But now... NOW it's constant. Every day, there is a run. When I wake up, I think about how many miles I have to run that day. As the day goes by, I think about what I'm eating to fuel my body, if I'm drinking enough water to not get dehydrated, if I'm wearing the best shoes to support my weird 'n' crampy left arch. When I get home, it's time management from the moment I get off of the train to get in my run, shower, cook, eat, try to breathe/relax for a moment, and head to bed to start over again.
I'm not an idiot-- I was very aware going into this that I'd be (literally) running my bum off. But just like with any other workout, there are days when I'm loving the training and how good it makes me feel, how fit and strong I feel, etc. It's REALLY fabulous to be hitting the distances that I'm running for long runs and not be, well... dead. Because I totally thought I'd be crawling once I hit 10 miles. Y'all, I wasn't even all that sore on Saturday. It's fabulous because I know that I'm slowly training my body to be completely conditioned to take on a crazy goal, and it's working. BUT for as many good days as there are, there might be three more bad ones. There are days when I just don't want to do it. The thought of doing anything else in the world as a physical activity OTHER THAN RUNNING is appealing.
Since I'm being totally honest, there have been a couple of days where I just gave myself a break and didn't beat myself up about THE GUILT and didn't do anything at all. I made sure that the days have been cross training or easy runs, never speedwork days or long runs. I felt incredibly guilty about it at first, but after talking to fellow runners at work, they helped me to realize that if taking a day off to maintain my sanity is necessary, TAKE IT. Training to put your body through 26.2 miles of running is crazy intense enough, and if you do it burnt out and exhausted, you're more likely to get tired of it in general, not to mention hurt yourself, not train at your full potential... and so forth.
At the end of the day, I know that training for a marathon is hard-- if it were easy, it'd be a lot less of an accomplishment to have crossed the finish line, and a heck of a lot more people would do it. And I knew I'd hit bumps during training-- it's totally normal to be angry when you read the word "Fartlek" and have to wear sneakers to commute in because your foot hurts and know that by Saturday afternoon you'll have run 25 miles and that your body will be TIRED.
But in the end, I know it will so be worth it!
In other running news...
I ran my 10 mile long run on Saturday.
It was horrific... because it was on the treadmill.
As I'd mentioned, my arch in my left foot has been bothering me, so I've been babying my foot a little bit until my appointment with Sports Medicine this Thursday afternoon. I didn't want to run 5 miles out from the car and have my foot start bothering me... so I chose to run on the treadmill. Even with a good night's sleep, tons of water and my energy Gu, it was a tough run. Physically, I felt great. Mentally, the games-- they were a-playin'.
When I do long runs outside, it's easy to pick something else to focus on when I'm struggling, even if it's making it to the next street sign, then that red car, then the big building... and once I'm there, I'm usually past the little wall that was trying to shut me down. But on the treadmill, the only things you have are your body, that rubber belt under your feet, and whatever sight you're seeing directly in front of you (for me, a big pretty window... that opens to the warm, sunny courtyard... that backs up to a building. Not exactly inspiring.) Knowing it would be a trying run, I had downloaded a movie to my Kindle but not even Bridget Jones could help me through this one. Bridget nor Hugh nor Colin in all of their British man glory-- fail fail fail.
It can also really mess up your rhythm when the treadmill only allows you to run 60 minutes at a time, so since I was running for over an hour and a half, I had to time it to catch the distance and time up enough with each other so they'd be at a sort of round number when I got to 60. As if I want to play with math at a time like that while trying to breathe, not trip, not gasp too loudly-- balls to that.
BUT I made it. And I tried my second form and flavor of Gu. My current favorite are the Gu Chomps, watermelon flavor. They're gummy but not overly chewy, so if you can get past nearly choking when first sampling while running, you're gold!
Watermelon Gu Chomps:
This weekend I tried an actual Gu gel, strawberry banana flavor... and about died. The flavor, the consistency, the sweetness-- gah, I have chills just writing about it. It was awful. It did it's job, but I will not be relying on the gel for my runs any longer.
Off to make friends with my Fartleks.
No comments:
Post a Comment