A hard one

A hard one

Sunday was another long, for a #notarunner, day and it wasn’t good.  Easily the worst/hardest run I’ve had in spite of running the exact same distance and format a week previously on that week’s long run.

you should strive for though is to not just let the body win.  Screw that.”

Your basic 10 walk, 60 minute run, 10 minute walk, 60 minute run, cool down, at least basic to the Garmin half marathon level 1 heart zone based training plan.

Without a time machine to go back and try alternatives I’ve found the Garmin plans to work for me, at least I keep moving forward in ability.  My current ‘running wife’ as I’ve been informed she is called has slowed my progress down a bit the last month or two but she’s pretty much caught up with me at this point and we can advance together so it’s fine.

But this last long run was just awful.  There is obvious causation, one I have a cold/flu.

Two I decided to not do add any carbs to my diet the day before the run, I’m by nature of my desire to lose weight always carb empty on any given day. I usually try to swap a few hundred calories of fats/proteins for carbs the night before a race or extra long run but not this time to see the impact.

The only carbs I had was a stinger waffle right before the run started and some homemade chia gu, essentially the same thing as the Huma gu’s just a lot cheaper at the turn around point.

Three I’m running at a 6 month calorie deficit. This has resulted in the lost of roughly 20% of my starting body weight in total and the conversion of less dense fat for higher density muscle.  Never a bad thing really.

Four is a lack of sleep period, much less ‘good’ sleep which I don’t know what that means anymore.

And lucky number 5 is work stress where I’m wrestling with the option of staying and working in a situation I don’t care to be in but leaving the people I work with by going to some unknown situation where things might be better, might be worse.

I don’t know which factor(s) contributed the most but at the turn around point I felt pretty bad, the second hour run was maybe a 45-50 minute run at best.  The rest was walking.  I walked up hills that I’ve powered up every time in the past.   The cool down period was a major effort of will just to keep walking to the car.

When I got home I just covered a chair in some towels and collapsed on it for a good 30-45 minutes before I had the enthusiasm to get up and shower.  Never done that before.  I can’t stand being in sweaty damp clothes if I’m not actively doing something to make those clothes sweaty and damp.

So yeah, not a great run.

The whoooole point of this story is to if you’re #notarunner like myself know that there are going to be some bad days.  There may be reasons, there may not be reasons, it could external factors or internal factors but regardless you’re going to have off days.

And those are the days where you get to choose who’s the boss of you.  Your failing body or your great brain.   And sometimes it’s a compromise “Okay body, we just push through these last 10 minutes and then we walk it on home.  Pansy.”

What you should strive for though is to not just let the body win.  Screw that nose.  Compromise if you have to, but never give in completely.  In the duality that is the mental and physicality of you, the mental part should be in the driver seat even if it sometimes means you get into a fender bender from time to time because you didn’t listen to the squeaking brakes.

And yes Virginia you should listen to the brakes, but that doesn’t mean you have to always pay attention to them.

TREX