Sunday, September 19, 2010

22, 21 the fire is flickering.....

Ok, update time.  I'll explain the post title in a second......

Yesterday was a normal, long, crazy, Saturday of market for 12+ hours and fitting tons of junk in around that.  The highlight was the fact that my parents' surprised me at the market because my dad wanted to see it!  So nice of them + they bought me some of my groceries including local squash, my weekly 1lb bag of spinach, head of broccoli, and peaches.  Sadly, the much of it has already been eaten in the last 24 hours.  Alas, thus is life.

Then I slept.  For a glorious 12 hours.  And I could have/would have kept going if I didn't actually have to get my crap together today.

Starting with my run.  Since I already did my 20 miler on Friday, today was a simple 10 miler.  Although I didn't "garmin" it, I think that it was just under 8 minute pace, which was good I guess.  But, here's confession time.  With running right now, the fire is flickering.  I think that analogy suits how I am feeling right now because I wouldn't call what I am experiencing a full-on burn-out, but I am feeling the cumulative effects of training on my physical and mental well being and it is tough. 

I got really honest with myself while running today.  Honest in the sense that I know I need a break from training.  It is not just the last 15 weeks of training for this marathon, or the 95-105 mile weeks I have put in during that time.  It is more of a culmination of almost 2 years of training consistantly (starting with training for my first Boston in 2009) with very little time off, even between marathons.  Heck, I ran my second fastest marathon this summer and then ran 12 miles the next day!  What I'm saying is not a 'yay me' party, but rather the opposite.  I am completely spent on every level.  For every 1 quality run I have, I feel as though I have 4 terrible ones.  My legs feel worse than ever, not from an injury standpoint, but from a deep and overall fatigue standpoint.  In my quest for my PR over the past 2 years, I have lived my the mentality of 'more, more, more.'  Adding more miles, training twice a day when I could, trying to get speedwork in.  Even more so, fixating my life around running.  And you know what?  I wouldn't change any of that.  I've honestly loved every minute of it.  But I feel myself getting obsessive and caught up too much in it all, thus exhausting me and making it harder than it has to be.  Here I am 3 weeks from my 10th marathon and I sometimes can't imagine getting to the starting line, not to mention the finish line.

And I hate saying all this because running IS ME.  It is who I am and defines me almost completely.  And again, I love that.  But I just feel like if I am ever going to reach my potential as a runner, and my lifelong goal of not only PRing and going sub 3:18, but being a sub 3hour marathoner, I need to take a step back.  I am proud of what I have accomplished, but I know as I keep pushing, I am making it impossible for me to accomplish even more.

I don't know why I am saying all of this really.  This is much more personal than I usual go on the old blog, and I know I don't have that many readers.  Everything just seems very hard now.  Teaching full-time and the drama that comes with it.  Keeping up with my part time job 2-4 days a week.  My 100-mile-a-day-in-traffic commute that is driving me nuts.  And oh yeah, trying to run 10-15 miles a day.  Hopefully I'm in a funk and will get over it, but right now I just want to crawl into bed for 2 weeks or so...lol.

So anyway....

I must get back to the mountain of grading that piled up last week.  Grading 7th grade science tests = mind-numbing. 

1 comment:

  1. i totally forget when the race is (but i know it's soon!) so i think what you're feeling is 100% normal. and expected. you're ready for taper. this is time to get excited even though your body can't see or recognize it yet.

    you will get through it and life will be good :)

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