Long Run Hell

For those of you that caught my twitter Sunday, you already know this weekends long run sucked. To set the stage, or give an explanation, or just to make myself not question if I should be running another half marathon anytime soon, I'm going to explain the week in the hopes it better explains this long run disaster.

The week was going well with running so far. I had a great track morning on Tuesday, followed up with a good run Wednesday. Thursday's run had to be pushed to Friday morning. Regardless of my lack of excitement, I was up and out of the house to run by 5 am. I got my mileage done, but it wasn't my best run by any means.

Thanks nuun for making the run not completely miserable at 5 am. 

I ended up getting out of work early Friday, which gave Paul and I enough time to go to the running store down the street. Paul needed new shoes, and even though I had my new kswiss ones that I never wore, I'm always on the look out. Paul had been talking about getting Brooks shoes, so I had checked out the website and took their test about which type of shoes were best for me (Ghost 4). I asked to try on a pair of ghost 4s at the store, only to be informed they didn't have them in my size. "The women's track coach at Adelphi University wears Ghost 4s in a size 10, she must of bought the last pair today." My options were to find the track coach and steal the shoes before she wore them (a lot of effort), not buy any shoes (clearly that option only lasted in my mind for .2 seconds), or buy a different pair of shoes. The very nice woman, who was now dealing with my "what do you mean I can't have what I want" attitude, suggested two other shoes to me. One was the Glycerin 9, a similar but in her opinion a step up, from the ghost 4s (they were ugly, really ugly). The other were last seasons Glycerin 9's. Last seasons option wasn't ugly for starters, and only $50. Yes we found a winner! They also sold nuun so I snagged a pink lemonade and a lemon tea, just to make the entire purchase that much better. We followed up the shoe shopping with puppy viewing and a graduation dinner! I passed out at 9:45, yes 9:45pm on Friday night...party animal, I know.

Cutest Puppy Ever!  Made my Friday night! 

The alarms were all set for an early morning 6 mile long run on Saturday, and all the alarms were shut off when the time came around. Paul and I were both still exhausted, and I knew I had a long day ahead even without the run, so I pushed it off till Sunday morning.

I woke up Sunday morning, late. Got myself out of bed, had a bagel and peanut butter, and got ready to go. I wore my new Brooks shorts (thanks to myself), my new lulu sports bra(thanks to my mom), my lulu tank (thanks to the bf), and of course my new Brooks shoes (again thanks to myself). I also was able to snag Paul's garmin because he was going for a bike ride and didn't need it. If you are checking, the only item not new that I wore were my sunglasses. My super obnoxious eye infection (neglected to mention this before) was bothering me when I got outside. I still don't know what it is, but the result is my left eye watering uncontrollably when I'm in the sun. Yes, it is that obnoxious. So I: woke up late, wore all brand new things, had an eye infection, and a stomach ache. With all of this taken into account, I was really excited for this run. I was mentally prepared when I stepped out the door, after that I don't even know what happened.

I got the garmin all set and started running. It was sunny and warm out, but I was comfortable. I ran the mile about 30 second faster than what I was looking for, and told myself to slow down a little. I apparently listened to myself a little too much. At I'm not really sure what point of the 2nd mile I started walking because my knee bothered me. In my mind I said "ok 30 seconds to walk, then time to run again," what happened you ask? The exact opposite. I couldn't motivate myself AT ALL. Nothing was pushing me to run. My legs were tired, I was tired. I wanted the run to be done, I wanted to be home, I wanted to be doing just about anything but what I was doing. In my mind I wanted a great long run, I just had no desire to put in the effort for it apparently. It also was not helpful that every now and then a little man would pop up on my Garmin to tell me just how much slower my pace was than my usual pace. I almost yelled "IM NOT PAUL! 8 MINUTE MILES IS NOT MY USUAL PACE!". I realized I would look like an insane person if I started to yell at my watch however, and kept on moving. I some how got myself through 3.5 miles, about 3 minutes slower than my goal time, and ran into Paul on the bike. He was done his bike ride and was going to switch his shoes and meet me on the other side of the mile loop to run with me. He got me more water, checked on how I was doing, and sent me out to finish my .5 miles until we met up.

Just before I hit 4 miles I saw him with my water bottle, and sucked down some pink lemonade nuun (delicious). I told Paul it wasn't my day, and I thought I would do 5 miles. I explained  complained about my time, my stomach, my eye, the little man yelling at me on the Garmin, and everything else. He agreed this was fine and we started off to finish my run. I'm pretty sure I ran for about 2 minutes and started walking. I was DONE. Paul stopped and walked and humored me for about 30 seconds. He then informed me that I wasn't allowed to take another walk break for sometime. I started running and looked at my Garmin about 500 times to see if I hit the mileage I needed to walk. It was ridiculous. At one point Paul yelled "if you look at the watch again, I'm cutting your wrist off!". I whined and complained a lot. I think at one point I told him I couldn't breathe, to which he responded "If you really can't breathe you can stop, otherwise keep going". Well of course I could breathe, I just wanted it all to be done, so I kept running.

We made it to some sneaky back way to the track and I was allowed to walk. I'm not sure I was even actually tired, I was just over the run. My knees hurt and I was unhappy. We walked through some grass and past a baseball game, and once we hit the track I was informed I was running the rest of my mile. I don't know how long my final mile took, but I'm pretty sure it was at least two minutes faster than any other mile on my run. I thanked Paul multiple times for running with me at the end and apologized for my complaining. Listening to me complain about things is not fun (ask my mom), but having to listen to me complain while we are running, I'm sure is one of the more miserable activities anyone can partake in. He puts up with a lot of crap from me and for that I will be forever thankful.

We went to the beach after to enjoy the rest of the sunny day, mostly because it will rain all this week. We talked about my running and my running future. While part of the run difficulty could easily be because of my new shoes, there is a much larger part to it. The saying of "when the going gets tough, the tough get going" applies to me. When the going gets tough, I do in fact get going, just the other way. I'm not capable of pushing myself AT ALL. I could use my psych degree to figure out why, but I've decided to instead just use the degree to figure out the answer to how to fix my lack of motivation. It is clear that I can run the miles straight, not take walk breaks, and have a faster pace. The entire problem is mental and I need to work around that. If I had an answer as to the problem, I would of posted it first. Unfortunately I'm still working on it. For now I am going to continue doing what I can. I LOVE the track workouts on Tuesday morning, and I am able to get myself through the short runs. The answer during this set of training might be to make Paul run all my long runs with me. Kidding, sort of. I'm working through the answers the best I can, and trying to just enjoy running while I work it out.

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend! Happy Tuesday!