Blue Ridge recap

Well, Saturday April 22nd was the Blue Ridge Marathon and I was ready for it. Months of training and prep to make my goal. I was excited and really looking forward to "America;s Toughest Marathon" and it did not disappoint. Unfortunatly, this is as close to the finish as I got.

That's me in the back.

Woke up Saturday morning relaxed and ready and walked to the Start/Finish after breakfast with Dean, who was pacing for the Half Marathon. I stretched and warmed up and got into the corral between the 4:30 and 4:15 pacers, planning to take it easy at the start and make up time on the downhill sections and flats in the middle of the race.
 This is a beautiful course and if you get a chance to run it. It is also the hardest race I ever attempted. The hills are brutal and the downhill isn't any easier.
 I say attempted since disaster struck at mile 24. I reached the marker only to collapse and had to get medics to help me off the course and to the medical tent. Once there, I was pale, shaky, and short of breath. The medic hooked me up to a EKG machine and noticed my heartbeat was irregular so they started me on fluids and continued to monitor me. Ten minutes later, I was being wheeled into an ambulance and taken to the local hospital. They were concerned I had Hyperkalemia. This is where your body cant get rid of excess potassium and it gives you an irregular heartbeat. It usually occurs in diabetic's or people on certain medications, of which I am neither. Further research shows that it can show in distance runners, due to biochemical  changes while running.

 After several hours, 2 liters of fluid and a calcium injection I was feeling much better. I drove home wondering what had happened and how will I prevent it in the future? I have been researching online and scheduled an appointment with my doctor to see what can be done. For now I will continue to research and post my findings.

I do know this, I will be back to running and achieving my goals.

Update on Breaking 20, the plan is being worked on right now and should be ready.

Thanks for reading.

Breaking 20 Project

Training beard

This is just a quick post 2 days before Blue Ridge to start my next goal/project. For the past 3 years I have wanted to break 20 minutes in a 5k. Injury, family and other things have always come up but this year I should have a good chance to attempt this. My goal race is in July, which gives me a little over 2 months for training.

 Part One: Find or make a plan. I have been looking around at different plans, and with my schedule I will be able to get in the training needed. Most of the plans I looked at are 6 days a week with a mix of track and road but I will drop this to 5 days so I will will modify my own plan.

Part Two: Weekly training updates. That's right, WEEKLY. I can do at least that, and maybe throw in an extra post or two when something happens.

During training for Monument Ave 10k and the Blue Ridge Marathon I would use Sunday afternoons for track work. Usually these were mile repeats where I would run a mile then rest for 30 seconds and run another. I thinking about switching my watch to kilometers so I can get a better idea of my splits and see where I need to work and improve, therefore whatever plan I use will be converted into Km from miles.

As of my last training session I am sitting at around 6:45 per mile so I need to take off at least 30 seconds to get to 20 minutes.

Next week I will post my plan.

Ben

PS: IF you read my earlier post I was planning on running MCM this year. I decided not to and will be running the Crawling Crab Half Marathon in October so I will post about training for that during the summer.