Mega-miles and Bloody Urine

Presently, I am tapering for the Le Grizz 50 in two weeks. Its funny how your perspective on mileage and tapering changes as you adjust your training. Two weeks ago I had a 204 mile week - with one 43 mile day (13 before work, 30 after), last week was closer to 160. Less than two weeks to the race now I am going to hit 130 or so and scale back to 90-100 for the final week leading up to the race. Feeling rock solid. Because of my 9-10 hour work days during the week and conferences during the weekend, I have been having to split up my mileage; 10-13 in the morning, 16-20, after work. Its tiring, to be sure, but it provides me with some solid benchmarks that keep me disciplined and fit. Yesterday after a long day of office work, and a 4 hour field trip to the buffalo jump site with the K-6th graders I went for my usual post-work long run. Unfortunately, I hadn't been hydrating well throughout the day to prepare for it - when running so much it is easy to lose respect for distances and take on long distances with a casual air - and man, oh man, did I pay the price. After getting back to my apartment, I peed blood. Freaked out, I begin downing liters of water. I probably imbibed something close to a gallon of water before I had to pee again and thank the Lord, it was yellow-tinged. Anyways, I learned my lesson: never lose respect for the distances and nutritional requirements needed to go the distance. That is all for now. I will be posting my mileage logs soon!