My project at work is done, Scott is home from the hospital, and things with running are reaching an equilibrium. I'm now 1/3 of the way into my half-marathon training and I really am feeling much stronger and confident about it. This week I really committed to my training schedule after flaking a little the 2 weeks prior and it. feels. good.
This week involved 7 miles on Tuesday, easy miles for the rest of the week, and 8 yesterday. I felt absolutely shot yesterday by the 3rd mile, I didn't know what was happening. Rethinking in my head, I concluded that my dinners this week have been mostly soup (excellent for Scott! maybe not enough for me) and that the fatigue I was feeling was due to under fueling. Or the humidity. Or just increase in mileage. Anyways, I was STRUGGLING, but I knew I had to do all 8 miles, so I just did all 8 miles. It felt like my legs were full of lead and anytime I had to stop at an intersection I feared I couldn't get going again. But I made it, and even might run some more today though I have nothing on my training plan.
And a bit of an aside: I have about had it with my neighborhood running route. It is a nice enough route visually (plenty of trees and interesting houses to check out) but I tend to get yelled, whistled, 'complimented' way more frequently than in the middle class suburban areas of Indianapolis. Yesterday was so out of control that I almost reacted to the last person by throwing out my middle finger but I was too damn tired. In the course of my 8 miles I was 'hey beautiful' ed by one overweight man on his bike, honked at by two cars really close to me, told something possibly lewd by two teenage boys, leered at noticeably from two men in a service truck and to put the icing on the cake - ran past two men getting arrested. I have occasionally gotten shouts of encouragement - one memorable one from a woman on her porch to 'get it girl'. But yesterday it was all negative. I was feeling frustrated and unsafe yesterday. Gah. I think it takes nothing more than a ponytail and running shorts for some men to need to express gender domination. (I discussed this some with Scott, fuck the patriarchy).
Anyways, I feel like I really have reached a dynamic equilibrium with my running. If some source of change is thrown into the reaction, I adapt and accommodate for the change to maintain my current steady state. See the scheduled miles, do the scheduled miles.
As far as all the whining and crying I did in my last post... actually running makes me feel proud of myself. It makes me feel accomplished, in control and does a lot for my confidence. So I'm going to keep this ball rolling. And completing a week like this - with what I would call two 'long runs' - shows me I CAN do this. I can run that far.
Two things:
ReplyDelete1) Running while fatigued is a vital part of training, especially for longer stuff. So you often don't feel great. But you taper for the race, and then you feel fast as hell. That's the magic of it, if things go right. (Also, yeah, accidentally bonked training can suck too.)
2) The "attention" is really gross, and sad. Talking to some of my female running friends about similar experiences, it really emphasizes how jaded my perspective can get. I just don't understand what that must be like, or what would drive anyone to be so disrespectful.
Scott is often reminding me of point number 1. I tried to keep telling myself this was all part of training while hoping I made it home. And unfortunately I have just about come to expect at least one car beep per run if I am doing this route - which really shouldn't be something I get used too. It definitely depends on the area though. I think I need a break from this neighborhood.
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