Live, Run, Grow

As I mentioned in my Weekly Training Training Recap I did a second 20 mile run this past weekend and unfortunately I have to say it didn’t really go much better than my first 20 mile run (you can read about my first attempt here).  I’m going to try to keep this brief, because to be honest I don’t really want to think about it too much.

I started my run around 11am after having some oatmeal and doing some last minute stretches.  I had decided to put in walk breaks from the start hoping that would alleviate some of the issues I had last time.  Well, similarly to last time I was doing well through about mile 15/16 and then I just started to hurt.  My feet hurt (although not as bad as last time), my legs hurt (damn piriformis that I always have trouble with), I was cold (it was probably just below 40 degrees, probably the coldest I’ve run in so far) and I was just not having a good time.

Now I understand that marathon training is not supposed to be “a good time”, but something about this run really rattled me and as I got to about mile 19 I just started to lose it.  I stopped running and called my husband and started crying that I didn’t think I could do this, I just wanted to cancel my whole trip to Florida for the marathon and forget it…yes, I had a meltdown.

I’ve calmed down a bit now that I’ve had some time to regroup, and in hindsight I think I had psyched myself out before this run even started.  I woke up Saturday and I just felt exhausted, I kept thinking “I am way too tired to do this today”, then I went outside and it was colder than I was expecting which threw me off a bit.  I wasn’t as prepared as I was last time, I didn’t have all my stuff laid out, I was scrambling around looking for everything, and by the time I was out the door all I could think about was how I couldn’t wait for this run to be over, so as things started to get tough around mile 18 or so instead of pulling myself together and pushing through it I just lost it.

Now I know that attempting to train for a marathon during my busiest time of year at work, especially being a new runner, was NOT a very good idea, but at this point I’ve already put in a lot of time and effort and I want to do this and more importantly I think I can do this.  So my plan right now is to continue to stretch the heck out of my legs and feet and to go to Florida in January and complete a marathon.  It may be slower than I hoped and I may walk more than I planned, but I’m going to go into it knowing that I didn’t train as much as I would have liked to because of work and that next time I’ll do better!

And I think I’m going to buy a copy of this book to take with me!