Half of a long run
I’m going to keep this one short today. I want to talk about my long run a bit.
I’m marathon training right now, and getting out of the gate has been a little bit of a struggle. Week 1 was great! And Week 2 I got hit hard with the flu and didn’t run a single mile. One of my biggest challenges with running has always been keeping momentum, so it was a bit of a mental blow to lose that momentum so quickly after starting the training cycle.
This week, I’ve felt better and have gotten some easy runs in. I’ve prioritized consistency and getting out the door even when I didn’t want to.
Today was long run day. Awesome. Let’s log 10 miles and get back on track.
Everyone has been dealing with this snow/ice/cold this week, and Philadelphia was no exception. I decided to move my long run inside and do it on the treadmill. Mentally, I was prepared. I had the 2012 Olympic Marathon Trials all queued up on YouTube. I was hydrated, fueled, and ready to go.
I walked to the Planet Fitness at the tippy top of a relentless, mile-long hill. I shed my layers and picked a treadmill with access to three TVs. One had some sort of spy and/or apocalypse show (unclear), one had some Will Smith action movie, and one had the NC State basketball game. Awesome. I’m set.
And then I started running. Lol.
Mile 1: Yikes. But it’s okay, I always take a while to warm up and that was a hilly walk. I’ll loosen up.
Mile 2: Yikes. Still warming up?
Mile 2.5: The math starts. Okay, I’m 25% done and I don’t feel great but I can certainly do this 3 more times.
Mile 3: I’m proud of Mile 3. Mile 3 is where I started realizing just how bad I felt and that it wasn’t going to go away, and I told myself that it’s okay. I can feel bad and still finish the run. And when I get off of this treadmill after 10 miles I can say “wow, that felt terrible, but look at this long run that I got done anyways.” The version of me at Mile 3 had so much hope. Good for her.
Mile 4: A train wreck. A disaster. My legs just wouldn’t work anymore. It felt like I had just run 26 miles. It felt like my legs were going to give out under me and I would fall off the treadmill and into the row of more treadmills behind me. I truly wasn’t sure that I could keep up with the belt. I kept lowering and lowering my speed, accepting that I might just have to slow down a lot but I can still keep going. But no matter how much I slowed down, the feeling of physically not being able to move forward didn’t go away.
I texted Sam, my fiancé, in a panic. I said a lot of mean things about myself that I won’t say here because I don’t want to put ideas in anyone’s head reading this. But I questioned everything. I couldn’t believe how bad I felt and I was mad at my body for letting me down on a day that I had felt so optimistic. Usually I struggle mentally, but today I just wasn’t physically there and that shook me a little.
Deep breaths were had. Walking was done. Shalane made her move in the 2012 trials and then Meb won on the men’s side (spoiler alert) and I made it to 5 miles. I called it there. Walked home. Couldn’t believe how sore I was. Couldn’t believe how bad my body hurt. Couldn’t believe how small my steps were as I made it back down the hill.
So why did I feel so bad? What’s going on? Maybe I wasn’t as recovered from the flu as I thought. Maybe my PT session yesterday fatigued me. Maybe the snowy hilly walk to the gym didn’t help. Maybe it’s the treadmill. Maybe I’m cursed by college basketball and Will Smith movies and next time if I change the channel it’ll be better?
But it doesn’t matter. It happens. Sometimes runs are bad. Sometimes runs are really bad. Sometimes runs are “question everything” bad. But now I’m wearing my coziest clothes and ate some Mac and cheese, snuggled with my dog, and I have a little more clarity. This run doesn’t define me as a runner. I can learn from this one. There will be more bad runs but there will also be a lot more good runs. For now, I’m doing the work and setting myself up for success to make it to the next great one.
So this wasn’t a short blog post. My bad. It was kind of long and I’m not sure if it had a point and really it was just me talking about a bad run. But it made me feel better so I’m going to put it on the internet where it will live forever. Thanks, Internet.
Happy running, folks. And if you, too, had a “question everything” run this week, hang in there. You rock. That run is over, on to the next.