Monday, March 29, 2010

Long hard 11 miles

I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weekend and choose a new route that would motivate me to complete 10 miles. Mostly because i wanted to know that i hadn't thrown all my hard work away. I have taken the last several weeks (5 to be exact) basically to a stand still, compared to my training it felt as though i was blowing off the whole month. I had at the most finished a couple of 5 mile runs since the 1/2 marathon. I think i just needed time away from it. Time to gather thoughts and not stress about miles i was supposed to be doing. So i chose a route by my house that i could go part my car and basically do and out and back. There was a gigantic hill at the beginning that I knew would really challenge me. I guess I felt as though I had something to prove, to myself anyway. Heading down i realized this is a really huge hill, as i was heading up it at about mile 2 i noticed that my heart rate was at 165 so i began to walk, my heart rate is an important reminder of how much my heart is working, and if walking up this hill has my heart rate between 160-170 I'll continue to walk. Made my way to the top and began running again and felt pretty solid, i got a tad cocky at mile 5 and decided to go to 5.33 before turning around (this bit me hard at the end) for some reason i kept telling myself i have that downhill to look forward to should be a pretty easy run back so i'll go ahead and push myself now. Headed back i was feeling great up until somewhere about 6-1/2 miles i felt soooo bloated I looked down at my protruding stomach and started talking shit to myself saying I had no business running and being such a fat ass. What was I thinking coming out here and doing this, I shouldn't be running I'm too fucking fat to do this. I was pretty upset. Then I decided to forget those thoughts and keep running I kept looking at my pace and thinking wow i'm like 10 min behind where i wanted to be and that time is increasing. By 8.5 i decided to write my husband and let him know how far i'd come and that i was fine. Reaching mile 9 i passed a dead car on the road that already had a ticket on it, so must have been there for days. Some guy .25 miles past that car pulls over to ask me if that was my car i'd left behind. (REALLY?) do I look like I have no business out here running? Do i look pathetic? Do I look like someone that is looking for help? DO you not realize i'm fucking dressed to be out here running? I realize now that he was only probably trying to help but for the love of God i couldn't help but think negative thoughts. By mile 9 I knew it was gonna be hard to finish this run. Mile 10, uh oh i'm still like a mile from the car, well I'm walking this last mile cuz i think I'm about to die. This last mile everything hurt and I was overwhelmed with the ideas that I should not ever run again, I'll just stick with short distances from now on. Don't we all try to rationalize at the end. So enough of that ranting. I realized that about 4 hours after that long run although i felt as though i wasn't going to finish, i was recovering quite well. I was a little sore ( my plantars fac especially) and this morning it was tough to walk but i was proud i'd done it. But I also now respect my body enough to now know that after several weeks of not much I should not push, in fact i realized soon after that I would have been better off doing a great strong 6 mile run instead of dragging myself thru 11 miles. Lesson learned.

3 comments:

  1. Actually....

    You were beter of slowing down and pushing yourself farther. You need to rememebr -training is training, not racing. You get no medals or PRs when training. It's okay to slow down. And if you aren't pushing the envelope every now and then then you aren't improving.

    Do more of these 10 and 11 mile runs and guess what happens the next time you "race" at 10K?

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  2. So you're bummed that you didn't rock the 11-miles after taking a month off? On a hilly course? You're a funny lady ;-)

    Every time I get down on myself (and I do this a lot) I remind myself of the alternative and it keeps me going. You're doing amazing things and I would focus on a solid training plan for Boulder and don't sweat your performance on the long run.

    Either way, have fun. If you're not enjoying the act of running then what's the point? You're doing more than 99% and you should be proud.

    I can't wait to hear about the Bolder Boulder.

    All the best,

    Ron

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  3. An 11-mile run is always an awesome accomplishment. Sometimes those long runs just feel awful, but you should be very proud of yourself for getting through it. You're so strong!

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