Woo Hoo! Guess Who's Feeling Like a Runner Again!

FINALLY!!!!

 I ran a 50K last month and it was so hard and so awesome and I was on top of the world. I was also VERY excited to not be training. And then…. I signed up for another 50k in September and I’ve got this trail marathon in August and AHHHHHHH what was I thinking?!?!?!?

 So I allowed myself a little time to “do whatever” with stipulations of course (gotta have double digit weekends, gotta stay close to 30 miles a week, gotta stay on the trails). Yeah, all those gottas take away from “do whatever” really fast. All of the sudden I was right back into training but trying to pretend I wasn’t training. And everyone around me seemed to be more in love with training and running then EVER. Wait, was I the only one that ran that race? Isn’t everyone else exhausted and ready to bask in the glory for a moment? JUST FOR ONE FREAKING MOMENT!?!?!? 

Here I was not really HATING running, but starting to feel like it was a job. I work a job to pay for my running habit. If my running habit just starts to feel like a job then I’m some idiot that works a job to do a job when they aren’t at their job and OH MY GOD THAT SOUNDS AWFUL!!!! but I do what we all do when the going gets tough. I pretended like it was all ok. Fake it til you make it? Something like that.

My runs haven’t been stellar. I haven’t enjoyed them so much. Last week I went on a family vacation and I put in 21 miles on all new trails that were beautiful.

 

I loved running somewhere new, and the scenery was lovely. But it all seemed like too much work. My feet hurt, my legs were dead, I was counting tenths of a mile to get through a short run. Gah! What is the deal? I also had not written out a training program. People kept asking me what plan I was going to use, when I was going to start… and I kept saying, “yeah I haven’t done that yet, it’s on the list”. And I would print off a few things and then never look at them.

 

I didn't even run this past Saturday. We got back in to town on Friday afternoon. On Saturday morning I got up, put on my running clothes and didn't run a single step. I can tell you that I could probably count the number of Saturdays that I haven't run on one hand. What was the deal.

 

Then Sunday came and guilt had overwhelmed me. If I was going to pretend to be a runner, I needed to try harder. I decided that one of my favorite 10 mile loops would make me less likely to cut it short. I woke the husband up and we were off.

 

It started out as lame as the other runs and then it started to feel good again. There were miles that went by without me noticing. I was smiling at silly thoughts and feeling lighter on my feet. Sure the humidity was 80% and it's gonna do nothing but get hotter this summer. But I finally felt like a runner again. YEAH! Every time I go through a slump like this I worry that I'll never come out. And here I am! I wrote out a training schedule and I'm ready to go!