A crappy run.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

It’s been a bad eating weekend. Saturday night I decided that a couple of cheeseburgers on the grill would go well with a thick, chocolate milkshake. I make both pretty well. For lunch on Sunday, I had pop tarts and a large glass of chocolate milk. I have always found that when I’m training hard in the summer months, I tend to crave certain things. Certainly sugar. Sometimes fat. Sometimes both. I also find that when I’m training hard I can eat almost anything without gaining any weight. Those days are probably gone, but I don’t want to find out. Though I will have these kinds of meals on occasion, I continue to drink the diet stuff instead of calories and am working at staying away from refined sugar as a regular part of my diet.

I had a terrible run on Sunday, too. I went to the park around 10:30 a.m. when it was relatively cool. There was no question about the humidity level, though. I’d put it at somewhere between 98 and 102%. I started the run telling myself it would be an hour, but maybe a little longer. Normally, it takes about 8-10 minutes for me to get comfortable and up to speed. Not today. I never seemed to get going or to feel comfortable. By 20 minutes, I was starting to think about how I’d shorten the course and go with 45 minutes. I had it in my head I would be working in the yard for a couple of hours and that I might supplement with a bike ride after repairing the tire.

But I hate to wuss out. I was sweating even more profusely than normal, with shoes squishing from sweat after 35 minutes. I reached a stretch of trail where I told myself I would take a slight break before continuing. That break – 4 minutes – was a God send. Though I only plodded along after the rest, I managed to run long enough to complete another one hour run.

Why do these days happen? I could have been recovering from consecutive days of very humid, fluid draining days. Maybe it was the two-hour ride and the evening walk the day before – both things I had not done in some time. Possibly it was just the day itself. I’m sure I dropped more water during that run than any other one-hour effort to date. We have off days and have to figure ways to get through, over, around them. I conceded and took a little break. Throw out the stop watch and try to enjoy some aspect of the workout. I’m prouder of myself on these days than the ones when I run p.r.’s. It’s pleasing to know that, no matter how crappy I felt, I didn’t quit.

Tomorrow will definitely be better.

Run duration: 60 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 140.

Calories burned during workout: 1050.