One of The Rough Ones...
It's the rough outings that make one stronger, right? Well, I sure hope that's true as the weekend found me struggling mighty hard to finish my long run. After a few days where my stomach just felt off, and where I couldn't really eat much as a result, I ventured out on a damp Saturday morning to try and get in my long run for the week not exactly in high spirits.
The prospect of a long run was daunting enough, and I had visions of another "test" run. The idea was to run 24km at 5:06/km pace. This should have been totally achievable on any given day, but on this day it proved to be nothing but a pipe dream. Within the first kilometre I realized that simply making through some reasonable distance was going to have to satisfy. As the distance indicator on the Garmin moved at an agonizingly slow rate, and my energy levels sagged from crap to shit bucket territory, I even considered turning around at 5km and heading home. My calves still felt tight (I did end up switching up my Tuesday run for a 40 minute spin on account of that ailment) and my stomach was no cooperating too well. More than anything, I felt like I had absolutely nothing left and I was running slow!
Anyway, I did slog on and decided that a decent turnaround point was 10km. I was not going to be doing myself any good to try to go for the aforementioned 24km. On the way back I stopped more than a few times to try and mentally force myself to continue. It was probably the worst long run since the one that lead to my unfortunate abdominal injury and subsequent year-long layoff back in June of 2011. At least this time I don't think I've suffered any debilitating injuries... The 20km took me 1:44:14 for a fairly pathetic average pace of 5:13/km (though I recognize that in years past I would have been thrilled with this pace and distance so it's all relative).
The next day I managed a much more normal 4km recovery run, with 1km walks bookending it as a warm up and cool down thing, at nearly the same pace and, having had a decent meal finally the night before, I felt much better.
The prospect of a long run was daunting enough, and I had visions of another "test" run. The idea was to run 24km at 5:06/km pace. This should have been totally achievable on any given day, but on this day it proved to be nothing but a pipe dream. Within the first kilometre I realized that simply making through some reasonable distance was going to have to satisfy. As the distance indicator on the Garmin moved at an agonizingly slow rate, and my energy levels sagged from crap to shit bucket territory, I even considered turning around at 5km and heading home. My calves still felt tight (I did end up switching up my Tuesday run for a 40 minute spin on account of that ailment) and my stomach was no cooperating too well. More than anything, I felt like I had absolutely nothing left and I was running slow!
Anyway, I did slog on and decided that a decent turnaround point was 10km. I was not going to be doing myself any good to try to go for the aforementioned 24km. On the way back I stopped more than a few times to try and mentally force myself to continue. It was probably the worst long run since the one that lead to my unfortunate abdominal injury and subsequent year-long layoff back in June of 2011. At least this time I don't think I've suffered any debilitating injuries... The 20km took me 1:44:14 for a fairly pathetic average pace of 5:13/km (though I recognize that in years past I would have been thrilled with this pace and distance so it's all relative).
The next day I managed a much more normal 4km recovery run, with 1km walks bookending it as a warm up and cool down thing, at nearly the same pace and, having had a decent meal finally the night before, I felt much better.
Labels: diet, feeling like crap, no energy, running
posted by Vava at
3:57 PM
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