If you’re short on time, I highly recommend reading yesterday’s post instead of today’s. Or just skip both posts and go straight to the link to hear the story. Much more deserving of attention than anything to do with my running (non)adventures.
You’re probably wondering where I’ve been. Or more likely this is your first time here & wouldn’t care even if you had been with me since my first 15 or so entries. Either way, I’m going to tell you, so get ready to be bored.
As I’ve blogged about numerous times (or actually, just 3), I was planning to run the Albany (GA not NY) Marathon on March 3rd. Training was going great, particularly over winter break when I had nothing to do outside of relax with my family, booze with my friends, apply for jobs in far away places, and least importantly – run. It was glorious. So glorious in fact, that I originally overdid it. I went from running ~30 miles a week to only 14 during finals week, to 46 during my first week home – a light week for some, but for a rookie like me, an immediate 53% increase in mileage is not smart. I knew the entire time that I was being dumb, but with not a hill in sight, an internal clock that doesn’t sleep past 6:30am, & nothing to do all day besides wrap presents & hang out with my niece & nephew, it seemed silly not to run at least 7 miles every morning. And since I was running that much it only made sense that I did speedwork nearly every day. Right?
Wrong. By the end of week 2, my knee (the same one I’ve been whining about in 50% of my posts) started to really hurt. I figured I should just get over it since I tend to be a overdramatic when it comes to potential running injuries (again, as is apparent in 50% of my posts) & since the pain was not constant. For example, during week 3 I had to cut my Wednesday run short at 3 miles after a funny stride caused me to (dramatically) double over in pain… yet I did not feel a thing when I ran 15 miles that Saturday. The pain was also as sporadic in its location as it was in its occurrence that I figured it was just normal muscle wear & tear. My super-talented brother-in-law (who was training for a sub-3 marathon) was continuing to train & even ran a 1:26 half when he seemed to have an actual knee injury – so I did my best to ignore my tendencies toward hypochondria.
I came back to Atlanta & it still hurt every once in a while, but I figured it was just the return to running on hills. I ran 18 miles – 2 weeks behind schedule, but I felt great nonetheless. However, that next week I hurt. A lot. I made the decision to take a week off, which easily turned into 2 weeks (with no cross training of any sort) since I tend to be rather gifted in the field of laziness. I justified it by smugly thinking how good I was being to my body, even though I knew there was no way I would be able to get my 3 20-mile runs in before March. When I returned to running 14 days later, I felt like I was starting from scratch. In fact, it felt nearly identical to the time I ran the day after giving blood last summer. Except this time I could only blame it on the excessive amounts of time I had spent on my couch & not on diminished oxygen delivery.
Anyway (or any way?), I decided that Albany was out of the question. I knew there was no way I could get my sub-4 (or sub-5 for that matter) & I have no desire to run a marathon for the sake of running it (I did that once). I also realized that running 45 miles a week when I have a full time schedule requires significantly more dedication than running the same distance when I have nothing to do. Go figure. In addition, with a schedule of a normal person, I realize that I don’t need a running goal to make myself feel like a worthy human being. In fact, running 6-8 miles 3 times a week with a 10 miler over the weekend has become my happy place. This is sure to change in the future either when I actually make some running friends or when I simply become tired of mediocrity, but for now, that’s about all I’m doing. I still plan to shoot for a 1:4x half sometime this spring, but no marathons are on my horizon (ideally, I would like to run one in the fall, but the chances of that actually happening are slim). As for my knee, it still hurts a bit, but so does my pinky finger when I use the weird keyboard in my cubicle at work. If it becomes worse I guess I will go from there, but I’m hoping 30 mile weeks with adequate stretching will be good enough.
So that is everything. I imagine no one is reading at this point, or if you’re still here you’re either judging me for being so fickle & overdramatic, or more likely you skipped to the bottom of the post after my introduction paragraph. I will therefore just summarize & say: I am a capricious human being & alternate between extreme passion & debilitating laziness on an almost daily basis. Right now the main focuses in my life are simply Liesl, the assortment of vegetarian gummies at my local Kroger, & the potential career I will have come May. Expect that to change tomorrow.
