Wednesday 082708 Give Blood, 11 miles (2 runs, 1:41)

AM - ran easy with Lucy for a bit, throwing the frisbee for her and then did the Lake Link loop to bring it to 55 minutes. 7 miles.

Gave blood today. I have not given blood in a LONG time. I remember one time in Air Force basic training I gave blood ("you can hang out with the drill sergeant here in the barracks or go give blood!"). An hour later they had "try outs" for Basic Training field day. The longest event they had was an 800. They told me if I could beat their best guy I could be on the team. I asked who the best guy was. They pointed him out and I asked him what he ran. Very proudly he said he ran 2:10. Now, this is when I was 18, still had some wheels and just had come out of high school where I was running 2 miles under 10 minutes. In any case I ran, in combat boots, and in uniform pants a sub 2:10 on a dirt track. After giving blood. That is not fast, but it was enough to get on the team (which got me some real small level of desired privileges that were highly coveted in basic training). And then I nearly passed out. An 800 never feels good but that one absolutely was torture.

So, given I am normally running 10 hours a week, prepping for this race or that ... I typically skip giving blood as I am concerned that not having any part of my oxygen carrying liquid will adversely effe ct me. Given I don't have such race activities planned for a bit, I felt some sort of societal obligation to do this. I reconciled it by telling myself this would be good for my running ... eventually as it would generate new blood cells. And that is better, right?

I don't fear giving blood. I worry how it is going to jack my running for the next bit of time (whatever bit of time that is). Anyway, I learned my hemocrit level is 44%. Thirty minutes all told and I was done. I looked at the bag of blood that had just been extracted from my body and it looked like a lot. Oh well, no way it was going back in me now.

TG asked me about the 100 mile number I threw out there. It is a number. I realize that. All numbers are arbitrary. Maybe I am better off with 90 miles a week. Maybe I can really handle 110. In any case, it is a number to move towards and see what the journey brings. Really the goal is to push the envelope a bit and run more. More miles. More minutes. More often. More hills. More speed. Find more efficiencies in my schedule to squeak out a bit more to see if it warrants a break through. Or not. Maybe it does not. I don't know until I try.

I was thinking that the athletes I seem to admire the most in this sport are those who have failed and then succeeded. In other words the path was not always primrose. Prime example: Carpenter getting wrecked at Pikes and then killing it. Leadville too. Guy goes through failure to then find success. His story is classic given the magnitude of it and the running aspect of it, but I am drawn to these stories everywhere in life. I have this weird fascination with a goal being set, failure occurring and then being overcome. Or not. At least you got in the ring.

PM - ran on the treadmill and felt ... icky. Not good. Not bad. Icky. 15% grade for the first mile. 2 miles in the middle flat. 15% for the last mile. 46 minutes. Ick. Next time I do that, I will really be going on vacation. I play too hard to do this regularly. 4 miles.