You know how people say, "Things are going downhill" and that means that things are getting worse. As a runner, that's so hard to understand. I had a disasterous week...most of the trouble coming whenever I ran uphill. The downhill is totally easy...in fact, that's when my mood improves. Here's one thing I've learned...I don't do well when I travel and try to run (I'll keep that in mind for Eugene). I don't know what it is about the uphills in other states (Mass and GA both own me). I like to believe that the hilly course I run out here is pretty burly. The roads I run are coveted for cyclists and I often get cheers of encouragement or thumbs up for the climbing I'm doing. So, why does Whitney Street do me in? That's bogus.
So, here's how the week went. Monday: bad run--could not run the tempo or the distance that I wanted, Monday night: red eye, Wednesday: bad run--again, no tempo, short on distance, Thursday: okay run...still had to walk up some hills, but I ate up the hills on my repeats (what gives there?) and a wild turkey did strut right out in front of me), Saturday: great for 17 miles...tough for the last six, Saturday night: flight home...arrived at 12:45 am PDT on Sunday, Sunday: fairly quick four miles, despite the soreness.
Other lessons learned? Just keep moving forward. I'm not dwelling on last week. There were plenty of places to make mistakes. Not enough sleep, red eye, hydration malfunctions, and the like. All in all, I had only a brief meltdown durant-running. It was on Church Street and very, very brief, given the meltdown that could happen on your third failed run in a row (I think I got emotional about seeing my high school behind my old temple's building). But, my long, long run on Saturday went well, given the fact that it was so cold that it felt better to stop running sometimes and warm up. I felt good for about 17 miles, felt so-so for the rest, felt fine after it was over, had no problems sitting on a plane for way too long (exit row and the cutest 17 year old ever...we talked college and high school and essays for half the trip), and my usual Sunday "shake-it-out" run was easily. I've also learned that maybe it takes marathon training to make me a better 5K and 10K runner.
Oh, and to top it all off, my water bill was higher this month, despite all the graywater I've been saving and using to flush the toilet. My explanation: my roommate has asked that I don't "let it mellow," if you catch my drift, so more water in general is going down the drain than usual. And I haven't totally mastered the water-in-the-bowl flush. I'm sad about this. It's really hard to make a difference environmentally. Especially when you don't get the support you'd like from others. Boo!
T-minus three weeks. I'm off to the beach!
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2 comments:
Yo Mo-Wah, how's it shaking?
Well, I'd like to say that there's a lot of the kind of negativity in this post that is normal from a too-short window of thinking about endurance athletics. Sorry if I sound like I'm scolding you, but you understand what it's like to shift distance/location/mindframe/timezone (!), and you should know that, three weeks from your event, you're doing great great work and shouldn't let things like this play into your sense of how your race is going to go. At this point your race is going to go one way or another, but both of those ways will entail you finishing your first marathon, so no worries, right?
S
I wanna stick up for Studs here... girl, you've been training for months here and I know how great it's been going. Traveling through time zones is really touch on ANYONE let alone someone who wants to run 20 miles. Keep up the great work and really savor those cheers you get up the bike paths!
Go Eugene!
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