I just want to STOP RUNNING!

Monday, June 21, 2010

I celebrated the longest day of the year with the slowest and worst run of the year.

I started slowly on a hot, humid evening and managed to ratchet it down from there. I had no energy from the get-go and I could tell it was coming. I think it may have been the draining workouts over the weekend and that I didn’t take a day off. I had planned on a one-hour run with a dip in my stream, but by 20 minutes in, I was looking for a way to end it. I was passing the car at 25 minutes, but thought I’d go to 30 minutes. Somewhere during that next 5 minutes, I began to ask myself what the big deal was. Why was I being such a baby? I ask the kids I train to put in tough miles and complete rugged workouts so they can achieve their goals of running faster. Why should I do anything less? So what if I’m not competing…should I really let a little discomfort get me to quit?

Hell yeah! I mean…no. Toughen up a little, at least. I kept running.

At 40 minutes I was moving so slowly that I had to verify I was actually moving by watching the trees next to me to see if they ended up behind me. They did…so I was okay. I took a side trail that I knew would shorten my run by 10 minutes, but again asked myself ‘what are you doing? What’s another 10 minutes going to hurt?” I returned to my original course and kept plodding.

I ran past a drinking fountain and took a long pull. This revived me…for about a hundred yards, but now I was within shouting distance of the creek and 60 minutes of running. I reached the creek and fell in. I could feel the heat leaving my body and just laid there letting the cool stream water pass over my sweat crusted body. After 5 minutes of this refreshing break, I climbed from the stream and ran the last 5 minutes to the car.

This was easily the most I have wanted to quit a run in quite some time, which makes me even happier with myself that I fought the urges to stop and finished the run. I’ve been dragging in a big way lately and I suspect it will be more of the same tomorrow. I’ve been thinking of changing things up – maybe planning a shorter, faster run – something I know I can accomplish without the discouragement. I might put the kayak in the water and just recreate. I know it is important to plan for success…so I will.

By the way…had another couple of hunks of pie late at night. Where’s the will power?

Run duration: 63 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 140.

Calories burned during workout: 1075.