March 4th, 2008
Yesterday, I did an easy 9. It was a gorgeous, sunny, 60 degree day, though truthfully, only the first half of the run qualified as easy. The latter half was Flo vs. the wind – add to that the previous day’s 10K and the fact that 9 miles was my longest run in 3 weeks…I was pretty beat when I got home.
Then today, it was warm out again (how I love thee, oh shorts and tanktop) so in my mind, 6 easy should have been, well…easy. But again, I’m still spitting up little yellow chunks and my head is so infested with negative self-talk, like bon mots such as, “I need to rethink all my running goals, the downswing has stopped and now I’m fucked” kind of stuff.
Guess I’m not 100% yet; sleeping 10 hours a night and Nick made a fine point to say that if I’m still spitting up crap, my lungs are spending at least a little energy on things besides my fine aerobic system. I want to agree, but that doesn’t stop the endless hateful chatter in my brain.
I’ll be attempting intervals this Thursday, so that should give me a better idea of what my status actually is. I’m so hoping for a strongish session because I have a 5K on the 15th that I really want to do well at. It’ll be so disconcerting if, after a winter of great mileage, I can’t come up with any quantifiable improvement. That said, the 5K I most care about is in April, so I gotta give myself a break if this first one doesn’t kick it for me.
On to other, less whiny subjects: tonight, my dear friends Yvonne and Craig and Nick and I are going to Yvonne’s parent’s house in New Jersey, so that Nick and I can spy on their living situation while the parental units are away at their timeshare. Apparently, Vonny’s mom is a certified obsessive packrat and their stuffed-to-the-gills house and non-working van in the driveway (also filled with masses of stuff) must be seen in person to be believed. I consider it a museum trip.
Afterwards, it’s Sagami for the best Japanese food in the area. I stick with Tempura, sushi scaredy-cat that I am, but everyone insists it’s the best sushi around, so I have to believe ‘em.
Tomorrow, it’s a day off and then crossing fingers, Thursday shows me that I’m not all washed up. Yet.
Posted in 
Tags: 
Flo! Stop the negative Nancy talk! You know your a strong runner and you will bounce back! Sounds like you still have some residual left over sickie stuff in your system. And the change of weather affects all of us too.
You’ll be fine just listen to your body and if tells you to ease up a little then ease up, if it says LETS DO THIS then put the pedal to the metal!!
Hope your runs start getting easier and faster really soon! !!
Aw, thanks sweetie. Hugs to you for the support!! You’re right, I know in my heart that I’m over-reacting, but I guess when things aren’t fabu, you tend to think it’s going to be crap from here on in.
As soon as I wrote this, I went back to my logs to remind myself what my tempos were before the winter and they were at 8:05, while now (or at least, pre-sick) they’re at 7:47, so I’m being stupid to think I may not have a “quantifiable improvement” after the winter – it’s there, I just gotta pull it back out.
I maybe wrong, but I dobut it, But I bet your kick butt. In a nice way of course. I want to start doing speed work real soon but tough to do on snow covered roads. Hopefully find a day to do them this week. I do a lot of hill on my normal runs maybe I can just push it on them instead of taking it easy on them.
Bruce, I kick butt in my dreams only, but I hope to one day actually do it. There’s hope, but it’ll take a couple years.
Yeah, don’t do speed on snow-covered anything, the two don’t mix. Hills are a GREAT alternative to speed, you might have heard “hills are speedwork in disguise”. The unique thing about doing actual intervals (either on a track or measured distance anywhere) is that you get true feedback from one interval to the next and from one session to the next since they’re measured and finite.
But just pushing on hills or doing fartleks, if you haven’t been doing any pushing on your runs, will definitely make a difference. This will equip to you to play even more intense practical jokes on your pals in a Half, for instance.
(For those who didn’t have the pleasure of reading Bruce’s hilarious race report on the forums, in his last Half, he’d speed up to get in front of his friends, then once in front, slow down to a crawl. So funny. But I’d have killed him.)
I guess I am so used to having a bad run now and then, that I DON’T tend to “think it’s all crap from here on in”. You just haven’t had to bounce back that often, if ever, right? It’s old news to me, lol. Be done with little yellow chunks, and I’m sure you’ll be your old self in no time, of that I have NO doubt.
Love tempura!! And I’m a sushi scaredy-cat, too, but getting better. There is a simple roll with just the wrap, rice, crab (mmm) and a little avocado. I think it’s called a California roll. Those are not bad at all, and it’s what I have when hubby wants sushi. Expand your horizons. We have a “one bite” rule in my house.
Share pics from the packrat house.
Matter of fact, California Rolls are the only sushi I love! I do occasionally have a nibble of things people insist I eat (because some people are annoyingly insistent in that regard), but I never like it as much as the food pusher does. Yesterday, for example, I ate a couple different kinds of seaweed that, just as I imagined, tasted exactly like rank ocean water.
The house…OMG, as far as the eye could see, flea market shit stacked 4′ high in every single room. It was unlike anything I could have imagined. Definitely a Dr. Phil interventionist’s dream.