Getting Back In The Game

• Posted: July 28, 2008
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• Author: Shéamus
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• Filed under: Ironman Triathlon, Motivation, Ultrarunning, Workouts
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• Tags: No tags set for this entry.

It’s true, it’s true.

The last couple of days, I haven’t been feeling exactly great. Evidently, the combination of completing my longest run on Friday, the following night’s decadence, and then injuring my thumb, has played heavily on my mind.

Even before today’s workout, I wasn’t exactly feeling psyched. I’ve felt sluggish and lethargic most of the day, despite eating well and ensuring I was properly hydrated.

Thankfully, Spartan7’s comment on this very blog came exactly at the right time:

I somehow feel like you are one of those guys who always “accomplishes the mission.” You had a bad day or two, and of course you’ve got the what ifs going through your mind. Completely understandable.

He’s exactly right, of course. I’ve read about this before with running - whenever you make a big new breakthrough, mentally pretty much everybody reacts in the opposite way to which they would expect. Instead of being all positive and excited and going out the next day and doing it all over again, inevitably you go on a bit of a dip - a runner’s low, if you will. It’s perfectly understandable why - all week I’d been geeing myself up to do that 10-miles, and then when I finally did it, not only was it natural that my mind and body was going to crash a bit, it’s probably a necessary part of the recovery process.

Who can be super-positive all the time whilst maintaining any sense of realism? Not I, said the wolf.

I’m very much one of those people who gets the job done. At no point have I even considered that I would or could fail this challenge because of quitting, or because of something I did. My post yesterday was meant to imply that I’d only just realised that outside forces might not only be terminal, but were completely out of my control. However, as said, if I can’t control them, why worry about it? The post was not meant to read as negatively as it perhaps did, but looking back now my head was clearly not as in the game as it needed to be.

As said, Spartan7’s comment was exactly what the doctor ordered. I knew today that whatever happened I couldn’t let myself settle for another 3-mile run. That would be, in my mind, the beginning of a slide that would become increasingly difficult to correct. No matter what happened, I had to log five miles - even if it was five miserable ones.

I set off just after 5pm. It’s been hot all day. Very hot: it was 30C when I left and the humidity had climbed to the high 70s. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from my legs but with the 15mph wind behind me, I posted an opening 7:15 mile. However, it really did feel like I was running into a furnace and even though my 7:58 second mile was a reasonable effort, once I’d reached my turnaround and had to take on the wind and the heat, my legs died.

My spirits, however, did not. I kept on plodding on, even when I was forced down to an 8:30 pace. It was the hottest day I’ve had to face yet, and even though the wind had a little bit of a cooling effect ultimately it did more damage than good.

Still, at the four-mile point I suddenly found a little extra in my legs. By 4.25 miles I’d got the pace back down to 7:47 and figured I had half a chance of edging under the 40-minute mark, which would have been great. I looked at my watch, and it said 4.33 miles, and the pace was 7:45. Great. Hold that as long as you can, I thought, and you’ll make it.

A minute or so passed, and I looked down at my watch again. And it still said 4.33 miles.

Another 10 seconds. 4.33 miles. Ten more. 4.33 miles.

What?

I’m not sure even now what happened, but for some reason my Garmin decided to stop my workout at 4.33 miles. I pressed the START button a couple of times and got it going again, but by then I’d ran over two minutes at a decent speed with no mileage to show for it. Stuff like that really drains the energy out of your body, let me tell you.

Mentally, I quickly calculated that, once the watch was going again, I could have probably stopped at the 4.80 mark and overall that would have meant I’d easily ran the full five miles. But that felt like cheating - if it wasn’t there in black and white on the screen when I got home, then I didn’t feel like I could properly count it. So here you go - a messy-looking five-mile split, with chart:

If you take out the bit where my run wasn’t actually being logged, I did the five in 40:45. Certainly not great, and almost two minutes slower than my PB, but in the circumstances, reasonable enough.

I totally cooked out there today, and felt pretty out of it when I stopped. But mentally it’s put me right back on the track. My legs still aren’t 100 per cent back where they were before Friday, but that’ll come. Meantime, my head is already there. And that’s the bit that matters.

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