Losing My Running Mojo

Sunday morning I work up at 7am, put on a pair of shorts and compression socks, gobbled up a banana and granola bar, sipped on a cup of water, and set my stopwatch to zero. I let my dogs out back and stepped outside to get a taste for the temperature. Then suddenly, as I stood there dressed and ready to go, I realized my 18 mile long run was not going to happen. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Instead of turning on my music and heading out the door, I went back upstairs, defeated, and broke down. In my two and half years of running, and barring injury, I have always sucked it up, gone out there, and finished my run. This time was different.

Mentally I consider myself to be a strong runner. Bad runs happen, by overall, I don't deal with a lot of self-doubt. Finding success in running helps boosts my confidence in other areas of my life, which is one of the reasons I love it. But this weekend I let anxiety and self-doubt win. Instead of feeling like my usual capable self, I felt defeated. I failed.

This has been a tough semester for me and, as we fully dive into April, otherwise known as the end of the semester, I've been feeling more and more overwhelmed. Sunday morning everything came crashing down. The thought of running for 3 hours and then sitting down to do hours upon hours of work seemed impossible.

Obviously no one has a gun to my head telling me to run. It's something I put on myself and its only as important as I believe it to be. On the one hand I am glad that I didn't force myself to run when I really didn't want to. Its important to be flexible and take breaks when your body and mind tells you to. On the other hand, I feel like I'm in this vicious cycle. The doubt I've felt in some of the non-running areas of my life has now negatively affected my running, And when I lose confidence in my running, I in turn lose confidence in other areas of my life. And around and around it goes.

Eventually Mike convinced me to go out for a shorter run with him. We settled on 10 miles, but I still wasn't remotely excited about it. Truthfully, it was one of the hardest 10 mile runs of my life. I wanted to quit every mile, and probably would have if my husband weren't by my side. The whole time I kept wondering how the hell I ran 50 miles when getting to the next stoplight seemed so hard.

I wish I could tell you that I felt better after the run, that my anxiety levels deflated and I regained my confidence, but I didn't. I hope that this weekend was the turn around point and that my running mojo is out there somewhere ready for me to find. I'm ready to feel strong again.



 

Old Habits Die Hard

In the two and a half years that I've been running, you could say that the five months I spent training for JFK last summer and fall stand out. Fitness-wise, I was in the best shape I've ever been. Mentally, I was as tough as nails. I will always be proud of crossing that finish line on race day, but I am equally proud of the months of work I put in.

Just ran 50 miles. NBD.

While there were some things about training that I will not miss (70 mile weeks, work, and graduate school leave little time for anything else), there are plenty of things that I really did like about it. Like enough, that I would love for them to be part of my weekly routine whether I'm training for anything or not. It's amazing what you get used to over five months and I quickly found myself missing my old "habits."

Now that I'm practically 100% back-to-normal since my injury, I've started incorporating some of these elements back into my routine. Even though I don't have any 50 mile races on my calendar this year, I don't think they could hurt. My goals for the rest of 2013 are really just to stay in consistant marathon shape, which they would benefit.

Double Runs

I wish I could find the energy to do longish runs before or after work (like this super cool person), but right now in my life it just doesn't work for me. Instead, I prefer to split up a run one day a week to get in some more miles. Usually these double runs add up to anywhere between 10-14 miles depending on my energy level that day. Not only is it a way to feel super accomplished on a regular old Wednesday, but, for me, it means I can happily run only 5 days per week instead of 6 and let my legs enjoy the extra rest day.

Hill Work

One of the very first things I noticed this winter as I started running again outside, was that my hill endurance was shot to hell. Last year hills felt easy, fun, and were a welcoming part of my run. So far this year they've felt like death every time and not the "but I feel accomplished when I get to the top" kind. More like the "why is this so hard and I'm going to go home and sulk" kind.

Finally I got fed up with it and scheduled myself for some good old hill repeats this morning. Hills are definitely not a rarity in my neighborhood, so its pretty easy to come up with 5-6 miles of ups and downs without feeling bored.

Surprisingly they first few didn't feel so bad and I started to think that I would get through the whole thing without any issues. Then I forgot about the 3rd and 4th hill. The steepest section on hill 3 is a lovely 17% grade, which doesn't sound terrible, but you actually feel like your going to fall off the sidewalk and plummet to your death if you don't lean into it enough. Overall, the workout was a success and I already feel more confident. The Delaware Marathon is known to be a bit hilly so I'm hoping I can counteract that with some weekly hill repeats.

Back-to-Back Long Runs

For my first marathon I followed a Hal Higdon plan with a few variations. Like most marathon plans, it had me run long one weekend day and either rest or run very short on the other. Looking back, I can't believe I actually used to take Sundays off. Now, I can't imagine doing anything better with my weekend than spending both days hitting the pavement or trails for several hours. JFK training had a pretty standard Saturday long run (16-25 miles) and a 10 mile Sunday run. I've slowly eased back into that set up over the past few weeks. I don't know that I'll be doing any back-to-back 20 milers anytime soon, but for now this feels pretty good!

Burn Out and Race Registrations

After sitting on my ass for five full days after my wisdom tooth surgery I was as ready as ever to start running again. I felt like one of those wind-up toys that's ready to make a break for it the second you set it down and let go.

Finally, last Tuesday my mouth felt healed enough to run. I slammed out 7.28 miles of pure awesomeness. I can't remember the last time my legs felt so fresh and ready to go. After days of trying to keep my blood pressure low (so as not to dislodge the bloodclot in my mouth) I eagerly pushed up a few hills and each labored breath felt fantastic.  So yes, Tuesday's run was awesome. So awesome that I apparently used up all of my week's allotment of awesome run feelings, because the rest of the week sucked.

Somehow I managed to have a good speed workout on the treadmill during lunch on Thursday, but other than that I was seriously dragging on every other run.

Two 15-minute sets and some extra on the end to get 4 miles

Saturday was 9 miles of "running, I hate you" in what should have been perceived as lovely spring weather, but felt like "why is is so hot already?" and "eff this shit."

On Sunday's 16-miler I actually had to stop after 2 miles and give myself a pep talk before continuing. I felt a little better after I got to the 8 mile turn around, but probably only because I knew the only way I'd make it home is if I ran back and complaining wasn't going to change that. That's the nice thing about out-and-backs and not carrying a cell phone: you're forced to run the miles no matter how you feel about them.

Overall, a pretty shitty-feeling week of running after Tuesday stole the thunder. I'm well aware that not all runs are good runs, but usually I can at least average a good week. Hopefully running and I will get along better this week. I've got an 18 miler on schedule for Saturday, so fingers crossed that the happy, "omg I love running" beam of sunshine hits me square in the face at some point.

In other news, I'm officially registered for all of my fall races. My bank account is crying, but its nice to know that I probably won't be pulling out anymore registration fees from it for anything else happening this year.

Mike and I both managed to get into the Marine Corps Marathon. In case you haven't heard, active.com sucks and made a bunch of runners angry when their site went doen 1.5 minutes after registration opened last Wednesday (a la Chicago). I got in after 20 minutes and Mike got in after an hour. Totally worth giving up my lunch hour for.

I also registered for the Philadelphia Marthon this morning and as the first 1000 people to do so, I scored registration for only $80, which makes my bank account cry slightly less. Philly was my very first marathon in 2011 and I look forward to running it again as, what will hopefully be, my sixth this fall.

So, to sum up this post: I hated running this week, but decided to spend hundreds of dollars signing up for a bunch of marathons. Makes perfect sense I think.