Tuesday Afternoon Marathon Meet-Up: Week 10

Don’t worry.  I haven’t given up.  This post is simply delayed due to the long weekend and all of the Inaugural festivities (YAY!).

Anyways.  I continue to struggle with long runs, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s almost entirely mental.  Last weekend, I drank myself silly, had no dinner the night before, got four hours of sleep and ate pancakes pre-long run… and I felt great.  Because I had no expectations for myself.  This weekend I properly carb-loaded with pizza and only one beer (you can’t have pizza without a beer), got plenty of sleep, and properly fueled before lacing up.  Yet I felt awful, almost immediately (I pushed through– for details see the long run summary below!).  And I know exactly why: I totally psyched myself out.  I was convinced that I wasn’t going to do well, so I didn’t.

I’ve been doing that lately.  I convince myself that because I didn’t eat properly, didn’t get enough ZzZzs, missed a training run, (more often actually) pushed myself too hard on a training run or cross training, etc. that I have sabotaged my long run.  I think about it all week and by the time Saturday comes I’m convinced I’m going to fail.  I need to stop doing that.  Instead, I need to start psyching myself up with positive thoughts.

Speaking of positive thoughts, a lot of folks (many fellow runners) have told me recently that they are following my training and enjoy these updates– even that they find them inspirational.  You don’t know how happy it makes me to hear that.  I know I have been pretty negative about my training lately and the concern has crossed my mind that it might be sort of unpleasant to read over and over again how little I want to do my long runs.  So I am thrilled to hear that folks are inspired by my training updates, even the struggles.  I’m glad to know that people are watching and holding me accountable.  On Friday, literally as I sat on the couch complaining about how little I wanted to do a long run the next morning, a postcard was delivered from a friend in France.  It said that she was following my training as she herself trained for her first marathon, and that she was rooting for me.  As I struggled through another tough long run the next morning, I thought to myself: someone half way across the world is rooting for you.  Just. Keep. Running.  Merci.

We had a low-key night on Saturday, so I was able to make it to the 8:30am revolution yoga class for my cross training on Sunday.  It’s basically 45 minutes of cycling and 45 minutes of yoga, and it’s really excellent cross training: keeps your muscles moving through spin and then stretches them out with yoga.

Scheduled mileage: 33 miles
Actual mileage: 30 miles

Long Run/(Hike) Summary:

I was dreading this long run.  As I have tended to do lately, I had totally psyched myself up for failure.  And then I hit a wall at mile 3.   I didn’t even know that was possible.  But I like giving up even less than I like running stupid distances, so I pushed through.  I had mapped a new run this week since we had to add extra distance and I really hate Hains Point.  Instead of going up and over the Key Bridge when we got to the Roosevelt Island parking lot, we kept left toward the Chain Bridge (between miles 5 and 6).  It started out as a dirt path with a few roots, rocks, and obstacles, but definitely manageable.  The excitement of exploring the unbeaten path inspired me and the difficult terrain made me feel better about my already slow pace.  Plus it was beautiful.

And then it got a little rockier.  There was lots of ankle spraining potential.  I would be lying if I told you the thought of an ankle sprain getting me off the hook didn’t cross my mind.  But only briefly.

By mile 8, we were crossing a creek under a waterfall.  Beautiful, but to say that we were running might be a stretch.

And then we hit mile 9.  Mile 9 might stick out on the pace chart below.  No I wasn’t running on my hands.  Although I was using my hands a good deal.  Somehow we went from running, to hiking, to straight up rock climbing.  I’m talking, “use of both hands and occasional rump” rock climbing.  “Harder than some of the routes on the Emory climbing wall” rock climbing.

So that was a bit of a challenge.  At points we had to turn back and go up and around a different way.  It would be an understatement to say it slowed us down a bit.  Courtney says this makes us even for the run he mapped entirely on sidewalkless highways, but I disagree.  At least mine was pretty.

It wasn’t easy to start running again after three miles of trail running and then hiking/climbing for a solid mile stretch, but we still had eight miles to go.  I’m not quite sure how to count this run, since there was definitely a solid break in the middle.  Maybe “break” isn’t the right word… but a break from running, nonetheless.  Regardless, three and a half hours later, we made it home having clocked 18 miles.  Perhaps next week I’ll pick a new route (although this would be a beautiful run/hike/picnic outing for a day we weren’t planing a long run!)