La Run De Crapola

Saturday night was the first date night that the Hubs and I had in months.  It was awesome.  We went to a little pizza place and had delicious red wine, a gorgeous arugula salad, and individual pizzas.  Mine was a thin crust with hot Italian sausage.  I ate ALL of it.  Our next stop:  a MOVIE!!!!  We used to go to movies all the time, but again, we haven't been in months.  We had an hour to kill between dinner and the movie, so we went to A BAR and had a BEER!!!!!!!  You can see by my use of all-caps and exclamation points that we have not had much of a social life lately.

So Saturday night was great, but I paid dearly for it on Sunday morning.  Luckily this week was a recovery week, so I only had 4 miles on the calendar (according to the Jeff Galloway plan).  Of course, with the race only about a month away, I'm starting to get nervous and feel like I'm not working hard enough.  So I decided to do an extra mile for a total of 5.

It was just one of those runs that was "off" from the start.  I tried a new performance shake for breakfast and it tasted disgusting.  So I forced a few gulps and had a few bites of banana.  Then I decided to bring a handheld bottle of Nuun with me, even though I never run holding a bottle.  I opened the door and was hit in the face with a wall of moist, hot air.  It was disgusting already at 7 am.  I hit the road and the bottle leaked sticky Nuun all over my hand.  By the time I'd done a mile and a half, I had to pee like a racehorse, so I jogged back to the house, dropped off the leaky bottle and took a quick potty break.

The rest of the run followed course.  Last night's dinner felt like a lead weight in my tummy and yet, I was hungry because I didn't eat the right breakfast.  My feet were tired (probably from wearing heels the night before).  I got passed by a dad pushing a stroller and a young, bouncy 20-something.  By Mile 3, I felt like quitting.  Mentally, I was making a list of all the reasons why this run sucked.  Then I had my moment.

This was my opportunity to break out every mental training tool I had to make a sucky run as un-sucky as possible.   I had 2 more miles left to make it work.  So I straightened up my spine, concentrated on my form, repeated these "power words" - Calm and Strong (anyone else read this month's Runner magazine?), and visualized myself running with grace and energy. 

It was a continuous struggle.  I kept having to straighten up my posture, and tell myself to pick up my feet instead of doing the shuffle.  I was pouring sweat and I felt like I was wearing concrete shoes.  I didn't exactly glide to my finish.... I wouldn't say I even powered to my finish.....

But I finished.  I felt like crap and faced crap conditions and I finished.

Now I just have to cross my fingers that the weather will be decent this weekend, because I'm slated to do 11 miles this weekend.  Urgh!  GUARANTEED there will be no wine or sausage pizza or beer the night before.