Bad runs STINK! (Read 736 times)

You don't know what a good run is untill you've had a bad one!! And I wouldn't say it was the good days catching up with you I would blame it on the darn'd treadmill!!!! (at least that's what I do!)

I had one last week too - I set out for a 7-miler. It was a new route that I mapped out on mapmyrun first. It took me down by the beach (which was very busy that day), and all along the ocean and 2 lakes. I knew the scenerywould be great and people watching would be pretty good, but by mile 2 I knew it was gonna be a struggle. I purposely kept going farther and farther because I knew I would still have to run that distance back home. I finally made a deal with myself to conclude it at 6.15, but man did I have a mental struggle for a good hour. I dont think Ive ever had to talk to myself and psych myself up that much. I'm really starting to hate the long run day..... Maybe I was PMSing too - that always makes me want to quit

dang..I can talk myself out of a run on the TM easy. I would much rather be outside. But, I've had bad runs outside, too. Saturday, in fact--my last LR before Carlsbad. It was bad and I knew it would be, because I had not been able to run on my scheduled days last week, and forced in the last run on Friday--just to get the mileage in. Bonked my 8 miler. Ahh well......

I know this is sort of wierd, but I learn more from my bad runs than I do my good ones. I am 6 weeks into a marathon training program and I have had one bad run per week. The first bad run was a tempo run that after my 1.5 mile warm up, I increased my pace to a level I had never been before and tried to stay there. I tried like heck to hang on, but burned out after 3 miles of it, never finishing the workout. I have not had a bad tempo run since because I learned my mistake of taking the pace to fast. 2 weeks ago, did a long run of 15 miles, same thing, too fast of a pace in the beginning, had me worn slap out after 13 miles. Anyway, I have things that have caused other bad runs too, but it goes to long. The point for me, is that I am making notes in my personal log I keep in excel and I am trying to learn from these mistakes or problems out of my control. I have learned that eatting to much the night before for dinner, leaves me very sluggish for a long run. There is a fine line between carb loading with beer the night before a run and "over-carbing" if you will. Heat and Humidity are HUGE in my times and effort it takes to keep pace on runs. Keep logs of weathe, food, etc and that way you can figure out what might be causing a bad run. Don't forget we are just past the holidays too and the hustle bustle might be just now catching up and sinking in.

Thanks for letting me rant and rave guys. This isn't the first bad run I've had, and I know it won't be the last. Normally I do OK on the TM - which trust me, is reserved for very special circumstances because it's so *&%& boring - so I honestly don't think it was that, as much as I'd like to say it was. It was just one of those days. But, today is a new day, so we'll see what happens. And, it's nicer OUTSIDE today too!