It must be Tuesday...

Good Lord, my schedule is all outta wack. Don't even know what day it is....

Anyone have any additional ideas to help Rachel out this week? I think she's doing very well as far as listening to her body and changing things up for the better.

Girl...YOU ROCK!

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So here's a new one. Saturday, Nathalie and I planned a really long walk, hoping to make 18 miles or more. We started out early into the hills in Los Gatos. It was nice and cool, we kept up a good pace and I felt great. We did nearly 7 miles of steep hills, stopped for a snack in town, and then headed down the trail past Vasona into Campbell. We felt awesome. The hill part felt like nothing to us. After the break we started feeling a few aches and pains (my feet, Nathalie's knees) but we made sure to stretch fairly often and that did the trick. We did another 6.5 miles into (old) Campbell, where we stopped for lunch. Damn my feet were sore! So while we had lunch, I stretched them as best I could. We hung out and rested for half an hour, then hauled ourselves out of our seats to start the trek back. We were pretty psyched; at that point we'd done just over 13 miles, aside from some aching joints we felt really good and really energized. We knew we'd be sore but we were on track to do over 19 miles. Yeah!
Well a mile back into the trip back, it got really hot. And we'd decided to take an alternate route that we discovered had no shade. I'd been hydrating the entire time but I started getting tired. And then lunch felt like a weight in my stomach. I stopped to rest, put my feet up, and eventually felt a little better. So we stretched again, and kept on going. Next milestone was Los Gatos Creek Park. By the time we arrived, I felt queasy, dizzy, and really weak. We sat down, and I called my husband. I had to give the phone to Natalie so she could describe where we were - for the life of me I couldn't come up with a rational sentence. Long story short, I didn't complete the walk (though Natalie did despite aching knees), though 15+ miles isn't too shabby. I got home safely, showered and put my feet in ice water for a while, then I don't think I got off the recliner until I got into bed around 8:00 pm.

I'm still trying to figure out what happened. It was hot out but not ridiculously so. I had hydrated quite a bit, some of which included a sports drink. I'd eaten carbs the night before, whole grains and fruit at breakfast and pasta salad with chicken in it for lunch. Based on past patterns, I should have been ok but I wasn't. Here are a few things I'm going to work on for next time: 1) get more sleep - we're buying/moving into a new house this week, work has been busy, and life has been stressful - I've not been sleeping long or well. 2) try to eat smaller quantities, more often, especially on walk days. My lunch wasn't excessive but given the other factors maybe it was too much at once under those particular circumstances. 3) Keep something salty to eat around me as well as carbs? I remember using salt pills as a kid when I took horseback riding lessons in the summer. It helped then. And 4) wear light-colored clothing; my walk gear wicks moisture really well but both pieces I wore on Saturday were black which I'm sure didn't help. Any other thoughts or suggestions?

This didn't discourage me at all, fortunately. First of all, 15 miles is nothing to take lightly. Also, going through this is only going to help me figure out how best to succeed on the actual walk. I'd much rather deal with this now and find a way around it than have it be a surprise I can't overcome or prevent on July 7th. And last - after soaking my tired feet and getting lots of sleep, I felt absolutely great the next day! Amazing how the body can revive with just a little TLC.

Next weekend I'll be in the midst of moving. You can think of me lifting and hauling boxes - I'm trying to look at is as an upper body workout. If I manage to get any walks in I'll post about it. Otherwise I may skip a week. And in the meantime if anyone out there has any pearls of wisdom to share about how I can better prepare for these long hauls in the future, I would very much like to hear them! Any advice is appreciated.

Later!

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Things have been busy here at Casa de Chaos and also at the Officina de Chaos.

First off, KublaCon was a lot of fun. I'll have a post just for that soon....we all survived and most importantly, I just checked and I still have my sanity. Hee hee...

Second, the Officina is a disaster area. Lots of work stuff going on and on top of that...construction. We have sublet half of our floor, so now the Architects and Contractors are in here tearing it all up so they can rebuild it to accommodate two separate offices.

And finally, preparations continue for my special visitor. He arrives Friday. Booyah. 'nuf said.

Better check on the sanity again...it's still there...so far, so good.

OOOOOHHHH, and there was knitting! Actual knitting...whoa.