March 8 Week: One, Two, Three, BONK and Lessons Learned...

As I started training, my three pronged strategy has been pretty simple - to increase distance/endurance weekly, to increase strength and build muscle both in upper body and my legs, and to lose weight gradually (thereby experiencing a big lift in taking my now stronger legs who are used to pushing a 220 lb. version of me to greater heights when it's only 200 lbs.). Unfortunately, this week I learned a rather painful lesson when my desire to drop a few pounds collided head on into strategy 1, during our long DFMC run. "Bonking" or "Hitting the Wall" as it is called is defined as a " a condition in endurance sports where depletion of glycogen stores results in sudden and severe fatigue...". Basically it translates to your body saying, "Hey Idiot!! If you want me to perform this extreme task of carrying you 10 plus miles, you might want to fill my tank and eat something!!" Bottom line, I ate poorly the 2 days prior to the Saturday run and it did not go well. At about the 5 mile mark, it all broke down and it was limp back to the shed time, and not meeting my weekly goal. Thanks to Jack Fultz who tried to wave me down from his car to drive me back to base twice, but I wanted this lesson to sting a little bit so I finished it out. I'm compiling a list of my "commandments" or lessons learned from all this training, I'll share next time.

For now, I want to recognize ... My very generous DONORS this week... Barbara and Kevin Connearney (Regina's aunt and uncle, sister in law to Ruth Sullivan), Billerica neighbors Debra and John Laquidara and Larry King, former elite marathoner and now mom and good friend Cheri Sukhia. Thank you all, you're all making a difference today!!!