Well, I got in exactly two training runs the week of 12/4 before I quit marathon training again. In some ways, my lack of perseverance is disheartening, but to be completely honest, I just don't feel guilty about packing it in again. My motivation is just not there right now. I had to push myself out the door for those first two training runs. It was all I could do just to get through them. This is just not how I used to be while training. Something is obviously not right with me right now nor has it been since Nashville back in April.
I have thought a great deal about why I'm not motivated to run and why all of my old enthusiasm for running seems to have evaporated (at least temporarily). I have not come up with a definitive answer, but I do have some thoughts that at least begin to make sense to me.
One thing that I'm relatively certain about is that I have become a "marathon snob". This is not a moniker that I came up with myself, but heard or read somewhere. At this point, I just have it in my head that any race shorter than a marathon is just not worth the time and energy it takes to prepare. Don't get me wrong; I realize that my times at shorter distances are far from impressive and could be improved upon substantially, but I just don't care to make the effort. If I'm not training to run the full 26.2, I just can't be bothered it seems. I guess that I have always been geared that way when it comes to doing anything. It's either all or nothing. Marathoning to me represents the all, and any other race represents the nothing. This is completely a mental/psychological thing, and I'm obviously aware of it at this point, but I just can't seem to or don't want to get past it at the current time. Will that change down the road? Who knows? I hope that it will.
Something else that I have become aware of that is related to the whole "marathon snob" syndrome is that over the past few years I have put a lot of pressure on myself to train for marathons, complete them, and hopefully run a PR in the process. I suppose that after the Country Music Marathon (where my performance was not good), all that pressure in combination with my disappointment at my performance just came to a head and snuffed out my motivation. Over the last couple of years of training for and running marathons, the marathon itself was my reward for 16 - 18 weeks of hard training. In this manner, the marathon (and my performance in the race) served as motivation during my training for that race and the next one after (where I would look to improve). I knew that if I didn't prepare properly, I wouldn't perform well and may not finish the race. The fear of failure and/or poor performance motivated me to get my butt out the door and train. Now, the unfortunate thing is that I really don't feel compelled to run any particular marathon so the race itself can't serve as motivation for my training. Without that motivation to train, why bother? Like I said earlier, it's pretty much all or nothing for me with most things. If I'm not going to run 30+ miles and do speed work, tempo runs, and the whole bit, why run at all? I have found that when I do go out and run now, I really haven't been enjoying it like I did in the past. Something just seems to be missing.
What is the answer to all of this? I'll be damned if I know, but I have put some pretty serious thought into it. One thing that I think I need to do is to get back to basics with my running and working out. I need to put away the HR monitor and the GPS unit and forget about pace per mile, tempo runs, etc. I need to get back to the pure and simple experience of running. I need to have my running served raw or rare as opposed to the marinated, julienne-cut, sauteed, and garnished version that became the norm over the last few years. If I don't enjoy running for what it has always meant to me in the past (a perfect harmony between myself and the outdoors while getting me and keeping me in shape), then I'll never stick with it over the long haul.
I also need to re-evaluate the goals and expectations that I set for myself. Over the last couple of years, my goals have gradually but continually been ratcheted up to the point where standing on the ground and looking up at them now is pretty intimidating. I need to start fresh and establish some basic goals for myself. I need to get myself back into a regular habit of running and working out before attempting anything too ambitious. I have tried to jump from barely running at all right back into intense marathon training with no period of adjustment in between. It is just too overwhelming at this point. It's almost like I know from the outset that I'm going to fall short so I immediatey resign myself to failure and give up.
I guess that this time is the right time of year to be looking inward and setting new goals for myself since the new year is right around the corner. I won't call the new goals that I set "resolutions" because the New Year's resolutions that people make generally don't last for more than a month or two. I really want to take a long look at where I am now and where I want to be and then chart myself a realistic course to get there.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
First Training Run
...and boy was it a cold one. What a difference a week (not even quite) can make! I went running last Thursday (four short days ago) in shorts and short-sleeves and actually felt hot 4 miles into my run. The temperature was close to 70 degrees. On Monday night, the temperature was a balmy 28 degrees with an even lower windchill. This feels cold enough under normal circumstances, but it feels even colder when your body is not accustomed to the cold. It really shocks the system. The cold air hitting me when I opened the door really made me want to pass on going out to run and curl up on the sofa under a nice warm blanket.
Added to that was the fact that last night was my first night on 3rd shift since June and that I only got 6 hours of sleep. I had to stay over in the morning to conduct an interview and I didn't get home until 9:00am when I generally get home closer to 7:00am. I got into bed at 9:30am and had the alarm set for 3:30pm. When the alarm went off I must have been in a dead sleep because I was completely disoriented. I didn't know what day it was at first and what time of day it was(night or day). It took me the entire walk across the room to the alarm clock to figure out that it was Monday afternoon and that I had worked 3rd the night before...weird. Anyway, as you can imagine, it took me quite a while to be completely coherent. I really was going to bag the run for the night and push it back to Tuesday, but I got to reading some old posts from a message board where we used to post running related mesages and it inspired me to brave the cold and start my marathon training in style. It's amazing sometimes what difference a little motivation or inspiration can make. It truly can be the difference between spending half of your life on the couch getting fat or getting outside and doing something healthy for yourself.
I did a 3-mile tempo run and actually felt half decent on the run although {brrr} it was cold. I could hardly feel my feet for about the first mile and a half. By the 2-mile mark though, I was warm and toasty. It does feel good now to have gotten a run in first thing for the week. My plan now is to go to the track on Wednesday to do
my 8 x 400m repeats. Good start so far. Now I just need to keep the momentum going.
