Preface: I somehow have lost my ability to do simple math, because my goal was to run 80 to 85 miles this week; most importantly running 15, 30, 20 on the weekend as my final hard weekend. I cut Friday a little short, but realized on Saturday during the run that with the 20 on Sunday I’d be at 95. I recounted many many times in my head during those 5.5hours, to make sure I was right about that.
After yesterday’s 30 miles, the plan was to run 20 miles on tired legs to continue strengthening them. (At least that’s my theory for my training. And since I'm my own coach, it's a correct theory. Ha!) The plan was to run 2 miles with Karma, then 5.5ish over to meet Damon who wanted 10, then 2.5 back to my car for 20 miles. 20 painful miles.
I ran the 2 miles with Karma and my legs were absolutely dead. Amy and Mark were finishing up their run and first thing Amy said was: “You look so tired”, and boy was I. I had already decided to just send a text message to Damon telling him I was calling it a day. When I told them I had no idea how I was going to get my run in, she said: “It will pay off later”. And that was all I needed. Amy’s awesome and super inspiring to me and always has great words of wisdom. This time, all it took was 5 little words to irritate me... to cause an itch... A good irritating itch!
I left Karma in the car, and took off figuring I’d at least run over to Damon’s gym and then tell him in person that I was not going to run with him. That would get me 10 miles, half of what I intended, but better than 2! And since I was already 10 miles over my weekly plan, it was fine.
“No one cares if you skip a run. No one cares if you cut a run short. No one cares if you hit your weekly mileage. No one cares if you hit your time splits on workouts.But what you are doing is cheating yourself, and you are only betraying the commitment you made to yourself when you started your journey and chose your goal.” MW 12/20/09That’s the newest quote I came up with for myself in the first mile after leaving Karma and Amy. You got in my head, Amy... damn you! ; )
So as I’m running a turtle pace listening to mellow U2 songs, I ran into Muz who was going the other direction. His plan was to run 12-15 miles or so, meeting Damon for 10 as well. He joined me in my direction, an we both quickly realized that even by snailing along, we’d be very early to meet Damon, so we added 2 miles to our run. I told him repeatedly I would be cutting things short because my legs were dead and I was exhausted. He acknodleged his legs were dead from yesterday too.
We met Damon, and I informed him I was going short, and slow. I then told them that even cutting my run short would have me reach my intended goal of 80-85.
About 5 miles into our little run and a long water break at Rogue, I finally started to feel a little better. I told Muz and Damon a little more about my inability to do math and how I was flirting with 100. “Can I really end my week so close to 100?” was one of the many things I said! Long story short, next thing you know, Damon’s intended 10 miles turned into 12, and Muz’s intended 12-15 or so, turned into 20!
And my 2miles, turned into possibly 10, then into 12, then into 20, then into 25! It was painful, but I kind of had to do it!
I got home, mapped out my mileage (http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/
So, an hour after finishing my painfully long, unplanned “25” mile run, I had to go out for 0.8. I mapped out a silly 0.8 around my house and hobbled on dead, cold, and sore as hell legs to get to 100! One of the most painful but necessary 7 minutes of running ever!
But hey, not only did I prove to myself that it was possible to run the distance and more. (and actually even feel better for the middle miles, cranking out several 7:20min/mile paced miles, and even 1 under 7 mins!)
Now it’s time to celebrate the end of hard training and welcome the arrival of my taper for 3 weeks!
Did someone say Sunday night Beer and Homeslice Pizza?! Oh yeah!
4 comments:
Heheheh good times man good times:)
Awesome, though the .8 mile thing was bush league.
JT, what would you have done, rounded up?
I can't round up and I can't stop short of 100. Short of 60, 70, 80 or even 90... sure, no problem. But 100, nope.
I would have either added the distance on to the end of a real run, or would have settled for 99.2 miles for the week. Or at least ran a five miler in the evening.
I read about those guys who have been streaking for decades, and hear stories about how they "ran" through major surgery on crutches around their hospital room. Your .8 mile run reminds me of that. Lame.
But kudos on the good 99 miles.
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