Lately I have been working pretty hard on my cardio by my standards. For 2 decades prior to now I was mostly focused on strength training and bodybuilding but then decided one day that the long-term goal was going to be cardiovascular health even if it meant I lost a bit of muscle mass.
Someone asked me to get involved in what they referred to as a "fun run" and this was from one of my super fitness buddies that does multiple triathlons per year. I should have known that this was going to kick my ass and it did.
I didn't go into this thing with no knowledge of what was going to happen. I was warned that it was going to be difficult and that we needed to prepare by having hydration packs, snacks, and a bunch of other things with us that at the time I thought was stupid, but once I was on trail I realized that this was no joke.
I was told by my friend that this was going to be a very hilly trip and that I shouldn't try to run out of the gate at the start. The people who were going to be vying for the top spot are 20 years younger than I am and have trained for years for this specific thing.
Well, he wasn't wrong. This was extremely difficult for me
These are not good splits but something you need to understand, and something that I think my friend kind of concealed from me, was that this was not your regular running race. This was something that was meant to punish you with hills and that is exactly what they did.
If you read my blog at all you are likely aware that I sometimes complain about how the city that I live in is completely flat and how this is why we can't get a great deal of variation in our workouts. This is especially true on a bicycle where you can't really ever get your heart rate up because it is always flat and there are a ton of people in the way unless you go cycling in the middle of the night and this brings about a whole different world of dangers because of the high crime rate in my city.
This place that we traveled to, was about an hour from the city and good grief! I had no idea that such a place existed.
It wasn't so much that it was long, this much was understood, but I have been training on flat ground doing 5 and 10km runs without stopping. In this race, I spent almost the entire time walking except when I was going downhill where I was being very careful to not trip and then go flying down the hill like in that Andy Samberg movie "Hot Rod"
There were plenty of places to stop where they had hydration centers with medical staff and there were a lot of people in our race that decided to drop out when the looked at the chart and saw that the really difficult climb that they just did a moment ago, was about to be done again.
I had determined at the very start of this that they only way I was going to give up was if I was carried away in an ambulance. By the end of it my legs were shaky and I couldn't hardly feel them. I had brought a bunch of extra pairs of socks with me but I only changed them out once and the sweat just kept flowing and actually rapidly made my new socks soaking wet as well. I don't think I accomplished much by changing them out. This is a problem I am going to have to address with a professional because I already was wearing moisture-wicking socks that were quite expensive and covered my feet in antiperspirant the night before and also used a sort of sport powder on my shoes. None of it works.
By the time this was over and done with I have to tell you, it is a great feeling. It is so difficult... one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life. But the satisfaction that you feel after the fact makes it truly worth it.
I'm not exactly excited about signing up for the next thing like this - and there was a sign up for one taking place in a month, I declined - but it does feel good to have taken on something so difficult and exercised for 5 hours in a row.
There is another such race that takes place in January and because it is cold here then, that will be a whole different kind of difficult. I don't know how one can possibly train for this especially when where i live is at sea-level, but I think that just being in as good of cardio shape as you can be is a good place to start.
I think I may have found a new passion!