Monday Morning Marathon Meet-Up: Week 8
Training for your first marathon is exciting. Every long run is a milestone. You’re running longer than you’ve ever run before and the sense of accomplishment overpowers the pain.
Training for your second marathon is just a huge pain in the ass. You’re forgoing things you’d really like to be doing–parties, brunch, amazing cheese–to run for hours, and then be exhausted and/or in pain for the rest of the day. Or you don’t forgo said parties and cheese, and you’re in that much more pain. Lose-lose if you ask me.
As you can tell, my heart isn’t really in it. What’s kind of ironic, is that this is exactly where I broke down physically last time around. I’m about there again, but this time it’s mentally. Well, last time a little bit of time off did wonders, and one of my best friends is in town this week. I want to see her and enjoy our time together without thinking about what time I have to get up and run and if it’s really smart to have that second glass bottle of wine. So this week, I’m just going to play it by ear, run when I can, and hope that a little break will give me the motivation to make sacrifices later on down the line. Stay tuned.
Scheduled: 30 miles
Actual: 32 miles
Long Run Summary:
Probably the worst long run I’ve ever had. I was tired by mile four and somehow managed to push through with mind tricks. “Just get to mile ten. Ten miles is a respectable long-run.” Once said mile ten arrives, you only have five more miles. “That’s shorter than your regular weekday runs, you can do that!” And I did, with the help of a few longer than necessary crosswalk breaks and a few large gulps of water straight from the sink in the pubic bathroom at the visitor’s center on the National Mall. During flu season. Sure, training in the summer is difficult, but you know what you have going for you? Water fountains. Turns out those get turned off in the winter. So it was a long, slow, exhausting and perpetually thirsty run:
Pre-run dinner: Toasted Quinoa Seafood Salad and a reasonable number of vodka martinis. And some wine.
Pre-run breakfast: English muffin with peanut butter and jelly; banana
Hours of sleep: 6-7
Start time: 10:30am
Weather: About 35 and sunny. Quite chilly.
Route: Down the mall to 15th St., around Hains Point, across the memorial bridge, down to the trail and past Roosevelt Island, across the Key bridge and onto the Canal Trail in Georgetown, past the Kennedy Center, back up the Mall and home.
How I felt: Awful, the entire time. Just totally exhausted. And thirsty.
Highlight of run: The nice man in a tour bus who gave us bottled water after seeing me attempt to drink from yet another non-functional water fountain.
Injuries, aches or pains: No real pain. Just a really crappy run overall.
Post-run treat: Courtney and I split a Nobadeer from Jetties. This sandwich–carved turkey and stuffing with cranberry sauce and mayo on sourdough– is heaven in your belly.