Added to that was the fact that last night was my first night on 3rd shift since June and that I only got 6 hours of sleep. I had to stay over in the morning to conduct an interview and I didn't get home until 9:00am when I generally get home closer to 7:00am. I got into bed at 9:30am and had the alarm set for 3:30pm. When the alarm went off I must have been in a dead sleep because I was completely disoriented. I didn't know what day it was at first and what time of day it was(night or day). It took me the entire walk across the room to the alarm clock to figure out that it was Monday afternoon and that I had worked 3rd the night before...weird. Anyway, as you can imagine, it took me quite a while to be completely coherent. I really was going to bag the run for the night and push it back to Tuesday, but I got to reading some old posts from a message board where we used to post running related mesages and it inspired me to brave the cold and start my marathon training in style. It's amazing sometimes what difference a little motivation or inspiration can make. It truly can be the difference between spending half of your life on the couch getting fat or getting outside and doing something healthy for yourself.
I did a 3-mile tempo run and actually felt half decent on the run although {brrr} it was cold. I could hardly feel my feet for about the first mile and a half. By the 2-mile mark though, I was warm and toasty. It does feel good now to have gotten a run in first thing for the week. My plan now is to go to the track on Wednesday to do
my 8 x 400m repeats. Good start so far. Now I just need to keep the momentum going.
Plans for the Spring
This week I will embark on preparations for the spring. I am
planning to run the Ocean Drive Marathon in NJ on 3/27/07.
http://www.odmarathon.org/
It's a point-to-point course that begins in historic Cape May, NJ
and travels up the coast to conclude in Sea Isle City, NJ. The race
travels through most of the NJ shore point destinations many of us
grew up visiting including Wildwood, Stone Harbor, and Avalon (where
Joe Paterno has a summer home).
It sounds like an interesting race. Crowd support is sporadic, but
I will have my iPod to keep me going. My only concern is the wind
(it's the beach in March), but from what I've read on
marathonguide.com, the last few years haven't been too bad. It will
give me my 6th state toward my very long-term (probably lifelong)
goal of running all 50 states.
The positive aspects of the marathon timing are that it's early in
the spring marathon season so unseasonably warm weather isn't much
of a concern. It might be really cold, but after training in the
Northeast all winter, I can handle that better than the warm and
humid conditions which have hurt me a few times. It will also give
me a chance to run a second spring marathon if I feel recovered
enough and am so inclined.
I am going to use the FIRST training program again where I will run
three times a week (for 16 weeks) performing a speed session, a
tempo run, and of course the omnipresent long run each week. This
program worked really well for me in the Fall of 2005 when I ran two
consecutive marathon PRs two weeks apart + a half-marathon PR. The
runs are varied and challenging, while the three days a week
schedule allows me the recovery time that I need. I already have
time goals in mind which I am using to set my training paces, but I
want to see how training progresses before making them public.
After being barely active for the last several months and gaining 10
pounds, I might not even make it to the starting line healthy enough
to run. I hope that this is not the case, but a great deal can
happen to your body when you put it through 16 weeks of intense
training. This is especially true when you have been slacking for
an extended period of time.
I am looking forward to the start of training. Well, I'm anxious,
maybe looking forward isn't the right way to phrase it. I'm a
little nervous about the demands of training with the way that work
has been for the past several months. The hours have been long and
the stress levels high. Running in the winter is also not my
favorite. Does anyone like it all that much? But I know that the
winter training is a necessary evil as it will harden me and
condition me well for the task I will face in March.
planning to run the Ocean Drive Marathon in NJ on 3/27/07.
http://www.odmarathon.org/
It's a point-to-point course that begins in historic Cape May, NJ
and travels up the coast to conclude in Sea Isle City, NJ. The race
travels through most of the NJ shore point destinations many of us
grew up visiting including Wildwood, Stone Harbor, and Avalon (where
Joe Paterno has a summer home).
It sounds like an interesting race. Crowd support is sporadic, but
I will have my iPod to keep me going. My only concern is the wind
(it's the beach in March), but from what I've read on
marathonguide.com, the last few years haven't been too bad. It will
give me my 6th state toward my very long-term (probably lifelong)
goal of running all 50 states.
The positive aspects of the marathon timing are that it's early in
the spring marathon season so unseasonably warm weather isn't much
of a concern. It might be really cold, but after training in the
Northeast all winter, I can handle that better than the warm and
humid conditions which have hurt me a few times. It will also give
me a chance to run a second spring marathon if I feel recovered
enough and am so inclined.
I am going to use the FIRST training program again where I will run
three times a week (for 16 weeks) performing a speed session, a
tempo run, and of course the omnipresent long run each week. This
program worked really well for me in the Fall of 2005 when I ran two
consecutive marathon PRs two weeks apart + a half-marathon PR. The
runs are varied and challenging, while the three days a week
schedule allows me the recovery time that I need. I already have
time goals in mind which I am using to set my training paces, but I
want to see how training progresses before making them public.
After being barely active for the last several months and gaining 10
pounds, I might not even make it to the starting line healthy enough
to run. I hope that this is not the case, but a great deal can
happen to your body when you put it through 16 weeks of intense
training. This is especially true when you have been slacking for
an extended period of time.
I am looking forward to the start of training. Well, I'm anxious,
maybe looking forward isn't the right way to phrase it. I'm a
little nervous about the demands of training with the way that work
has been for the past several months. The hours have been long and
the stress levels high. Running in the winter is also not my
favorite. Does anyone like it all that much? But I know that the
winter training is a necessary evil as it will harden me and
condition me well for the task I will face in March.
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