Saturday: My Long Run was so Bad It Was Embarrassing

Here I am, one month out from the brilliant coaching advice of Richard Baker, and I am already falling apart. I have been sick since Wednesday. Friday (after taking two full days off) I felt well enough to meet a friend for exactly 1.5 glasses of wine at 5:00 PM. This morning I crawled out of bed and felt fine, ran a fast three miles in the beginning of what was supposed to be an 11 mile run. Mile four found me falling back, mile 5 found me wondering if I could make it, and by mile 8 I had to admit that I was going to have to cut the course and make it a 9 mile run, lest I die on nine mile hill. Had I died on 9 mile hill, it would have been from three possible causes:

1. I have been sick all week. I ran a fever on Wednesday, felt horrible on Thursday, not great on Friday morning. This morning, I was most likely not well enough for what I attempted.
2. 1.5 glasses of wine is way beyond my tolerance level, and I cannot simply cannot consume any alcohol on any day before I work out, which is every day, so I guess that makes me a teetotaler.
3. Since I returned home from Boston, I have taken maybe one day off working out. Richard Baker impressed upon me that I needed to give my body a rest one day a week, and as soon as I got off the planned schedule, I started dropping a hard swim into my day off. I might be overtrained.

It is so embarrassing to start a run with a group and then have to bail early because of some foolishness in your training. The best thing for me this morning would have been to choose to run a long run with a slower group of runners, allowing my body to heal. Or, I could have taken another day off, this would not have been a sin. Instead I attempted to pound out a run I didn't have a shot at completing.

When I had to cut the run and we were all finished and stretching in the park, I had the wild desire to ask everyone in the group to sit down in a semicircle in front of me so that I could explain my failure. My speech would begin with a brief description of my illness including duration and fever and mucus measurements, move on to an open discussion about the amount of alcohol consumption that is possible the night before a morning workout, before trailing off into a long defense of how I have ended up forgetting to take a day off during the week. I would like for them to listen to me, nod their heads and feel in their hearts that I am a great athlete suffering from insurmountable circumstances.

It doesn't really work that way though, and sometimes you leave a poorly executed workout with the yucky feeling that you just couldn't keep up and maybe there is some doubt about your abilities. It is most unpleasant.

On the upside, I registered for the Monster Triathlon!!! It is two weeks from today and involved a pool swim, 16ish mile bike ride, and a 3 mile run. It will be a great workout and a friend and I will ride down together. I'm just thrilled.

So, I am taking tomorrow off as Sunday swim is cancelled. Hoping I am well in time for swim on Monday, and Ivan is starting swim lessons next week!!!! Swim and rest!!!