Tale of a Poor Training Session

Woe is me.

When I screw up a hard workout, I REALLY screw it up.

I was supposed to run 10 miles with 4x1200 intervals at 5k pace on Wednesday. Chris and I ran 11 miles the previous day, and in talking to my long run friends throughout the day Wednesday it was determined that we'd do our long run, 20 miles, on Sunday instead of Saturday. Phew. That meant I could move my speed session to Thursday and enjoy a recovery day on Wednesday. Ahh..

However, that meant I wouldn't have a running buddy to join me. No worries though. Extra easy day will make up for that!

Next issue was getting on a track that wasn't being occupied by high school football practice. But then, at work I had the option to leave at 1 p.m. since I had to come in on Sunday. Perfect! No practice at 1 p.m.

Guess how hot it was at 1 p.m.? 87 degrees. Barf. No thank you. I went home, after a failed attempt at getting a session of recovery boots where the person in front of me was allowed to start their session 20 minutes late, thus pushing mine back as well. Not that anyone bothered to tell me that until what was 20 minutes into my session. But I digress.

I decided I would just do my workout around Tea. I mapped a little one mile loop near home so I could grab water and change shoes as needed. And then I procrastinated it. Setting out at 8 p.m. And I hadn't eaten since 1 p.m. First mistake.

Second mistake: do you know how dark it gets these days? Very dark. Do you know how much of my extremely high property taxes goes towards street lights in this town? Very little to none.

But still, I was ready to rock it!

Three mile warm up felt great, despite the heavy humidity and still warm temps. I came home to switch out shoes for my first interval, grabbed my nox vest and my headlamp because it was pitch black out.

Started my first interval and my shoes felt terrible. I'd only wore them on the track and I started to get really nervous that I was going to hurt myself this close to the marathon. I did an out and back from my house to change back into my shoes. And by then my goose was cooked.

I was starving. I couldn't see the street I was running on, despite my headlamp in my hand. I couldn't make myself run fast without seeing the road.

And each and every interval got slower and slower. The fourth one being slower than my last 5k pace in the Sioux Falls half marathon, at the end of 18 miles. Uff. I desperately wanted to quit early, and I definitely didn't want to finish my 2.5 cool down miles. But I did it anyway.

Miles are miles even when they don't go as planned.

The best part about a really crappy training session is that a unicorn run is usually just around the corner. So I'm waiting! I'll take it October 7th, if I'm able to pre-select it. Thanks!