Here’s a pic of Wasabi and a bus, ‘cuz homegirl has been riding the proverbial running struggle bus all over town lately!
Holiday greetings, Salty readers! I have a little confession to make. I kind of haven’t been loving running all that much lately. I’m stuck in that weird no-man’s-land part of the year where my goal race for the fall season is several weeks behind me but several weeks still separate me from the beginning of spring marathon training, and it’s left me feeling pretty unmotivated when it comes to running. So please bear with me if this week’s post seems a little lame and whiny, and if you are privy to the secret to staying excited about running year round, even when there is no big, shiny goal race looming on the calendar, please share it with me in the comments!
Despite my grumpy pants attitude towards running as of late, I did manage to muster up 42.10 unenthusiastic miles this week. You can read all about them here, and in the meantime I’ll work on reclaiming some motivation so next week’s training log can be filled with fun, happiness, rainbows, and butterflies once again.
Monday, 12/2, 4.06 miles. Felt pretty alright on today’s easy-peasy group run after a Thanksgiving travel-induced 3 day running hiatus. Just some leisurely miles with the work peeps. Good to be back on the horse!
Tuesday, 12/3, 6.04 miles. 6 miles on the usual greenway trail with my #1 run buds, Kara and Amy. They were doing 4x 800m at HM goal pace and 4X 200m at 5K pace which I tagged along for, but didn’t take splits or anything serious like that. I was a little reluctant on the faster stuff at first, but eventually decided that it felt good to go fast-ish without getting too crazy. Just trying to strike a balance between getting some rest and recovery and maintaining the motivation to continue running consistently. Easier said than done!
Wednesday, 12/4, 7.16 miles. I wish I could say that my easy hour run felt a little easier, but it really didn’t. Not that it felt terrible, I’m just still struggling with the whole getting excited to get up and run thing these days. I guess this is somewhat normal for this time of year, post-goal race but not yet really training for the next big thing… Just wish I could conjure up a little more excitement and motivation… Ah, well. I’m sure this funk will pass. In the meantime it was good to get things done.
Thursday, 12/5, Rest day FTW!
Friday, 12/6, 5.5 miles. It wasn’t easy and it took some mean, self-loathing messages from my multiple iPhone alarms to coerce my feet into finally hitting the floor, but I actually dragged my arse out of bed and went on a pre-work run all by myself this morning! Yay me! The lackluster running drudgery continues, but at least I’m making it happen! Hooray for perseverance, and checking it off the list!
Saturday, 12/7, 8.0 miles. I kind of made up the time and distance for this run because the new TomTom GPS watching I am testing out for work crapped out at roughly mile 3. (Just because I forgot to charge it, not because of technical problems.) I know we were at 4 miles and 32 minutes when I turned around, so I just doubled the time and distance for the final numbers.
I was pretty excited to realize that I did not for one moment hate this run, thanks to the pleasant company of my usual Saturday donut shop group run pals. The 2nd half was solo for me since everyone else was running longer, and I even did a few little pick ups at the end just for kicks. Here’s hoping this is the beginning of the end of the post-season slump!
Sunday, 12/8, 11.33 miles. Despite cold, rainy-ish weather, I enjoyed today’s long run more than I’ve enjoyed any other run I can recall in recent history. This was probably mostly due to the excellent company, courtesy of Saffron, our always-hilarious friend Caren, and Emma, a refreshingly darling and delightful high school junior who will be training for Boston with us. It probably also didn’t hurt that I was wearing some seriously awesome dirty sock gloves, since only one of my actual gloves decided to show up this for this little long run adventure. Guys, socks keep your hands surprisingly toasty! You should try that shit, for reals! In any event, I was really pumped to feel like a happy, pleasant person for the entirety of 11 miles this morning! I’m going to go ahead and call it a comeback!
Shout out to these Swiftwick socks for keeping my hands surprisingly warm in the absence of my gloves on Sunday!
So, in the end it was not so bad. Here’s hoping that the little flicker of positivity and enjoyment I managed to find at the of this deary little training week will continue to snowball a big pile of fun and enthusiasm in weeks to come!
Have YOU found yourself in a big, grumpy training funk? What was your strategy for getting out of the bitter barn and back to playing in the hay?
Posted by Wasabi. Check out more at Salty Running.