Yes, I'd Like To Buy An "M"--for Moron

The title of this blog entry changed about a dozen times during my long run on Saturday. I fancied everything from "The Best Long Run Ever" to "This Sucks and Why Do I continue To Do This To Myself." My emotions were all over the place on this one due, almost 100%, to my own moronic behavior. I choose to refer to myself as a moron because there's an element of humor in it. "Idiot" implies a degree of stupidity I know is not me. So let's laugh at my word choice.

I wanted to run 13.1 on Saturday. Tom kicked me out the door and headed off to the zoo with the kids. I headed to the Wissahickon which is a wonderful, shaded part of Philly's Fairmount Park. The path is soft, there's always plenty of people watching, and the out and back is exactly 13.1.

Tom and I discussed a pace before I left. He suggested between 9:30 and 9:45. I silently nodded my head but was cleverly thinking I'd go out faster than that, you know, to simulate race conditions. I think I've been watching a little too much Cars with Luke and I've heard one too many times, "I'm faster than fast. I am speed." You can see where this story is going. It's at this point you start yelling in your head "Oh no Jen--what were you thinking?! You moron!"

Off I went. My legs felt like lead. I attributed this to 2 days off in a row. One was a planned day off and the other one got away from me. There's a lot going on in my house right now and shall be the subject of another entry. But it's stressing me out and leaving me restless.

My first mile came in at 9:00 or so (I'm guesstimating these times--haven't pulled them from the Garmin yet). I felt tried. My legs were not loosening up. It was humid and I had asthma junk in my lungs working it's way out as gross hacking noises. Yet I persisted.

Miles 2 and 3 were around the same, maybe faster. I noticed a sticker coming on--funny because I was just talking about this with Cindi and damn her for not having a cure all solution. Did some deep breathing and wondered when the hell my legs would loosen up. I noticed I was thirsty.

My thirst got ridiculous and it occurred to me I had not had any water in the morning. And I had about 5 cups of coffee. It was sprobably 75 or so in the shade. I was thirsty. Oh yeah, I was also dehydrated from all the wine I had consumed the night before (did I mention I'm stressed?). Add this to the moronic behavior file.

I kept going trying to keep the pace up but my splits were getting slower as I was descending deeper into the woods which go down hill. Now you should be wincing for your moronic friend. At the turn around I was having a really hard time but ain't that the fun part of an out and back? You have to go back. So up I went. My splits went from hovering around the 9's to into the 10's and my legs ached. I put down a few 11's. I really ached. And I thought I would die of thirst.

I made it to about 9 miles and walked it into a water fountain. I drank and drank and drank some more. People were staring at me thinking "moron." I stretched out my quads and plodded on. These last few miles were terrible. And I mean terrible. I was cursing myself for going out too fast with my hubris that I could handle it. I was cursing my moronic behavior of not hydrating in the morning. I was cursing the garmin for it's progrssively slower splits. And I was cursing the really skinny girl who seemed to bop along with not a bead of sweat on her. I hated her. I don't hate her as much today.

The last few miles I pretty much forced myself to run. I considered walking a lot--and I did a little. I mostly stopped to stretch my quads out which were a mess. But if anyone had come along and offered me a ride I would have taken it. And a beer.

The idea of this run (in my head) was to see how close I could come to my goal time of under 2 hours for the PDR. I finished in 2:05. How the hell I did that, I'll never, ever know.

So, some lessons learned here. I'm sure the more seasoned runners out there have had runs like this. I'm chalking this one up to a learning exercise. I went from practically being in tears to pretty much snorting at the end, calling myself a moron. This is not how I want to run the half. I need to start slower, hydrate better, and start slower.

There was also the humidity factor and my lungs. My asthma has been acting up and I need to remember to take my med and not hack for the first 30 minutes. And then there's stress which is tiring. And then there's just bad days. It was a bad one and that's that. Doesn't mean I can't run the half. I'll just be smarter about it.

I'm glad I can laugh about it today and it hasn't destroyed my love of running. When I got home and Tom asked how it went, I started off by saying "Well, I went out faster than we had discussed and kind of fell apart." I was laughing and he just sagely nodded his head and laughed "moron."

Today my legs hurt. No sharp pains--just the achey quads. I've been using the stick on them and it feels wonderful. I was toying with the idea of a recovery run today but decided to rest. I had enough up and down the stairs all day to more than compensate for any lost time puttering around the nieghborhood.

I'm sure I'll have some days of achiness but with stuff going on, I need my runs to keep me sane and focused. I think I should consider them a release valve and not put too much pressure on myself to run faster or harder. Running needs to be my time right now. A time to sort stuff out, breath, and gather new strength for the task at hand.

Now that's a cliffhanger;)