Friday, August 8, 2014

Not a Fun Run

I woke up this morning and quickly knew today's run probably wouldn't be a great one. Ry and I ran down in Carlsbad last night and didn't get home till after 8pm, which lead to an extremely late (for me) dinner. I actually thought about just eating something small, but was pretty hungry from the day, so ate a decent sized dinner (scrambled egg whites, soy sausage patties, cheese, topped with ketchup of course). When I woke up this morning my tummy felt "off", and figured it would be a "long" long run.


Sure was a stunning sunset run last night!
Even if it was later than I would have liked, the views made up for it!

Although I am not currently on any sort of training schedule (yes, I have Dumbo Double Dare at the end of the month, but know I am in half marathon shape, so am not too worried about it), I still wanted to get in a longer long run today. Last week my calves were acting up (probably due to a strenuous stair workout I did) so I listened to my body and opted out of my long run. I decided today I would shoot to get in 16 miles.

I did a couple of two-a-day workouts this week (mostly because I am starting to try out PiYo and am doing it in addition to my normal routine), so I figured my body would be pretty tired (especially since I had just done a run with the hubby less than 12 hours before). My legs felt pretty good (which I will attribute to my Pro Compression socks), but was just feeling sluggish overall.


I believe the humidity has a lot to do with the difficulty of my runs lately. I know, I know, you are probably as sick of me whining about the humidity as I am living in it, but it's true... The humidity has just been zapping my energy and taking a lot out of me, especially because humidity is strange for us... We just don't have it... This morning when I started my run it was 69* and 79% humidity and it didn't get much better.

Around mile 4 I was spent! I was covered in sweat, I felt like I wasn't going anywhere, it was fairly difficult to keep 10 minute mile pace, and I was pretty over the run. Thankfully for my run, I follow more of an out and back path, so I knew even if I wanted to go home at that point it would still be 8 miles and if I can do 8, I might as well do 16 (the mind tricks I play with myself... I am not sure it makes logical sense, but it worked).

I started to feel hungry around mile 5, which would make sense since I didn't eat anything before I left for my run. Please don't scold me :) First off, I am still trying to figure out what fueling works best for me. Secondly, my tummy didn't feel great and knew it wasn't really going to be ingesting anything for a while. That is when I remembered thinking I felt something in my hydration pack while I was filling it before heading out the door. Just in case it was only a wrapper I decided to try and hold out as long as I could before digging into my bag to look for something to devour. I held out until mile 6 when I found my RUN SAVER - some Pro Bar Bolt Chews!


I took a quick break to have a few of the chews around mile 6 and then again at mile 11.5, but other than that I was chugging along (only stopping at the traffic lights along my route).


At one point I thought my hydration pack might have sprung a leak because my back was so drippy, but nope... it was just my sweat :) [Yum, huh?! T.M.I. but I sweat... a lot...] I think if I was completely honest I would say I felt like walking at least once a mile, but realized the longer it took me to get done, the longer I would be out in the grossness, so tried to keep a steady pace to get me home to our shower as soon as possible.

Although it was slower than I would have hoped, I know I am stronger (even if it is just mentally) because I stuck with it. I kept putting one foot in front of the other and continued to move forward!


And shoot, I think I have earned a lazy afternoon of catching up on some of my shows, what do you think?

What do you do to keep moving forward during a bad run (or a bad day)?

2 comments:

The Silent Assassin said...

Ok, I'm going to totally out myself here...other than age (and sex), I think you're the closest thing I have to compare myself to. And I know we shouldn't compare ourselves to others...but I'm not talking about comparing in a competitive way. I'm referring to where we are in our lives as far as running and running goals are concerned. Hope that makes sense. Up until now, I haven't had much luck with my marathon or my marathon training. I'm putting a lot of stock into my upcoming races...almost setting myself up for a big success or a great failure. Like there is no in between. I see you and you're killing all your training runs and you inspire me to do better. Tomorrow I'm running at least an 18 miler. I just came off my (crummy) 16 last week. But I find myself rooting for you. At least one of us may reach our 'goal' in our upcoming full(s) or whatever race that is. You're mind and discipline is way stronger than mine. Everyone tells me I have the ability to break 4, but I let my mind get the best of me. I always say I'm fine just finishing...but between you and me and whoever reads this, that's all BS. I wanna break 4... i wanna BQ. But for my age group a BQ is 3:15 (so lame)..but yeah, breaking 4 especially in my back yard (phx full) would be amazing. I think you're way closer in your training than me. I'm excited to see you pull this off!

Angie said...

Humidity does suck. I live in Florida so it is very humid here. The summer is killing me when I run. It may be slower than you want, but you still got out there and you did it. That's what matters in the end.