on an epic self supported, solo 26 mile loop in the Indian Peaks.  I should get something down about that run some day - anyone with an interest in trail running and access to the Indian Peaks should absolutely do it.

That time, I had nearly black urine and I blamed it on the food coloring in my ClifBloks which I was eating for the first time.  The second time I had extraordinarily dark pee was during the Steamboat 50 (I think), another time where I consumed a large number of ClifBloks.  I've googled dark pee and ClifBloks, with no results, but I assumed there was something special about me and the food coloring in the Bloks and left it at that.  Each time I've had this problem, within 12 hours my pee was back to normal so I haven't really worried about it assuming that the food coloring was out of my system.

That said, I've been sufficiently disturbed by the nature of my pee during from those two events that I did end up googling "Blood+Urine+Running".  There's lots of good stuff out there; here's a link to UltRunR.  Essentially the articles suggest that if all returns to normal after a period of inactivity, you were most likely dehydrated and your bladder essentially got bruised or chafed:  SWEET!  Long story short, even though I now know that my food coloring hypothesis can be effectively ruled out, I'm not going to change much about the way I run except pay much closer attention to the way I hydrate.

Anyway, given the shock in the toilet, I decided that going out for even an easy 11 miles on Sunday wouldn't be in my best interest.  I'll get out today instead (scheduled rest day) after having a bunch of water...

Thanks for reading, and perhaps we've got to put a PG13 rating to this post.
Jay