I am happy to read of the great success everyone has had with their long runs today :) My run however was possibly one of the most demoralizing runs I have done. I met Taha at his house in Farmington this morning for a run up Farmington canyon. It has been a couple years since I have done this run, probably long enough to forget how bad it was the first time. Essentially the entire run is done on dirt, uneven dirt, but dirt none the less. The first couple miles were nice and kind of a downhill roll towards the mouth of the canyon, this plays an important part later in the run. The first mile up the canyon is paved and ridiculously steep. After that, it is a steady grind for the next 7 miles to the turn around. The pace was not fast, but I was struggling with the climb. Total elevation gain for the 8 miles of the canyon was close to 2400 feet. It was a little warm when we got started but not too bad in the canyon, we happened to find an unopened water bottle on the road which was great, we were not smart enough to leave water out today. By the time we turned around my legs were pretty hammered and the uneven surface on the downhill was not helping. We ran pretty consistent until about the 17 mile mark and then I bonked -huge. I still had another mile of brutal downhill left with shaking legs and then 2 more miles of rolling uphill to the house. As we transitioned to the uphill, I was done. I had to walk up the first hill, my hands had gone numb, my legs were hollow, and my ears were ringing like crazy. I managed to run walk all the way back, but by the time I reached Taha's house I could barely stand. I knew I was extremely dehydrated by the shear fact that my lips had dried and were caked with crap, and my mouth was like a desert. I walked into the house, took a drink out of my bottle and promptly threw up. This was the perfect ending to an already brutal day, I hate throwing-up more than anything! None-the-less, I am at least partially functional now and trying to rehydrate my badly demoralized ego.
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