About That Time

The track and pool near our home. I'm stoked, probably the most modern facilities in this town. I should be so blessed.

After a week long break my body has finally sent the "get off your butt" signal. About time! Well I was just so busy preparing for the trip, traveling, getting over the jetlag and dealing with my stomach issues. Besides my feet really needed the break, they were tender for awhile.

So I live in a very...how do I describe this...rural, semi-rural area? Is that the right word. I'll take pictures and post them. About 5 minutes from our home is a new athletic center complete with a track and soccer stadium, weight room, basketball courts and two pools - 50 and 25 meters. Pretty well maintained as far as I can tell. Yesterday a bunch of us went to "workout". The cousins wanted to jog, walk around, play b-ball and swim. I of course headed straight for the track. It was supposed to be an easy workout which turned into a "kick your butt to the ground" effort. I'm an idiot, don't mind me. Well okay this is what happened. There I was minding my own business, running and watching the soccer practice that was taking place when another runner started keeping pace with me. I was on the outermost ring and he was on the inside ring. I had passed him and his friend and he increased his pace to match mine's. I found this irritating, call me uptight, so after about a lap of this I threw in a hard sprint to put some distance between us. He took this as a challenge and sprinted after me, ran me down and proceeded past only to slow down after he got 5 yards past me. Now I'm really irritated. It's not like he was saying hello or anything like that. So I slowed down as well but only up to a notch past my previous pace and held it. Before the next lap was up I already dropped him, probably went all out on his sprint. So just to make sure I threw in another 50-meter acceleration, and another on the next lap, then another, and another, and several more. Ahahaha I was all fired up. Like I said I'm an idiot. Forget easy, harder was more enjoyable! Thank you mystery runner. Even then it took me 55 minutes to get a 10-11k done. It's just so much harder here. Everything felt heavier, the air feels thicker and I'm sweating buckets. Drank 20 ounces of water before the run and took in 4O more during, and another 10 ounces after. Some of my cousins acted as crew:), refilling my water bottle with safe bottled water. I was drenched with sweat, it ran freely down my legs. Afterwards I followed it up with 30 minutes of swimming in the 25-meter pool. I had some energy gel with me but I forgot my salt tablets. I felt a bit light headed and had a slight headache at the end of the swim. I'll remember to bring some salt for next time.

Today I woke up late, with sore legs and tight shoulders. My legs feel like someone gave me "charlie horses" while I was asleep. It was too hard a workout after an extended break. Need I say it again, I'm an idiot. I deserve it. Today would have been a great time to do a slow recovery workout but it's raining - for a couple of hours now actually. I'm back at the farm now and enjoying the sound of rain hitting the metal roof. Definitely something I don't get to do in San Francisco since I live in the second floor of an apartment building.