I ran less than 17 miles yesterday. Do you know what that means?? It means I’m getting really close to the marathon—it’s TAPER TIME!!! My longest runs have already been completed and after months of slowly gearing up for the Memorial Day event, now is the time for me to ease back and rest up. Fun!
However, I did not have a great time out there yesterday. Sure, I missed out on the rain, which was fantastic, but it was still me running the same routes I’ve been running for the past what seems like eternity. I let the boredom in and it was almost all over right at that moment.
Training blahs have set in with a vengeance.
I shouldn’t be concerned about the training blahs: I know I’ve been here before, and I know I’ll be there again.
What I CAN do at this point is remember to simply plan better. It seems I have to keep re-learning the same things as I search for balance between being too rigid with my training and too flexible:
1. Plan a fun new run.
Sometimes I wonder why I don’t listen to my own advice! I don’t vary my routes significantly in large part because I don’t like to drive someplace to start running. That means I’m limited to where my two little legs can carry me, leaving from my front door. Granted, the farther I run while preparing for a marathon the more sights I can see, but those first few and last few miles are always either on route A or route B. Yawn.
Yesterday I left my house without a firm route set in my mind. That wasn’t a great idea, because I let boredom get the better of me! My “oh, I’ll just see what happens” was really not a good way to plan for 16-18 miles. (I ended up getting in just 16.7)
2. EAT no matter what my blood glucose levels are.
I think yesterday that was my biggest blunder. I had eaten oatmeal before I left and didn’t bolus for that, so I knew I had enough glucose in my body to get through the run. Looking back at it, I see that I did just fine keeping pace for the first 75 minutes before I let myself stop due to boredom and never really got anything back to where it had been. I kept stopping and starting for a variety of reasons, but I’m betting that if I had taken a little extra insulin and eaten something at mile 4-5 I would have had a much better time of things, and wouldn’t have lost the mental or physical edge.
3. REST an additional day if necessary.
This advice I DID take this past weekend. I have two days I can run in the mornings: Saturdays or Sundays. (The other mornings are full of bootcamp!) That means that Fridays I generally spend thinking about where I’m going on Saturday (as I really do usually plan a route!) and trying to rest up.
But the previous weekend I didn’t rest when I should have, and just stuck to my plan of going on Saturday when I probably would have done better had I run on Sunday instead. This weekend, I knew on Thursday evening I shouldn’t run on Saturday because of the way my legs felt. So, I saved it all for Sunday instead. That was smart of me, because at this point, I’m not into getting hurt and not being able to participate in the run!
Like I said, it’s a balancing act to train for a marathon. Thankfully, I’m almost there.
I too was thinking I need to mix up my routes. I had a LOT of fun when I had to drive to a pre-determined meeting spot and find you on your run. Even though I only drove 5 miles from home to run it seemed to make a big difference (plus I got to run with you!).
I’ve noticed it is the miles closest to home that are the worst, coming or going, when I’m burned out. Next time I’ll drive 5 miles away and just keep running south until I’ve done my miles. Hopefully I can catch a ride (or the train) home.