So maybe I am crazy.
I recently have committed myself, at least partly so, to several different activities. I signed up for the Cherry Blossom 10 miler, a recreational soccer league, in several days I will officially be signed up to participate in the Amica Ironman 70.3, and there is that 50 miler looming off in the distance. Why, you might ask, am I doing/training for several different kinds of sports all at once? I don’t know. I never know why I do this, I just try to find things to do that I love and then go do them. I have received a lot of negative feedback recently concerning how I “overbook” myself with the different events I decide to do. Most people think it’s too much or too soon or too many. It’s funny; the only people that think me doing all these things are a good idea is my family. They weren’t crazy about me traveling to South Africa, but they love all the events I sign up for and do. Thanks guys for the support.
However, as much as I love over extending myself all of the time, every once in a while it bites you in the butt. Sometimes you are working so hard and you are spreading yourself so thin over so many different events, that you forget to take time to be introspective. I call those periods, running on empty. Running on empty is the worst possible feeling. It’s when your arms feel like lead, your quads are like boulders, and your calves feel like every step, kick, push will make them explode. It is just above complete exhaustion. This kind of thing happens often when someone who is training gets sick or sustains a mild injury or just stays up too late hanging out with friends. Every once in a while wearing yourself thin is okay, but on a sustained basis, well let’s just say life gets rough around the edges.
On Saturday (Day 54), I tried out for a soccer league in the morning. Let me just mention that I had only slept about 5 hours the night before. However, it was an incredible experience for someone who has never played before, but likes and semi-understands the game and wants to join a very chill recreational league. I had a great time and played for quite a while. I was joyful that I could hold my own for the most part and felt I played well for the first time ever kicking that pretty black and white checkered ball. After soccer tryouts I was very tired, but decided to head home and go for a run. Saturdays are traditionally long run days for me so I figured this would be relatively easy. Upon arriving home, I drank some water, pet my dog, and collapsed into a lounge chair in the sun for the next two hours. That brief hiatus of sleep gave me a jolt that to my overtired confused brain seemed like energy, which then propelled me into remembering my day’s plans and going for a run. I should have known that this run would be rough, but my brain was minimally processing things that day. So I changed some of my clothes and went back out.
It was a beautiful day for running. There were little kids playing in the park, dogs trotting next to their owners, random speed walkers, guys fishing off a bridge, and me floating along down the trail. For the first half of the run I was in this half awake state, so it didn’t settle in that I was running until half way into mile 2. Then came the flood of pain and aches that I had been expecting in the beginning. My quads, which had soccer balls kicked at them all morning felt like torn ribbons. My arms swinging back and forth at my sides ached and felt like someone had stretched me on a medieval torture device. The ever recurring stress fracture in my foot felt like I was stepping on cobble stones each time my midfoot hit the ground. Just a clarification point, I am a midfoot striker while running. I am part of 24% of runners who run this way. I used to be a forefoot striker until all the stress fractures in my legs and then I worked very hard to change how I run to make sure not to hurt myself. Only 1% of runners are forefoot strikers. Long story short, I was in an immense amount of pain. My comfortable 8 minute per mile pace slowed to 9 and 10 minute miles as I essentially crawled home. On my runs, the last mile starts up a massive hill. The incline is pretty severe considering it is part of your last mile. That hill killed that day. For once in my life, I felt completely spent and too tired to keep going. However, I pushed through (a valuable trick to learn with any endurance activity) and made it home. Later that afternoon, I took a 3 hours nap on my computer while trying to complete my taxes. Joy.
Day 57 was a Tuesday and by all rights should have been a comfortable, easy running day. I ran a hilly three mile loop and finished in 26 minutes. Again I was doing comfortable 8 minutes miles and all the while climbing hills. By the way, when I say comfortable, I mean I can breathe while running, not that it’s easy. Running is never easy. However, the whole run I felt like someone had taken a hose and sucked the gas out of me. I haven’t felt like this in a while, but it’s very disconcerting. I would love to blame it solely on lack of sleep, but I know that emotions, work, stress, friends, dog, and other things get jumbled up into why my runs are feeling “crap” lately. It also may have been that the temperature easily climbed to 68 degrees while I was running in black pants and three shirts. Vomit. I had to walk twice from a cramp and seriously contemplated drinking melting snow. The joys of running do abound, just when the temperature is higher than 62 degrees, save yourself the energy and wear shorts and only ONE shirt.
Day 59 was yesterday. My running partner was back, but the two of us were feeling pretty awful and surviving on little sleep and even less energy. We maintained a decent pace as we talked about the last few days and why we both were up till the wee hours of the morning the night before. The temperature once again grew while we were out running and I ended up with my shirt wrapped around my neck. It felt like the summer outside, and it made me exhausted. My legs felt like I was running with small children clinging to them as we charged up and down hills, and I had to walk twice. One of the interesting things about running with someone else is how they calculate distance and time. She thinks about all of our training in terms of time and I am focused mileage. At the end of each run, she goes, “how long did we run?” and I have to stop myself from says “2 miles” and try to remember when we started running and calculate the time. This isn’t a complaint. When training for different kinds of races, how long you run for is often more important than how far, so it’s important for you to think about the clock. This is also helpful, because for the 50 miler in November I need to be concerned with time and how long I am running for.
One of my favorite things about exercising with someone else is the learning experience; I love learning about other people. As a sociology graduate, my studies focus has always been on people; how they live, deal, learn, cope, love, etc. My favorite part of meeting someone and developing a friendship is the learning process. Plus, go on a run with someone and you’ll find out more about them than you will at a happy hour. Maybe it is the fact that you are exerting so much energy during the exercise that your normal “filters” do not have the energy to be up and engaged. I personally find that I am most honest when I am exercising. This isn’t to say that I am dishonest at any other time in my life, but it’s just that is when I am speaking most freely. So we ran and ran as the sun baked down. Despite the heat, I love running with my arms free of sleeves and arms warmers. Each hill got harder and harder for me, but I didn’t complain (too much). I did notice that on the last hill climb my knee started feeling a bit sore. I am hoping that all of the biking and swimming will strengthen my joints and bones. I do not want another tibia/knee fracture in my future. The last little bit of the run I tried to run on the grassy patch that runs adjacent to the sidewalk to work on my footwork while running over roots and gravel. Having strong ankles is important to me, hence whenever I get an opportunity to mess around with technical foot skills, I take it. As we got back to the building, I could feel my quads ache in the way they ache after you drank just a little too much the night before at wine night. Oh well, you gotta have fun otherwise life just isn’t worth it.
Basically I need some sleep, and then I'll be back to normal again. :)
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