I have been really pumped up since the Stinson 25K and continually find myself dreaming about future runs. I spent the first week after the race taking it easy with a few bike rides and easy runs. I have been following the general recovery method called the reverse taper, gradually increasing my duration and intensity. By the following Sunday I was feeling well rested and decided to do a fairly hilly run from my house. As the run progressed I decided to extend it to an hour and a half as well as push up my intensity up the hills for some LT intervals. I have a large assortment of hills to run near my house and enjoy the variation of the short and steep along with the long and gradual.
After I got home I paid a visit to the restroom and to my horror was peeing a darkish red/brown liquid. This was quite a shock having never seen anything like it before. I went to the computer and started searching the Internet and found a number of articles explaining this occurrence. Besides all the terrible sounding disease related explanations I saw that among runners it was not all that uncommon. Apparently an empty bladder can be irritated while running enough to cause the bleeding. Later that day everything was all clear again and continued to be so throughout the week.
The next Sunday, 11/18, I wanted to get back on schedule with my long runs keeping in my my goal of doing a 30K trail run in late December. I had a good block of free time because the kids were with their Umi so instead of running from my house I decided to head over to Phoenix Lake. I hadn't run there in a while and love the trails and variation a lot. My run was going so well I kept adding bits of extra distance along the way. The route I took was left of Phoenix Lake to the Tucker trail, then up to Eldridge. From there down towards Bon Tempe via Pilot Knob. At the parking lot between Bon Tempe and Lagunitas I filled my water, ate a power bar and then decided to run around Bon Tempe instead of taking the shorter route over to Shaver. I then took the Yolanda trail back to Phoenix. When I came to the fire road at Phoenix I was still feeling great and almost turned right for a detour around the lake. I opted not to go and instead headed back to my car. My time was 2:20 for 13.5 miles with a total elevation gain of 1700 ft.
I was pretty tired by the end but felt good that my leg strength and endurance were continuing to improve. Back at home, back in the bathroom, there it was again, that nasty looking dark liquid again. I was shocked again and this time decided to call the Dr. I made an appointment for the next day and went through the normal question/answer session and was instructed to go down to the lab to leave a sample. A few days later I received a call back from the Dr. who confirmed that there was blood in my urine. And now I have an appointment for a CT scan.
Very strange. It always goes away, at least visually very quickly. I did another long run this past weekend and sure enough, back again. Why is my body spitting out blood after every long run. It hasn't happened on any run less than two hours. Now that I am used to seeing it it doesn't bother me as much. As long as the scan comes out fine and something else isn't going one I am thinking I can live with a little blood like this. Especially if it is just an empty bladder being irritated which I read may be the issue. Hopefully it too will toughen up over time with a continual training overload.
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