The Marathon Training Blog

Last week was a pretty poor showing on my part. Two runs the entire week. I’m really upset with myself over that.

I headed out of town last weekend and I refused to skip my long run. Though I was scheduled for 18, I decided to hold off on that since the NYRR are having an 18-mile race this coming Saturday. Instead, I did 12 on Friday morning before I took off. Knowing I would do my long run all alone, no Steph, no race, was a challenge, but I just kept telling myself that not doing it was not an option. I knew I’d feel bad about it all weekend if I skipped it so I figured whatever torture it felt like to run so long alone would be better than the emotional wringer I would put myself through.

I started out running in the park and 3 miles in, it started to rain. I know, it’s shallow, but having just dropped a chunk of change on my newly relaxed hair, I refused to get it soaked in the rain, so I headed to my gym nearby. However hard running 12 miles and more has been physically, I could not have predicted how challenging it would be mentally to do 9 miles on a treadmill. That hamster-on-a-wheel feeling is fine for 30 or 45 minutes but for 90? The good news is that I was inspired to run faster just to get it over with quicker. Also, being on a treadmill helped me maintain a constant speed and cut down on the impact on my body. I was much less sore after running inside. But just watching the TV and seeing the same morning show go on and on and on seeing the clock ticking and the people come in and out all the while I was still running was maddeningly tedious. I just kept giving myself pep talks and trying to tell myself how good it would feel when it was over.

When it was over, I high-tailed it out of there only to find that the rain was really a passing shower and that it was bright and sunny outside!

Well, the week’s over and I’m trying not to beat myself up too much over last week’s total mileage. Now I’m focused on the week ahead. I have three 4-mile runs and 18 miles on Saturday. I’m trying to just focus on the short ones in front of me and not think about how scary the 18-miler is, but it’s not working. That 16-mile high I was on seems so long ago. For now, I’m going to try to focus on sleeping and eating well this week and making sure I do my short runs and staying positive.

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