Not Every Run Is A Good Run...and That's OK!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Howdy All!

I apologize for my absence yesterday; I was suffering from a nasty nasty stomach bug. I hope you all had an amazing Valentine's Day! Eric and I went out to dinner at a fancy place in Uptown Dallas and then to see Just Go With It. It was definitely a good one! He also treated me to some frozen yogurt, which is my fave!! I thought all of the fun ended on Saturday, but I came home to find these! He's the best!


On Sunday, my training plan called for me to do a 10 mile long run. It was pretty chilly and very windy when I woke up, so I decided to wait until the afternoon to head out for my run. I ate my usual weekend lunch: an egg white sandwich with an apple and Greek yogurt/peanut butter dip at 1:00pm. By 3:00pm, I felt like my food had pretty much digested, and I headed out for my run. I was beyond excited because the weather was AMAZING, and I had 2 new Marathon Training Academy podcasts to listen to.

I wish I was running here! [source]

I usually always run in the morning, so I was a little hesitant about doing such a long run in the afternoon. I am definitely a creature of habit, and this was out of my normal routine. The run started out ok, but about mile 5 I started to feel a little queasy. I blame this on myself because I had just bragged to Eric earlier in the day about my "iron stomach." Well, my iron stomach was about to show me who is boss.

Or here! [source]

I kept on plodding along, and by about mile 7 there was no ignoring my stomach anymore. I can run through knee pain, an aggravated ankle, and even a tight lower back (although you shouldn't), but when your stomach is slowly moving towards your esophagus, there is just no ignoring that! I eventually slowed to a walk and started to head back home.

Right when I stopped running, I began with the negative self talk. You know how it goes, "I can't believe you're quitting," "Your whole training plan is going to be messed up now," "Stop being such a whiny baby."

This wouldn't be too bad either! [source]

Then, I had had an epiphany. I am completely overreacting over 2 measly miles. In the grand scheme of things, are these 2 miles going to keep me from accomplishing my half marathon? Really even if I skipped the entire 10 mile run, it probably would not change my training all that much.

I often talk to people who I knew were training for races, and when I ask them what happened, they will say I missed a couple of runs so I just gave up. Training is all about the accumulation of all of your hard work, not about each individual run. Sure you need to get in as close to all of your training runs in as you can, but don't beat yourself up if you have an off run or even an off workout. Before my last race, I twisted my ankle then got the flu and was out for almost 2 weeks. I simply picked up where I left off with my training and still had a great race.

Who wouldn't want to go for a run here? [source]

You put in a ton of work leading up to a race, so don't throw it down the drain after one lousy run. I felt the need to write this post because of the negative thoughts I had right after I threw in the towel at mile 8. That was just silly! So next time you have negative thoughts during a run, just remember that you can do this and maybe today just isn't your day, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't run again tomorrow! :)

Q's and A's:
How do you pep yourself up after a bad run?
What did you do for Valentines day?
Tell me about the best run you ever had!

In health,


share this on »
 photo facebook_zps8d483e9e.png
 photo twitter_zps1a2a45e0.png
 photo pinterest_zps549d2941.png
Add a comment »

Leave a Reply

I would love to hear your thoughts! Feel free to leave a comment below.