"We can do four and a half miles in our sleep!"

Short post this time, not a whole lot to tell.  Last week was a light week overall, with only two major training sessions due to time constraints plus ridiculous rain all week (everyone on the east coast knows firsthand about all the rain last week, and everyone else probably heard about it).

We had our second personal training session with Morgan on Thursday night, with much better results than the first week.  Well, let me modify that…Corey and I kinda switched our performance so my results were much better while his concerned him just a touch.  We did more strength to weight ratio exercises instead of focusing on leg strength exercises like the week before, and with the lighter build I did quite a bit better energy wise.  Corey experienced what I had experienced the week before to a lighter degree with the blood sugar drop.  He didn’t need a break, but he did get very light headed about 45 minutes into the session.   It was a great workout with lots of core and upper body, and some legs tossed in as well.  My hamstrings in particular were a bit irritated with me.

On Sunday (the 3^rd) we started at 8am on the Perk Trail with 30 lbs. packs, going north.  We hit Hell Hill and found the trail closed, washed out from the deluge last week.  We had to turn around and head back south, getting back to the cars after having done 9 miles.  We had our sights set on 20 miles for the day, so had to pass the cars to continue.  That was hard, as normally the whole second half of a hike when you start hurting is towards the cars…the way this one worked out, every step we took carried us farther away from the cars, which got to us mentally.  We did end up making it the whole 20 miles but I’m comfortable saying that it was one of the least pleasant overall workouts that I’ve done in the past couple of years, excepting of course for the infamous Hypothermia Hike.  We even miscalculated a little and misplaced the turn around mile marker, needing to hit the 2 ½ mile marker down in Oaks as our turn around point.  For some reason, we were thinking that that marker was near Arcola road…and when we got there found that that was the 3 mile marker, so had to go another half a mile which meant a mile farther than we thought it was going to be.  Of course it wasn’t really…we were looking for 20 to begin with and that’s what we ended up with, it just *felt* like an extra mile.

At the 15 ½ mile mark, we stopped for a break to let our feet stop pounding and grab some calories.  That’s when Corey said “Man, we got this…we can do four and a half miles in our sleep.”  We both got a chuckle because while normally true, after 15 ½ miles it wasn’t exactly accurate.  We later passed the 16 mile marker and I said “Man, we can do four miles in our sleep” and we both got a smile out of it.  At the 16 ½ mile marker Corey said “Man, we *grr* can do three and a *gasp* half miles in our sleep” and I grunted at him.  At the 17 mile marker I said “Man, we can do three miles in our sleep” and Corey said “Yah know, that was kinda funny a couple of miles back…not so much anymore.”

Sometimes, you just have to grunt through it and remember that the hard work is worth it in the end.