Okay not really moving moving, but I’m moving blogs!
I have spent a lot of time over here at faith/food/fitness, and this blog has seen a LOT, been read by many, and helped begin many amazing friendships. As this chapter of my blogging career is closing, a new chapter is beginning and I am so excited!
So please take this blog off of your reader, bookmarks, and email subscription list and join me over at my NEW blog, Run, Sweat, and Sparkle!!!
I’ll see ya there!
Oh hi, remember me? It feels like it has been way too long since I have been on this side of the blog. Needless to say, this week has been absolutely crazy. Between work, coaching, finals, and trying to get my workouts in…I feel like a hamster on a revolving wheel.
Conveniently, I am also three weeks out from my next marathon, which naturally, is when the longest long run of a marathon training plan takes place. So between the aforementioned chaos, I was needing to fit in a 22 mile run somewhere this week. That day was today. Because I literally had no other day or time available to do so. Also, summer is upon us here in the midwest and afternoon highs have been in the 90’s for the majority of the week.
I continue.
Getting my run in today meant being up at 5am, greeted with a lightning show, thunder, and big, fat raindrops. I had no way of stalling my run, so I booked it to the gym to do this long run. Before I left the house, I started to download Mean Girls on my iPhone to watch while running and made sure that my iPod was charged to keep me occupied for the four hours I was to spend on the ‘mill.
The first six miles went by pretty well, despite getting a weird stomachache/barfy feeling after mile five. I continued, the next six miles were not well. Mentally, things were getting tough. I tried positive reinforcement to no avail, was sweating like a sumo wrestler on a summer day in Louisiana, and the rain was starting to clear which made me mad that I wasn’t running outside. Ultimately I just could not pull my crap together. My heart wasn’t in this.
One promise I made to myself about a year ago was this:
If there was ever a moment that I didn’t absolutely love what I was doing, then I needed to take a step back, look some things over, and remind myself of why I was doing what I was doing.
I cranked three more miles out and was done. I wasn’t going to put myself through those other seven miles because it would have gotten me nothing and nowhere. To console my feeling of defeat, I climbed for thirty minutes on the stair master and called it a morning. My skirt was dripping sweat, my thighs had chaffed so much they were bleeding, and I needed to refresh my love of running.
Today was a combination of things that I’m well aware of– stress, not getting enough sleep, and my eating has been sub-par (for me) the past week. I also accepted the fact that I need a break. One of the first signs of over-training is not being able to complete a workout, and while I don’t believe I’m over-training, I realized I have spent the past nine months either training for marathons, maintaining mileage, or racing. I accept that I am feeling just a little burnt out. I absolutely love running, but I have to take some of the stress and pressure away, because those don’t equate to enjoying running for me.
I still love running; in fact, I’m looking forward to a trail run I’ve planned early next week…no watch, no route, no goal pace, just me and the trails. After Med City I’ll be taking near a month off of being on a consistent running schedule and I’m going to be honest, I haven’t felt a release that great in a while. My body needs the break mentally, physically and emotionally. This rest will do me good because when I start training for Chicago I want to give it all I’ve got!
Even though today was the ‘run that wasn’t,’ it was a learning experience and reality check. I must say, I’m blessed and it’s pretty amazing that I was so disappointed with ‘only running fifteen miles…’ WHO says that??
That’s when I finally got my crap together.
After a crazy last couple of weeks, I thought it would be a good time to revisit the goals that I set five months ago–has it really been that long?! This year really is flying by which makes me sad but I also love it, because this year has been cramazing (crazy + amazing) so far!
1. Run 4 marathons in 4 different states
The original plan was to do Little Rock in Arkansas (check), Omaha in September, Chicago in October, and Dallas White Rock in December. But since when do any of my original plans work? Right, never. What I thought was going to be conflicting my ability to run Omaha in September is no longer a conflict, so that race could still happen, even though it’s two weeks before Chicago. I am already registered and definitely running the Chicago Marathon in October, but I hadn’t planned on winning a free entry to the Med City Marathon next month! Where there’s a will there’s a way, and my way to run a marathon in Minnesota was made out for me, so naturally my will is following. Does that make sense? I also haven’t shared but I was given a free entry to run the Waddell and Reed Kansas City Marathon this year! This race is in October, two weeks after Chicago. I hadn’t originally planned to run this one either, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity of a free marathon entry. I know this marathon will be special to me for a few reasons–it’s just a couple of days after my birthday, it will be the 3rd anniversary of my first half marathon which was on this course! Thank you Kansas City Sports Commission! As for Dallas, it’s like that race will still happen, but time will tell. My baseline goal for this year was 4 marathons in 4 states and I know that’s going to happen, anything above that will be extra special!
faith/food/fitness 