This marks the fourth week in a row that I have hit 70 miles. For the most part, I've enjoyed the training. But at the end of this week I hit a little bit of burnout.
The week began with Hurricane Sandy, whose arrival was enough to get us out of work for two days, but just grazed the DC area and didn't even cause us to lose power. (My friends in NYC and Jersey were not nearly as lucky and some of them still do not have power or heat.) It wasn't really safe to run outside on Monday but I did get in 9 miles on the treadmill. On Tuesday the rain and wind were virtually gone by 10am so I put out a post to the "Moms Run This Town" group and found someone crazy enough to want to do a long run with me on the Accotink Trail. It was great to run with good company and I got in 15 miles. Wednesday my alarm went off for my usual recovery run with my neighbor, but she texted and said she was tired and I could not motivate myself to run solo so I turned off my alarm and went back to sleep. I had a dentist appointment at 4:30 and was taking my kids trick-or-treating that evening so I had no idea how I was going to get in seven miles.... I finally decided to run from work to the dentist and then run back to my car and drive home. I made it home by 5:45pm with seven miles run and clean teeth. Thursday the motivation was still waning... I was supposed to do 12 miles with 10 X 100 meter strides before work but I kept hitting snooze and only wound up with 9.5, so I then forced myself to do the strides on the treadmill with the kids in gym daycare (took less than 20 minutes) before we hit family swim. Friday was supposed to be a 10 mile recovery run. Again, I hit snooze and didn't get up. Jamie said he was fine picking up the kids and I could run after work, so I left as soon as school finished. I wanted to quit two blocks into the run. I figured I'd feel better once I hit two miles or so. Nope. At 2 miles I still wanted to quit. And I still had three more to go before the turnaround. At three miles in I really wanted to quit. At 3.5 I really, really really wanted to quit... so I turned around and figured I would do the other three miles on Sunday.
Saturday was chilly and I showed up at the marina at 6:30 so I could get in three miles before meeting Tuan and Brittany for the remaining 14. I put on my headlamp and took off on the Mount Vernon Trail -- and immediately started freaking out. Where were all the other runners? Normally they are out in full force, but I guess the Marine Corps Marathon put an end to that. I guess most of them were done training for the season. I was all alone on a dark trail along the Potomac River. I turned around and ran across the 14th Street Bridge over and over for the remaining 20 minutes. At least that was well lit. I was very glad when 7 o'clock rolled around and I had company for the remaining 2 hours...
So my mileage was at 68 and I swore I'd hit 5 weeks of 70 and I really REALLY did not want to run on Sunday. At all. I took the kids to swim lessons, soaked in the hot tub, had a great afternoon with the kids and then forced myself to do a 2 mile recovery run at 5pm before we went to our neighbors for dinner.
70 miles. Done. One more week of this craziness. And reading the above... well, it really does sound a bit crazy. Hopefully this week will be filled with a bit more motivation.
Wow! You are incredibly motivated! I think it's ok to shorten runs if you are feeling burnt out like you are describing. Don't beat yourself up too much for skipping a few miles or a recovery run! I'm also following Pfitzinger's plan like I told you on DailyMile and I have a hard time always getting in all the mileage and hitting the workouts because my body is just tired so sometimes I skip the recovery runs.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling you are going to crush your time goal at CIM!
Great Work!
ReplyDeleteGlad your safe.
Caroline@Dailymile