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Not every mile is beautiful

Remember last week when I said marathon training is going amazing?

"I am just loving my long runs" -- She said.

Ha! I am writing this Sunday afternoon while the feelings are still fresh, and the wounds are still gaping.

No, I don't really have wounds.

I had 20.5 very humbling miles.

My last 20 miles, I literally sprinted the final 3 miles. I felt so amazing, and wanted to keep going!

Today, I wanted to lay down and take a nap at 10 miles. So from mile 10-20, I kept questioning "What. Went. Wrong."
  • My nutrition was spot-on all week long.
  • I rested on Saturday to get fresh legs.
  • I ate a great, well-balanced meal Saturday night. I even had a small bowl of ice cream to give me some extra calories to burn ;).
  • I hydrated all day long Saturday. Didn't drink any alcohol.
  • I had a banana with peanut butter 1.5 hours before the run. And foam rolled pre-run.
  • I had bites of fuel (gels) along the course to keep me going.
I was the perfect athlete. But that did not come to play on the run.

At 16 miles, I fell behind my partner, texted her and said "I'm walking to my car. You keep going! I'm done". Well, she came and got me and reminded me "Abby, marathon training isn't easy. Are you injured? Are you hurt? No? Then we push through the hard miles."

It was a good reminder. Not ever long run is going to feel amazing. Marathon training should be tough! And race day, I may not feel "amazing". So I need to learn to be uncomfortable! (Isn't that true with life, too?"

Luckily, she had a protein bar in her car. (which I never eat stuff like that on a long run! But I needed it!) And I had a few bites of that at mile 17, and finished that baby off. I totally hit a wall! And post run I felt weak and defeated.

I returned to my car wobbling, covered in mud (there was a LOT of mud on the path today....), wind-blown, and very thirsty.

Now, hours later - I realize, "Wow, I didn't die." Kind of makes me smile - because I think we all go through these feelings in life. Something can feel so hard - and then when we reflect on it, we find ourselves saying "Well, that wasn't so bad!"

And all I can pray is that I don't feel like that come race day! But I am confident that my much-needed taper will prevent that from happening!


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Marlys said…
Wow, that was a tough run, but hope you figured it out and that it won't happen again! I also hope your next run is not in mud as that makes it even tougher! I'm glad you revived and can talk about it with honesty. Go Abby!
January 25, 2017 at 7:57 AM
Lisa's Yarns said…
Ugh, sorry to hear you had such a tough run. That seems to be inevitable for every training cycle. When I ran the marathon in 2015, I didn't have any bad runs and then I felt pretty awful on race day. So it seems like you need to get the bad run out of the way so race day can be awesome!!
January 28, 2017 at 7:35 PM
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