Posted by When you are working towards a tough goal, you are gonna have a step back every so often. But if you can learn from that step in the wrong direction, then it’s worthwhile…or so I’ve been telling myself because this weekend’s long run was a bust!
Friday, we decided to see how my treadmill training was translating to the road. My workout was an easy first mile, a second mile as fast as I could run, a short recovery walk, and a third mile similar to the first in pace. I ran the second mile at 10:15–woohoo!!! Progress is becoming more tangible. 🙂
Saturday had me on my feet a lot and my knee started getting a bit sore, I think from doing some squats and core stabilizing exercises earlier in the week. I did some mtn bike riding which seemed to flush out the hurt, so I thought I would be ready for a run on Sunday.
Sunday morning came along and I couldn’t motivate myself to get out and run early. By the time I got out to run, it had gotten pretty hot. 6 miles was the goal so I went down to the prime running spot in town which has a 4 mile and a 2 mile loop that would combine for 6 miles. I was supposed to go real easy for the first mile which didn’t happen–I thought I was going slow, but when I looked at my watch it turns out I wasn’t. 😦 I tried to slow things down a bit but couldn’t so I started to peter out about 2.5 miles. From there I started walking a bit and my knee began to give me trouble so at 3.4 ish I shut it down and walked the rest of the way to the car. Only got thru 4ish miles–a step backwards.
Even though I didn’t hit my distance nor pacing goals there were some lessons learned from this experience, so it’s not a complete wash…
- Just do it–get out of bed and run when you said you would. You made a plan for a reason.
- Don’t under estimate the toll that other workouts can have on your body. You may not always be using your “running” muscles as you cross train, but your still using your body and will need recovery.
What lessons have you learned from your steps backwards towards your goals?
call me koko 
Wow, I think Sunday was National Bad Long Run daily. I know so many people who tanked Sunday for some reason. I had an almost identical experience, with great training days leading up to it, and then a disaster on Sun that left me scratching my head. My 20 turned into 13 when a troublesome toe decided it would be fun to make a blister bigger than the toe itself. And my legs hurt more at 13 than they should have. The good news is that I usually (stupidly) push thru that stuff, but this time I stopped before further damage was done. That is very unlike me, to use common sense like that. But as I get closer and closer to race day, I realize smarts has something to do with it, not just miles.
Your lessons learned were great…I still fight with the alarm clock and usually lose…:) Thanks for learning and sharing!
Oops that should say Bad Long Run DAY…no coffee yet this morn!!!