Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Where I'm at: A story of running AWFULNESS

Oh the workout last night. It was rough. To say the least.

Actually, all my workouts have been rough recently.

I’m almost embarrassed to blog about it – it was that bad. But it’s time for me to write something, so here we go!

I started the evening in a bad mood. It was awful outside. And it’s been awful. And I’m tired of it being awful. But workouts must be run, so off I went for a 10 minute warm-up (ha! warming up seems kind of ridiculous when it’s over 90 degrees. I think I would have been better prepared for the workout had I sat in a deep freezer for a bit).

Anywho, the workout was supposed to be 6x1200, but due to the aforementioned awfulness, Coach George shortened it to 2x1200, 2x800, 2x400.

There are plenty of excuses (with varying degrees of legitimacy) to justify my bad workout. It was hot out (true). The air quality was really bad (true). I was still tired from my lengthy weekend (maybe true). All these factors combined made it almost impossible to breath (true, which was weird. I couldn’t get enough oxygen in me and that’s never happened before!). 

But you know how I feel about excuses. The bottom line is that I’m out of shape. And upset about it. Because I know where I “should” be…I know how fast I “should” run…but that is nowhere near where I am. And not to be arrogant and proud, but goshdarnit I used to be good at running and now I’m not and it SUCKS. So I’m frustrated. And angry. But when my rage is directed at myself it turns into a giant implosion of misery…and that’s just no good. (Ok, temper tantrum over. Sorry about that. It’s my blog and I’ll cry if I want to.)

I did the whole workout, ever so slowly and painfully (go ahead and look at my times in my Running Log on the left. Full disclosure - I may be slow but at least I'm honest). I’m trying to remember to be grateful that I can run. And I’m holding on to this one thing that I know to be true: If I make myself miserable enough often enough, it will eventually feel less miserable. And that is a fact.

I want you to know that I’m not telling this to make you feel sorry for me. Because a gi-normous Mollie pitty-fest (though fun) is not the goal of this blog. But maybe (1) you’re trying to make your own comeback. Or maybe (2) you’ve experienced this before. Or maybe (3) someday due to some circumstances you will not be able to run for a while, and you’ll deal with these same issues. Or maybe (4) you’ve never run before (you read Eat Run Read for the eating and reading parts) because every time you do you feel the way I do now, and therefore you just can’t wrap your mind around why some people like running.

So here’s the deal. The #1s are me. And I’m sorry. But we will get through this! The #2s are the survivors…any advice for the rest of us? The #3s should listen to their legs and run smart to avoid this situation entirely. And the #4s, if you’ve ever thought about running, try it and stick with it. I promise it gets better!