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Buford Park / Mt Pisgah

November 17, 2013 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: high 40s/low 50s - variable sun/clouds. Dry

Comments:
Met Matt at "Mt Pisgah" (Buford Park) to run. Pisgah is supz-popular, but I'd NEVER been there. It's in SW Springfield, across the interstate. Since I could never run TO the park, I just never went. BUT, now there's a 50K there (Frozen Trail Runfest on 12/14) that I'm going to do, so I figured it would be good to check it out, finally.

Slept in again, had breakfast, cleaned up a bit - including vacuuming my apt for the first time in a couple weeks (*this is notable in a bit), then went to meet Matt.

Legs and energy (seemingly) felt fine, but once we started - and got like a 2% douche grade - I could barely breathe. WTF???? I felt TERRIBLE. Legs were OK but it felt like my heart and lungs were going to explode. "This is bullshit". So, while Matt is pulling ten strides ahead of me on this slow grinder up toward the summit (it gains about 1000'ish over 2.5 mi), I just focused on trying to get in deep breaths, but it was TOUGH to get anything to go in, "low". Sumitted about 30min into the run. Felt just awful. Felt just as shitty on the descent, as we went back down to the NW to the start/finish of the race. Only when we got about :45 into the run did I start coming around. We did this circumnav route around the butte, which really reminded me of TNF: tight single track in a hilly, open prairie. Only then did I start to enjoy myself, and the breathing got gradually/progressively easier. Looped all the way around the butte and back to the parking lot for :90 worth of running, just one lap! Matt wanted to be done, so I ran back to his car with him, and I got a drink, then kept going.

I felt GOOD on the second lap, where I did the wider NE -> NW loop, then did a summit from the NW (going the opposite way up, that Matt/I did going down). SUPZ-muddy on the north side, and it reminded me of Chuckanut, as it was also quite wooded. Did one steep summit (where I ran into Clifton on some wacky bike+run adventure), then ran back toward the car on a steep, rutted out descent (reminds me of the final descent at TNF, but even more rutted).

Overall it was a GOOD run: good prolonged fatigue with heavy focus on climbing when tired. The tight, technical terrain is good specificity for Bandera for sure.

About 2:52 worth of slow, muddy running. About 18mi and at least 3K of vert, maybe 4K. Solid.

SO, here's what I think is going on: GODDAMN DUST MITES. The evidence:

- EVERY MORNING I wake up congested.
- most mornings I feel just terrible until mid-afternoon
- on runs (especially morning runs), it takes about :40 of running to feel good, before that I feel just awful and can't breathe
- today: I vacuumed my bedroom area, which apparently puffs up all the dust mite "poop dust", making it way worse (also doesn't help my vac bag is full)

So I think what's happening is I have all this shit in my lungs and it literally takes :30-40 of deep breathing to get it all out, then I feel good. Once I got home, I took my mattress outside, and washed ALL my bedding and pillows. Tonight's experiment will be to sleep on the air mattress downstairs and see how I feel.

GFD. I hope this is it. I don't know what else it could be, or how else it would be explained: that I'd feel SOOO bad, but only for the first chunk of a run!