Questioning myself

It happened about 8:30 yesterday morning.  I was at mile 5 1/2 of a scheduled 12-13 mile run.  I’d been running for close to an hour, and I remember thinking how hot and humid it was, and how I’d already sweat so much that my socks were squishing with each step.  I hadn’t started pouring water over my head yet, so that was all sweat.

I had just started my second of three loops.  At the end of the first loop I’d changed out my water bottle for a larger one, and taken a GU.  I was set for another 8 miles.

The day before I’d ridden about 65 miles, followed by a 2 mile run.  It had been a tough workout, but I think I had recovered as best as I could.  My legs were a bit tired, but it wasn’t so much the running muscles and I had done this back-to-back workout many times before.

Then it happened, I was tired.  I really wanted to walk.  If I walk once, it becomes easier to walk again, so I really try to push off walking or avoid it all together.  I figured I would push off doing anything at all until mile 6, and hope I could then push it off again.  Mile 6 came, and I couldn’t push it off.  It wasn’t that my legs were shot, I was over breathing, my heart was racing (although it was probably beating harder than I would have liked); I was just really tired.  I walked for a bit in the shade, poured some water over my head and back, and then started running again.

It was now a real mental and physical battle to keep running.  I backed off of the pace some, kept using water to cool me off and fought the urge to walk.  I lost the battle twice more before I hit mile 9. 

Fighting through that second loop, I was also fighting another battle:  the thought of another 4 mile loop after this one.  I was calculating alternate, shorter loops, trying to figure out something I felt I could do that made sense.

I had to stop at mile 9 to get more water.  That extra break time, on top of my current mental state, was the kiss of death as I never got going again.  I’d like to say I’d made a rational decision that even a 1.5 mile loop made no sense if I was going to end up walking one or more times, but that wasn’t it.  I was just done and I knew it.  I knew it a couple of miles back and forced myself to continue.

That was all that ‘it’ was, in fact that wasn’t it at all.  It:  I started to question whether I have what it takes.  If I can’t finish a weekend run, how will I be able to finish a longer race?  If I can’t do the race, then why should I do these runs.  I wasn’t particularly enjoying this run, and if it isn’t fun why am I doing it.  The problem with these mental battles, is that if I lose them on the field, I struggle with my loss for days or weeks.

If there is a silver lining to my latest loss, it was in an email from coach.  Her exact words were:  “You ‘cracked’ at the end of a 3 week build cycle…  Perfect!”  I agree that I cracked, and I also agree that it was at the end of a 3 week build cycle.  Perfect?  I’m not so sure about that.

Here’s the funny part.  I almost just wrote “Why does this have to be so hard”, when that is exactly why I do it.  If it was easy everyone would do it and it would hold no allure for me.

So today I relax and recover and get ready to start up another week tomorrow!