The Worst Run...

Mile 8, exhausted, sitting on a bridge in the middle of my run.

On Saturday, I had the most miserable run I have had up to this date (I'm afraid there will be worse).  Now, this is all based on my vast experience of four months of running, but Saturday was pretty sucky.  Based on our half marathon training schedule, we had to run 11 miles.  10 miles the previous Saturday hadn't been so bad, so I had few reservations about running 11.  Wow, was I mistaken.  I think what sabotaged the run partially was that I ignored all proper preparation the day before.  Friday, I ate so much crap.  Some days I am super disciplined, and I can say no to all junk food, but there are days when my will power is almost nil, and I just have to have a splurge; it's never a great food choice (usually candy, ice cream, or potato chips), but it's small enough that it doesn't affect my weight loss too much.  Friday was neither of those types of days.  I didn't binge, but I didn't exactly hold back.  I kind of grazed a lot throughout the day.  I think I may have eaten close to a half a can of Pringles (oops) and just a lot of little junk that added up to a lot of calories.  My justification?  I am running eleven miles tomorrow.  This is why I haven't lost tons of weight while running.  I have some friends who also run (Jodi and Sami), and they have also witnessed this phenomenon.  There is way too much room for the justification of junk food when engaging in any strenuous activity.  Sigh...

I also went grocery shopping Friday night, and since I am a big couponer and bargain hunter, my list included three different grocery stores.  We were out pretty late, and we didn't get to bed until close to midnight.  Skip to Saturday morning now.  I ate crap the whole day before, and I only got about 4 1/2 hours sleep. To run 11 miles.  In the summer.  Through the country on a bunch of hills.  Yes, it sucked. 

I woke up incredibly grouchy, like I had a terrible case of PMS.  Corey got the brunt of that, unfortunately for him.  Usually I want to hit him over the head to steal his water bottle; last Saturday, I just wanted to hit him over the head.  We also had to go drop off water every two miles, so it was kind of intimidating to see how far we were going to run.  I'm thinking to myself, "Holy cow, it took us 15 minutes just to drop off all the water.  How long is this going to take us to run it all??" 

Tired, self-defeating, grouchy, and with a junk food hangover, I started running with Corey at 6:00.  That sounds pretty early until you know that we got up about 4:30.  That's how slow we were both moving and how much preparation went into the run that morning.  Miles 1-4 were okay.  The first two miles were part of the new 11 mile loop that we had made up, but miles 3-4 were familiar, and the country was pretty.  Corey sang "You Are My Sunshine" to me while we ran in the hot summer sun, and the fact that running is a mood lifter was very fortunate for him because by then, my bad mood had shifted which meant that he didn't get his eyes scratched out for being so cheery. 



No cheeriness in evidence here.  This was about mile 9, and Corey is looking tired.

 Mile 5 was where things started going wrong.  We had to run by the main street into Elmwood, and I really wanted to take it and call it quits.   Even though I was in a better mood, I just felt so tired, and it was getting hotter and more humid by the moment.  By that time, we had been running for just a little over an hour, and the sun was fully up.  Plus, we weren't even half way done, and I think I psyched myself out about that fact rather than giving myself the mental pep talk I needed.  By mile 6, we broke out these chewy energy bites that are like gummy bears for runners.  I ate a few of those and gulped down some Gatorade G2, but I was dragging.  We walked some and then ran from mile 7 to mile 8.  From mile 8 to nine, we ran some and walked some, but I was so tired, I was not running so much as shuffling.  We actually stopped at a creek, and I sat down on the bridge for a quick break (sitting is not good for long runs- you have to get back up, which is the worst!).  Okay, so now I am telling myself to just suck it up and run; I have control over my legs, I can keep going, it's not that long, I'm not really exhausted, etc.  When we hit mile 10, we actually ran past the street to our house, and that was terrible because all I wanted to do was run home.  Instead, we ran up the last hill (hallelujah) and turned around and ran back to our street and to our house.  I actually raced Corey on the last three blocks to our house, and despite the fact that I cut through our neighbor's lawn, he still beat me. 

What this teaches me:
1.  Don't eat junk food the day before a long run.  Food hangover is terrible, and it makes for a crappy run, which is bad enough for four or five miles, but almost unbearable for eleven.
2.  Get enough sleep the night before.  Running takes energy, so SLEEP!!!
3.  I actually AM in control of my legs.  Even though they really wanted to stop and go home at mile 5, I made them go six more miles, and they ran the majority of that distance!  Way to go, legs!!!