Joy here...Today being Saturday was supposed to be our long run. We were going to run for about 19 or 20 kms, with 70 minutes of that at "M pace" (i.e. marathon pace). With sore knees, hot and humid weather, and two nights of drinking under my belt (both Thursday AND Friday) I was a little worried about today's long run. My last long run was not last Saturday, but the Saturday before, when I had a mini-bonk. So with my trepidation in hand, my fuel belt filled with water, and my chocolate flavoured GUs all ready to go, out the door we went. It became fairly clear to me fairly quickly that I wouldn't be able to do today's run at the desired fast pace. In fact, it became fairly clear to me that I would have to wave The Man onwards to run at his own speedy pace, while I just grappled to keep it all together. So, as I say...I was going to run for 2 hours, with 70 minutes of that at "M pace," but what really happened is that I made the executive decision that today's run was going to just have to be another easy run. No matter what I did, I just couldn't speed up. To see the bright side of things, the day was beautiful, one of those clear sunny days when the sky is a vibrant blue and the merest wisps of white clouds dance overhead like fine, combed expensive alpaca wool. On any other day, I would have revelled in how lovely it was. Today, however, all I could think about was how the sun was burning my skin off my body and encouraging my sweat to pour down my face into my eyes. I couldn't see that bright side of things, because I was too busy feeling sorry for myself, too busy thinking that I can't run, too busy thinking that I've bitten off more than I can chew, and too busy berating myself for my many running failures. In the end, I pulled the plug on the run in less than an hour and forty minutes. I mean, how's that for failure? I was supposed to last two full hours and fell shy of that goal by twenty full minutes. Ugh.
I just tell myself that tomorrow is the start of a new week, and I will just put this week (and last week, and the week before that...) out of my mind and just focus on moving forwards.
In the meantime, here are today's oh-so-weak run stats:
Ran for a total time of 1:37:56 for a distance of 17.32km at an average pace of 5:39min/km
Even if it kills me, I'm going to force myself to pull off a 20km run next week. Seriously. And until then, I'm going to do my best to enjoy my runs. Even if it kills me. (How's that for irony?)
Over and out,
Joy
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